I swear, it feels like it is Bait AmFam week around here. I keep getting these comments that I just can’t ignore. Today’s winner:
I’m amazed no one else things there is a problem when a very young child is drawing pictures of sperm. I’m all about being honest with kids, but this is most certainly not age appropriate. If my daughter were in school with a child who started talking about sperm swimming up stream, I’d… well honestly, I don’t know what I’d do, but I sure wouldn’t think it was clever and cute.
Maybe we should all think that Lindsey Lohan is just adorable when she’s on her 2nd (or is it her 3rd) DUI a week after she gets out of rehab. Maybe her mom starting out her drinking career when Lindsey was just a teenager was not the most age appropriate thing either.
So tell me how you can honestly answer the question “How do babies get in their Mama’s bellies?” without talking about sperm and eggs? I mean, I can even imagine ways to skirt the penis and vagina issue, but the sperm and egg? They are pretty much the most important part of the equation, aren’t they?
For those people who are new around here, you may not know that I have been working in adolescent pregnancy prevention and sexual health for pretty much my entire adult life. There will be no mystery about the nuts and bolts of pregnancy or sex for my kids. It is also not a taboo topic around our house.
Of course lots of us have different ideas about what is “age appropriate” sex education. I am not trying to convince you to change your mind. But in our house, questions get answered and they get answered honestly.
Since we adopted L, M has been asking a lot of questions about where babies come from. She knows she grew in my uterus and she wants to know how the hell she got there. We don’t offer more information than the answers M wants just yet, but no matter what her question, we answer it.
I have mentioned many times that we have the It’s Not the Stork book, which is listed as appropriate for ages 4-8. When M requests it, we read it just like we read Curious George by request. The sperm/egg picture seems to have been drawn based on her memory of a picture if a sperm and egg in the book. (No one said she is the most original artist on the planet.)
I fail to see how providing age appropriate (to me) sex education is remotely similar to allowing her to drink alcohol? You think there is some kind of direct link between knowing about sperm and having sex? I am not encouraging her to HAVE SEX for crying out loud.
And for the record, the kids who are MOST likely to have risky sex or get pregnant early are those kids who don’t understand the nuts and bolts of sex…they still have the sex but are much less likely to protect themselves from pregnancy or STDs.
In case you are curious, Advocates for Youth has a great series on talking to your kids about sex at different ages: There is No Place Like Home for Sex Education
*GASP* The four year old version actually mentions SPERM and EGGS! The Horror!
Oh, my very own post, how ’bout that!
And yes, there are books on lots and lots of subjects out there that I don’t agree with. When my children (and yes they have) ask where babies come from, I give them an honest answer as well. I don’t make up fairy tales of storks and “ove makes it all happen, but I don’t think the detail of sperm and eggs and how they get in there is necessary for my 6 year old. I’m just beginning to touch on more details about anatomy and how boys and girls work differently with my 10 year old.
Anyway, as for your comment about “for the record” (the second to last paragraph. On that point I completely agree with you – open, honest communication is key. But I’d prefer to give them the nuts and bolts with my own time-line, not just because an author said it was okay to in their book.
Oh, for petes sake!
I LOLed when I saw the photo, and I only pray that at the same age my kids do something similar! I’m a pharmacist who has worked with AIDS patiients, and education is the only way to prevent this. By not educating kids, we run some nasty risks, and I don’t think being all prissy is worth a child’s life. Or an adults. Why we have ads on TV about Tampons during daytime programming and not tasteful ads about condoms and saving lives, I’ll never understand.
As for sex ed at an early age, in pre-K we were already comparing parts, so I don’t think there is an age too early. I think my parents stepped in too late. I learned birds and bees from another firstgrader who had learned it all in montesessori school. My that point, I’d already had a pregnant teacher and watched someone’s Mom nurse their little sister, so I kinda knew what was up.
You have done the BEST POSSIBLE thing. Someday I may ask you how bast to broach this subject.
Snerk. Don’t you know that knowing about sperm and eggs will totally drive M to drink-and-drive by the time she’s 20?
I can only wish that most parents were as open and honest about sex as you are. Geez.
Much applause to you, I wish my parents had been similar. I didn’t get the nuts bolts birds bees until two years after my first period, which utterly confused and upset the hell out of me. And I was informed about what “rape” was by a decade-older cousin several years before anyone told me what “sex” was, and it took me about five years of teenage terror to figure out the difference between the two. Mission accomplished: I was too afraid to have sex in that period (pun intended).
Moral: 1. Early sex ed is a GOOD thing. 2. Don’t raise your kids fundamentalist Christian. 3. There should be health insurance to cover the therapy of those thus raised.
I, at age 13, approached my mother: “So babies happen after you’re raped?”
Don’t, don’t, don’t do this to your kids!!!
“But I’d prefer to give them the nuts and bolts with my own time-line, not just because an author said it was okay to in their book. ”
And apparently, you want everyone else to adhere to your timeline or you’ll decide to call them out as bad moms on their own website. Lovely.
30+ years ago, when my mother was pregnant with my younger sister, I was M’s age and I knew about sperm and eggs. It’s not a big secret, and should not be. I have two boys and both of them know what a period is, what tampons are for, and why on earth I *bleed* for a few days each month. This information may or may not be general knowledge among other boys of their age (I have no idea), but they are none the worse for knowing it.
I suppose we have to thank concern troll/AmFam baiting comments for your posting some great resources for me to use to talk to my boys about sex, because as open as I hope to be, it still feels squicky. It’s funny how that works. I grew up in the tell-all 70s and and now I’m a little bit shy about sharing information with my kids.
And while Julia may be acting all wide eyed and innocent, I personally find it an insult (and ridiculous) to equate age-appropriate sex ed with a parent giving a child alcohol (as in the original comments). WTF?
Now I’m gonna go read about sex ed for my sons. Yay!
just for the record, I don’t really expect a bunch of others to post saying they agree with me. I’ve done my own informal pole this morning and there are plenty of folks who don’t think our decisions to not inform our 4 and 6 year olds of the inner workings of sperm and eggs will result in unwed teenage pregnancies and aids.
And… (lol here), I promise I have never, ever called a penis a “wee wee”. Well… maybe once, but I promise you it was weee weeeeee! You’ll just have to take my word for it.
For Pete’s sake indeed!
Dear Julia, didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to make such comments on OTHER people’s blogs? One has to wonder if you so strongly disagree with AmFam’s parenting decisions why you just wouldn’t skip reading her posts? Here’s an idea, why don’t you read the blogs that agree with your way of thinking? Or at the very least, keep your opinions on AmFam’s mothering to yourself. Lohan indeed. Please. That’s just ignorant.
Sorry AmFam, I know you can stick up for yourself, but this whole shitty comments thing on other people’s blogs is really pissing me off lately.
Oh, Julia. What did you do to the poor, innocent, informal pole?
Seriously, darlin’, you need to reexamine the course of the conversation here, and perhaps you’ll understand why you’re coming across as a troll. First, you comment about how awful it is that M has a basic grasp of what an egg and sperm are and that they eventually can form a baby, accusing AmFam of being on a path that will lead to her daughter drinking and driving and undergoing repeated bouts of rehab. Then you come back here and claim that you’re being misunderstood and that withholding information from your children won’t “result in unwed teenage pregnancies and aids [sic].”
You said, “But I’d prefer to give them the nuts and bolts with my own time-line, not just because an author said it was okay to in their book.” That’s all any of us are talking about here. You’re not being asked to alter your timeline (though I think waiting until your child is 10 to discuss the basics is a bit late, and may indicate that you’re unaware of how early kids’ bodies and curiousity start developing). Yet you feel free to decry AmFam (and by implication many of her readers) as a bad parent for doing the same thing you claim to want: educating her child about these matters in an age-appropriate way.
My parents were just as honest with us as you are with your kids and I think we were a lot less curious b/c of it. We both waited until we were 18/20 before we had sex and each had 2 partners. On the other hand my 2 closest friends were very religious and never had that discussion with their parents. They were doing things at 16 that were definitely every parent’s worst nightmare! orgies, many partners, unprotected sex… etc..
BTW that is a great book.
That’s neither here nor there. What IS important is did you get my various emails about a parkdate on Friday?
Gee, I wrote all that out and I didn’t even realize this was posted Ditto the same response here. Also, onto more pleasant topics, if it’s not being too nosey, since L has been home, how does M like being the big sister?
Julia
Several people have now aked you to explain how your comment attempting to relate Lindsey Lohan’s tragic actions to age appropriate sex ed for pre-schoolers.
You haven’t yet answer this. Anywhere. Can you just admit, then – that you were being nasty, judgmental and uninformed as to how metaphors and/or analogies works? An apology here would be nice. Or, barring that – a real explanation.
It’s BIOLOGY. I fully agree that explaining things past a given kid’s level of interest is futile and can be problematic, but this is basic science. It’s not morality, it’s not a belief – it’s how lots of reproduction works. Thinking that it’s weird for a kid to know about sperm and ovum is like thinking that it’s weird for a kid to know that acorns can grow into oak trees- it’s how things work. Answering questions honestly is age-appropriate.
The morality and emotional stuff is tricky, no doubt. But I think it gets immeasurably trickier when there are unanswered biological questions getting in the way of understanding. I’m really angry about the assertion in the initial comment that knowing about ovum and sperm could be damaging. I cannot disagree more on this issue, and I think that treating stuff like this as secret helps contribute to a whole culture of shame and misinformation. Witholding information like this helps keep up the attitude that there’s something wrong with sex, which is a big problem.
Julia says, “But I’d prefer to give them the nuts and bolts with my own time-line…”
Obviously Julia’s timeline differs from Am-Fam’s, which is fine – every parent should make the choice when to have the sperm and egg discussion with their kids. But why belittle someone else’s choice? Why compare it to Lindsay Lohan? That’s uncalled for, honestly. Disagree without getting nasty, please.
This is the part of the comment that particularly confuses me: “I don’t think the detail of sperm and eggs and how they get in there…” Why the conflation of “sperm and eggs” and “how they get in there”?
I can understand someone being uncomfortable with their young child drawing pictures of two people having intercourse — at the very least, it will cause problems in school. Depicting intercourse is considered obscene in our society. And I can understand someone being reluctant to discuss the mechanics of intercourse with their young kids.
But I can’t understand objecting on the same level to a picture of eggs and sperm. Images of eggs and sperm are not considered obscene — you see them all the time on science television programs, movies, etc. I think most parents are far more comfortable explaining eggs and sperm to their kids than explaining the “how they got there” part.
In related news, I hope you all caught the uniformly pro-sex-ed positions expressed at the democratic debate last night!
Was the use of “pole” instead of “poll” a wonderfully placed Freudian slip or what!?!?!
I would like to point out to that commenter that my parents have exactly the same attitude to sex ed as AmFam has. I asked questions and got them answered very openly. I’ve known about the mechanics of sex since I was about three or four years old. I knew about penis’s and vaginas and could explain about the egg and sperm to any of my friends who asked back in nursery school. I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t have at least a vague idea of how it was done.
And guess what?
I’ve just turned eighteen, am well adjusted, happy, healthy, NOT mentally scarred, have never had sex, don’t drink, have never done drugs and have only just gotten into my first serious relationship. We have talked about sex and have decided to wait to see if the relationship lasts for another six months (and looks like it will last another six after that) before we do anything and there is no way in HELL we’re doing it without protection.
So yeah. Honesty? It WORKS.
And how, precisely, DO you explain babies to a little kid without using sperm and eggs without just confusing the poor things even more? How is knowledge of sperm damaging to a four year old?
hey am fam? i have something to admit: the other week when i saw you in starbucks… i put that sign on you. i figured that you were a little bored, you know with baby jail and all, so when your back was turned i slapped that baby on your back. it said, “Please mess with me. All criticism on how I live my life is welcome.”
i’m so, so sorry about that. i didn’t know it would take as well as it did!
oh, and how dare you accuse M of not being original in her art. i thought the hair on the sperm was VERY original, thankyouverymuch.
*hmph*
Weird. I don’t find it at all disturbing that M is drawing sperms and eggs, am assuming that she’s a budding biologist. This, in spite of the fact that we don’t talk much about eggs and sperm around our house. We haven’t been discussing eggs & sperm, but I surely don’t care that you’re discussing it with M. I do plan on having the discussion when asked, or before the age of fertility, whichever comes first.
Perhaps Julia’s daughter reads your blog, and that’s why she cares?
bj
remembering way back when…….my parents left books around such that at a very young age I, like M, was well aware of sperm meeting egg etc etc etc.
but no one ever got around to the part of how the sperm and egg happened to be in the same place – many years later until I got to understand that!
Here’s to knowledge. The picture is adorable.
I’ve done my own informal pole this morning
there’s a joke in there somewhere, i’m just sure of it.
OY. VEY. Come on already. It’s just sperm and eggs. We’re all made of it.
Or are we?
I don’t know how in God’s name this commenter can equate a 4 year old drawing a pretty darn accurate picture of a common biological truth with an adult who is on her third DUI. That does not compute.
My kids are two and a half, and they are the product of donor sperm. Since we want them to grow up naturally with this truth, we already have a nice, truthful, cute and age appropriate story about how they came to be. And there is no way around talking about sperm. Mom and dad needed extra help. Another man helped us by giving us his sperm.
Their favorite part of the story is when “Gasp! We find out there are TWO babies!” So, sperm isn’t really registering yet. But as soon as we are asked more about what sperm is, we will answer truthfully and with visual aids. This is not a moral dilemma.
I think with M going with you to China to get L, it is probably imparative and entirely natural that you discuss these matters. I can’t believe some people would be bothered by a little drawing such as that. I thought it was cute!
There are plenty of real issues to worry about without worrying about a little picture of sperm and eggs. Maybe this commenter should actually look around and try to help some of the many children out there without homes, enough food, and/ or even drinking problems.
Heh, just read Julia’s subsequent comment about “my own time-line” and just started to discuss the biological differences with her 10 year old.
As a teacher who has been around a lot of ten year olds, I think that in our society, they are going to be exposed to a lot of these biological differences earlier than that. It is important that you give them some accurate information earlier in most cases. Otherwise, it isn’t like they haven’t been exposed to sex and biology unless they’ve been living in an attic. You are going to have to either confuse them or undo some of the stuff they’ve already been exposed to. Much better when done earlier.
That said, I think the timeline that is important here is the child’s. It may be that your kid just hasn’t been curious about this stuff until age 10. Okay. But other kids differ. Kids who see their mom’s pg with their younger sister/brother, or kids who’ve been involved in the adoption process like M or kids like mine who are twins and want to know how it is that they are twins when most people aren’t are going to start asking questions earlier than some other kids might.
I think that the kid sets the timeline and the parent has a duty to respond appropriately and honestly to the kids’ questions and need for knowledge. Many times, parents think they are holding off on sex ed because the kid has shown no interest. The kid is only showing no interest to the parent, as he or she may percieve a level of shame or uncomfortableness. As teachers, we used to laugh at these parents who would tell us that their kid’s had no interest in sex or sex ed issues and didn’t need to know anything about how babies are made. Meanwhile, their precious innocent one was the one blabbing at the playground about some made-up (we assumed) sexual conquest. It is generally always the ones whose parents put it off or don’t discuss it that tend to have the most boisterous “knowledge” of the subject. The sad thing is when that knowledge isn’t accurate.
Well, I’m not one to disagree here, since I recently explained to my 12-year old what a “blow job” was, when he asked.
And I, too, want to ask, what’s with all the unfriendly blog comments out there lately? I’ve been getting them myself this week, for the first time ever!
No way around the sperm and the egg, and why should there be. I can’t understand why it is a big deal. I personally love the image, and I love a good old honest conversation.
We have always been very frank and open with talk of reproduction. Our kids understood sperm and egg very early on. Espcially because our oldest child entered our family through adoption. You have to explain sperm and egg. It can’t be just mommy and daddy loved each other and you came along. Biology has to enter into it. I know she understood this at 4. We also tell our children that most parents prefer to share this information themselves, so if their friends have questions about sex or where babies come from- to tell them to ask their own parents.
Our cute sperm story- Mally gets chronic nose bleeds, just as her birth father does. One day someone asked why she got nose bleeds, and she answered “I got it from Mike’s sperm.”
Yeah, we think it’s funny. And we are saving for college, not rehab. She is 15 and doing just fine.
Telling an inquisitive five-year-old (I believe M is five?) how babies are made is not equivalent to telling her “everything goes”, and “you just do what you want, honey, it’s all okay with me.” I believe that was the thought trail that led to Lindsay Lohan.
Nor is AmFam telling her children how babies are made equivalent to her telling you (Julia) you *must* tell your kids, at exactly the same age, in exactly the same way, the exact same things.
I thought the picture was adorable. My dotter had a period for a few months where she would squat down, grunt and moan and shout, “Ow! Ow! Ow! It hurts!” and then pull one of her stuffed animals out from between her legs, proudly announcing the birth of her child. I suspect that Julia would find that equally non-age-appropriate…But when you’re telling a child the difference between an adoptive mom and a birth mom, there are some things you’ve got to make pretty darned clear.
I had to crack up laughing when I read this one. You see, my husband and I battled infertility many years before finally conceiving our daughter through IVF. My honest answer when asked by my daughter on how she got in my tummy was “A doctor put you in there, he took some eggs from mommy and daddy gave him some sperm, he mixed them up and when they saw you starting to grow they placed you in me.” I know we will eventually need to start telling her how this is “naturally” done but I remember someone saying – When a child asks a question start out with the bare bones, they will come back again if they need to know more….. and we have told her not everyone needs a doctors help.
We are currently waiting on our referral…. both of my children will have different conception stories than the norm.
I wouldn’t have been able to ignore it either AmFam. Seriously, my folks were the kind of parents that gave us the amount of information about where babies came from that was age appropriate. I was drawing sperm and eggs at 3 as well. It’s interesting that the religious right tend to not want their children to know biology and yet are the ones who are shocked when their 14 year old daughters get pregnant.
Kind off topic- kinda not.
Best knock knock joke ever from my daughter- this happened last night. She is two.
“Knock Knock”
“Who’s There?”
“Vagina!”
“remembering way back when…….my parents left books around such that at a very young age I, like M, was well aware of sperm meeting egg etc etc etc.
but no one ever got around to the part of how the sperm and egg happened to be in the same place – many years later until I got to understand that!”
This was exactly my experience, except that I finally learned how the sperm got in there in 5th grade sex ed at my Catholic grade school. I clearly remember being all like, “yeah yeah, sperm, egg, yada yada. What I really want to know is how the sperm gets to the egg. Can we talk about that?” I think it was the first time I saw an adult blush.
As someone who was raised by christian parents who never talked about sex, except for the one instance when I was 16 that they told me that ‘intimacy’ with a man I was not married to was against God’s will, I’m all for being frank and honest with kids about the workings of sex and the human body. My parents were tight lipped about sex and my christian school taught abstinence only sex ed, by 15 I was already doing stuff with guys my parents would DIE just thinking of. Mainly because I was angry at my parents for forcing me to go to church and I knew they would just die of humiliation if everyone knew what the ‘good christian girl’ was really doing after school. But also because it was so forbidden by every authority figure in my life, I wanted to do it to rebel. I was bloody lucky I got to 18 years old and wised up without contracting an STD or getting pregnant.
When my children finally asked how the sperm met the egg, I told them the basic idea: a man puts his penis inside a woman’s vagina. They were five. They haven’t asked again, and they’re six now.
My son has decided he doesn’t want to get married “because of the private parts stuff” so, at least for now, it doesn’t seem to have led to rampant promiscuity. Or even to a huge degree of comfort with the technical terms, obviously. Because he lives in the real world, and not some imaginary scare-house where neurotypical children who know accurate anatomical terms suddenly lose their ability to decipher social mores.
Because we live in a diverse world, our children have also asked how lesbian and gay couples have children, and why their neighbors and friends don’t have the same skin colors as their parents, so we’ve explained about donor sperm and surrogacy and adoption.
I confess, that while I have explained that a doctor is involved when donor sperm are used, I haven’t gone into the at-home option or even, for that matter, our children’s own conception story, which involved IUIs. Although they do know, because they are triplets, that drugs were involved.
I have only six years of experience, but in that admittedly limited amount of time, I’ve found that simple but honest answers almost always do a better job than fairy tales or evasions when it comes to moving the conversation onto topics I find more comfortable.
*sigh* I think that as sex educators we’re supposed to be MORE circumspect than others in order to gain parents’ respect? After all, these shocked folks aren’t really as concerned about what you’re telling your four-year-old as what you might someday tell THEIR four-year-old. As if I would want to go in and give the age-appropriate reproduction speech to preschoolers… it would last about two minutes, and it would still bore them to tears.
I loved, loved, LOVED the drawing, however; especially the sperm with a lot of hair. I hope my kiddo will make things like that for me to hang on the wall of my office someday… but more likely, he will just roll his eyes and say, “Oh, MOTHER.” He’s six weeks old, and already has the eye roll down pat. You’re obviously doing something right, as an educator and as a mom.
the more taboo we make things, the more appealing they are.
When my 19 month old daughter sticks her finger in her vagina at every diaper change, I tell her that that’s her vagina. I tell her the same way I tell her where her nose is, her ears, eyes, and toes. Her belly, her tush-tush, her vagina and her vulva.
It’s HER body, and she is the owner of it. it’s MY job to make sure that she respects it, by knowing all she can about it.
[...] to Teach Kindergarteners about Sex: Oh wait, that person is me. Actually, I have been answering M’s questions about sex in an honest, age-appropriate manner since she was about three years old. Shockingly enough, M [...]