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.

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.

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.