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Experts have said for years that parents need to dialogue openly with their kids about sex. 

Trouble is, when it comes to explaining the facts of life to kids, there’s plenty of talk and theory, but I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t wince at the prospect.  

For good reason. 

I mean, say what you will about honest and straightforward communication, but there really is no dignified way to explain the sex act — especially to the person who exists as a result of your participation in it.

And isn’t that the crisis every child faces in learning the facts of life:  realizing, “that’s how I got here.”

As parents, we all know the conversation is coming.  We fear our kids will ask when they’re young.  Then we fear that they won’t ask us at all.  And what if they ask something we don’t know the answer to?

Public schools have done their best to at least open up the subject.  Remember 5th grade, when they separated the boys and girls for “The Talk?”  And passed around a box of personal hygiene products?  Which no one looked at?

Ew. 

As I recall, the movie they showed was vague and scientific.  I got my information elsewhere.  Some of it was accurate. 

When I was small, I asked my Mom how to tell boy and girl babies apart, since they didn’t have hair.  She told me that girls had pink feet.  More than once I tried to remove a baby’s sock to find out if it was a boy or a girl.  No wonder people looked at me that way.

Finally, mom told me that boys have a penis.  But I thought she said peanuts.  That led to a lot of confusion.  For a long time.   

It wasn’t that my parents left me completely in the dark on the subject.  Mom discretely placed books in my room that explained things with phrases like, “when a man and a woman lie very close together….” And she had the obligatory menstrual cycle discussion.

To be fair, there may have been more.  Perhaps my memory has been intentionally blurred by an “awkward filter”? 

I now have four kids which means, somehow I figured it out. 

But now it’s my turn.

To prepare my own kids, I decided to start early.  My well-thought-out approach was to cultivate their natural curiosity in preparation for a well-rehearsed, values-added talk that we would definitely have before that 5th grade school event.  I would be in charge of girls; hubby would handle the boys. 

Being a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan, I naturally thought back to the old days, when kids grew up on farms and observed nature taking its course in the process of every day life.  I decided to replicate that for my kids.

First, I got kittens for my daughter.  And intentionally did not spay one.  When the time came, I explained to my 7-year-old that her kitty would start acting a little silly because she would be looking for another kitty to be a Daddy for her babies.  A few hours later, my daughter informed me that one of her stuffed animals was apparently going to be the Daddy.

I offered an obviously necessary additional explanation, and sure enough, the cat found a Daddy and a few weeks later we found ourselves playing feline midwife as she delivered her four kittens.  And then we spent eight weeks watching the mama cat care for and train her young ‘uns – a process which included sneaking barely-live prey into the house in order to demonstrate deadly ninja moves.  That is, unless the prey escaped.  Lets just say, extracting a mortally wounded chipmunk from the interior recesses of a piano is easier said than done.

But, it was worth it for what I thought was a priceless lesson for any daughter: babies hurt when they come out, and they’re a lot of work, too.

When we moved to the farmette, we decided to raise chickens.  My husband had a teachable moment one afternoon while doing some chicken-yard chores.  Observing some natural behavior, our then-7-year-old son asked what the rooster was doing.  My husband took the easy way out and replied, “His job.”

A few minutes later, our then 5-year-old son asked the obvious follow up.  “Dad, what exactly is the rooster’s job?”

Because for some kids curiosity just comes naturally.  

And for others, it doesn’t.

Either way, there comes a point when an explanation is required.  And if we want our kids to have a healthy outlook on sex, we as parents need to be the ones to have the conversation, even if it means taking the initiative.

One relative told me she finally pulled her son aside when he was 12 and grilled him on what he knew.  Which turned out to be nothing.  So she explained everything, right then and there.  After which, she told me, he kinda shrugged, and said, “Oh.” 

The only question he asked was the next morning, when he walked into the kitchen for breakfast, looked at his parents and said, “Hey, did you guys do that thing last night?”

I guess this kid didn’t have an “awkward filter” yet.

Humor writer, Hallie Bandy, is the mother of four children and lives on a farmette in rural Kentucky--both of which provide more than enough fodder for her writing.  She is a regular ShareWIK.com columnist.

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