Having I fucked up the sex talk?

[TheSmartestGiantInTown1]

Today my 6 year old asked me how a man's seed gets into a woman's tummy (I have told him previously that babies are made from an egg and seed). His 4 year sister was listening at the time. My Mum was a HCP so very frank and no nonsense about anything body related, so I was always of the opinion it was best to answer questions honestly but without lots of unnecessary detail. I therefore explained that a man puts his penis inside a woman's vagina, the seed goes into a woman's womb, and meets the egg there. My daughter asked where the babies came out, I said the vagina. They looked mildly surprised and the conversation moved on.

I'd never discussed this with DH and he is horrified- I now see that we should have discussed our approach to this inevitable question long ago. He says I've stolen their innocence, and they'll never see the world the same way again. Honestly they didn't seem that bothered- there was a lot more questions when I had to explain a family member died. However now I feel horrible. Have I totally fucked this up? DH said I should have said that people have a special cuddle.

Always makes me laugh when people think telling kids babies come out of vaginas is horrifying, but making up stuff such as they “pop out of your belly button” is somehow much less weird
For the longest time I though babies somehow were cut out of a womans thigh. Like it was a picture in my head. My mum who told me NOTHING she wasn't forced to and never accurate (see above.lol) told me the baby comes out of a womans legs.

Every time I read the phrase 'special cuddle' my innards sort of shrink and contort with disgust! 😱

You did the right thing OP!

@AndItBegins yes my children believe in Father Christmas! But so do all the other 5 & 7 year olds I know (& some even older too actually.) More lies to fuck them up?

Coincidently although I haven’t asked, I’m fairly certain a good chunk of the children (age 6) I know don’t know a man’s penis goes into a woman’s vagina to make a baby either. But this is mumsnet, I think the stats are always a bit off.

Subtle makes it sound so sleazy.

Factual, biological and scientific is always the best approach.

Mine are young adults now but I think there WAS some advice when they were young that if they asked about it (as in specifically the HOW) when they were KS1 age to simply say something along the lines of "when a mummy and daddy love each other very much they sometimes have a special grown up cuddle that only mummies and daddies have. Children don't have that type of cuddle together or with a grownup, and neither do friends - only grown-up mummies and daddies do. The teeny tiny seed from the mummy and a teeny tiny thing called an egg from the mummy join together and start to grow to make a tiny baby which slowly gets bigger and bigger and stays nice and comfy inside the mummy's belly until it's big enough to come out." So that's how I described it if they asked when they were around 4 or 5. It was enough to satisfy their curiosity anyway and on they went playing having forgotten about it.

I can't recall them asking again for another couple of years till they were going into Juniors, so around age 6 or 7.. I think I probably expanded on that when they started asking about what the special cuddle involved, or talking together about it and getting it all wrong, so I told them then using the right words eg "it is called sex where the man's willy (rthe proper word is penis, as I think you know) goes into the woman's hole in her front bottom which is called a vagina." etc etc I did remember the youngest being totally disgusted by that idea. 😂I only told them because they asked me. I wouldn't have sat them down for "the talk" or anything at that age. There's no need.

They don't actually teach them that in school till Year 5 I think. Year 4 is all about puberty and knowing the proper names of the body parts but I'm pretty sure they don't actually talk about the sex part until Year 5 or 6. So I really don't think there's much need for parents to go into too much depth about the act of sex itself to someone who is only 4 simply because they just won't understand it.

I think your DH is a bit silly for saying you've taken your kids' innocence away. Half of it's probably gone over their heads! I remember my eldest when he was in Year 4 I think telling me he knew the name of the female part cos they'd done it in school: "It's called Chinese window or something". I never knew what he meant and it totally confused me. Then it struck me a couple of years later that he probably just remembered "hole" as the description and thought it was called a "va-China". So hole became window and the "-gina" bit became "Chinese". 😂

What do you mean

Exactly what I said.

You’ve said basically what I did. My children are totally normal, innocent kids. Telling them it’s a special cuddle is actually quite disturbing. They’ll worry cuddles could cause someone to have a baby. What a plonker.

🙌

I don't understand

The same happened in our family OP.

DH said “You can’t tell them that!” He admitted he’d have told DC the stork brought them! Eh?

In didnt want my kids to learn making babies from school. My mum told me honestly so I did the same. Kids aren’t bothered. They aren’t traumatised. They are 17 & 18 now and they aren’t embarrassed to ask me or their dad anything.

I think they're a bit too young for the gory details. Whatever happened to the stork that carries baby from the sky?

The quote went funny then… being scientific and factual is what I did and I think is definitely the right way. Don’t be euphemistic, it’s a recipe for misunderstandings.

My mum was crap at all that too. I think she tried to normalise it all by asking me from the age of 9 or so to go and fetch her sanitary pads from whatever drawer she kept them in if she was on her period. But when I asked about it she gave me a terrible explanation and said that the period is there inside a woman's body to help a baby start to grow and that it happens every month unless a baby is growing there, in which case the blood comes out and you need to wear a pad. Somehow there was no connection in my mind between the act of sex and periods. All I thought was that if your body had periods there was the possibility of a baby growing. She didnt explain that actually quite young girls can have periods, so I just thought it was people my mum's age who had them. Which resulted in me being horrified when my friend at school told me that girls can have periods from about 11 or 12 - I thought it meant that a baby could start growing at any time. I had put no connection whatever between that and sex.

Honestly, there is room for so much confusion unless you explain very carefully and without embarrassment.

And I distinctly remember the moment my mum said to me and my sister when we were very young and asked how babies were made: "God plants a seed in the woman's tummy"

WTF was she thinking, saying that?!

You think I sound sleazy ?

Yeah, they defo dealt with it wrongly in my case. I used to get panicky over sex thinking it was wrong. If I had kids I would tell them outright but probably not at 6 years old, I would worry they’d tell other children in gory detail who may not be ready to know about it. I’d rather tell them when they were a bit older and able to keep it quiet in case others weren’t ready to know.

A belly's not an organ though, like the stomach is. Belly is just slang for the abdominal area. Which includes both the stomach and reproductive organs of a woman. So it's fair enough to use the informal word "belly". It isn't ok to say "stomach" or "tummy" because even very young kids know that that's where food goes.

@Chipsintheair that is a bit strange. Why isn’t it ok to say sex is something a man does with a woman / puts his penis in her? I get you explained it your way but I don’t understand why saying a man does it is wrong?

Honestly I'm going to use this script when I eventually get this question. I think the frank approach is best when asked as when people start doing the whole special fluffy cuddle magic beans story it just doesn't sit right with me, although I maybe wouldn't have wanted my four year old to hear about the P in the V until she was older and asked herself but I get that it was asked in front of her so kind of hard to avoid. My 3 year old DD knows that some babies, like her and her brother, come from a scar on mummy's tummy that a dr made but other babies come from the vagina. She is unphased about the vagina exit but very interested in seeing my scar 😂

My mum gave me a book called the great sperm race when I started asking questions, not sure what she but I'm sure I was in Brownies so maybe 8-9. I remember that answering questions for me and I don't remember talking more about it until year 8 where they showed us a cartoon of a couple having a pillow fight that ended up with her pregnant 😂

DH?

It depends who the audience is. 6 year old boy - it doesn't matter much either way. Girl - different ballgame all together.

It also depends on why they are asking. For example, child at school with unfiltered internet access exposes boy to pornography - need to set them straight with the facts, yes. Girl - this may need a greater intervention as sexualisation at a young age does massive harm to girl's self-esteem, promiscuity, propensity for depression, eating disorders, etc.

Go with the facts - yes - but try to understand why they asked as you may need to go further

You didn't show them a video. You answered a question, they weren't that interested, they moved on. There is no innocence to take here, your DH is being dramatic. Did he want the stork story?

Have you seen the world around them lately?
Not the best place to be learning about sex and relationships.

I just let the school teach my son when he was 10. Asked if he had any questions, said no I mean it isn't hard to grasp any older kid will get it