Where Did You Find Me, Mommy?

A couple of weeks ago, two of my children told me separately that they did not want to attend the maturation program at the school.

When the second one said it, I was dumbfounded. "Don't you want to know what the other kids will know?" I asked.

This was not the problem I expected to deal with. In my head, I was wondering whose kids these were. Answer: their shy father's. Back when, I was curious.

Still, it seemed unlikely that both of them would have that reaction. I asked my daughter, "Have you been scaring your brother about the maturation program?"

One shoulder came up while a silly look came over her face.

So I talked to my son. A little bit. About his body and how it would be changing. (I had already talked to his sister over a year ago.) Then, looking into his beautiful, innocent, brown eyes, I veered off a bit into discussing what being a man really means. What being a father really means. I talked about working hard, responsibility, treating women fairly and with respect. Being there for his eventual children. Following the example of his father, grandfather, and uncles.

Which is not an altogether bad maturation pre-talk after all, I guess.

I completely agree with having "The Talk" with my kids. I agree that they need to get their knowledge and values from their parents. And information--it shouldn't all come from dubious or out-of-the-home sources. I do not want to be as reticent as my mother was.

But, when you're looking into the face and eyes of your child--that child whose whole existence you have spent protecting and shielding--and you're doing it really just to be ahead of some school's arbitrary schedule and not because this child came to you needing to know--it can feel a lot like you're shattering that child's innocence. So, it's hard.

Ideally, this information should come as the child is ready for it. Ideally, age-appropriate answers should be given when the child asks questions and clearly wants to and is ready to know.

The best talk like this happened when one of my children was two or three years old. He looked up at me and asked, "Mommy, where did you find me?" Clearly, he could not remember how we had met.

First, I laughed at his cuteness, and, second, I was stymied for a minute, but then I answered honestly, "I found you in my tummy. You were just a little tiny baby in there starting to grow, and I was so happy when I found out you were in there." I explained that babies grow in a special place in their mother's tummies until they are big enough to be born. That was all he needed to know at the time.

The next time he brought it up, I repeated, then elaborated, "And where did I find your sister?"

He looked at me sideways to see if I was joking, then said, "In your nose."

Apparently, more talks will need to be had.

Which matches what I told my ten-year-old son before his terrifying maturation program: growing up is a process. You're not a child one day and an adult the next. Not in any way.

Which is why I guess I believe there should not be just one "The Talk." There should be several--at different times, answering different questions, giving different information, with different levels of formality, in different places.

It, like everything else in life, should be a circular, ever-widening-and-deepening-each-time-you-go-around process.