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Cyndi Sarnoff-Ross is a licensed psychotherapist with almost twenty years of clinical experience in the fields of clinical psychology and organizational management br br She has worked extensively with a wide variety of…
FAST FACTS
By the time a child is 7 or 8 years old you should have explained basic anatomy to them. They should know the names of both male and female body parts. This knowledge helps to pave the way for the explanation of what purpose those parts serve, such as reproduction. The inevitable, "where do babies come from?" question is likely to be heard now - if it hasn't been asked already. As I mentioned in part 1 answer questions honestly. You don't need to go into great detail but you do need to explain the basics.
Talk to your child about how the egg comes from a woman's ovaries and sperm is made in a man's testes. These are the seeds, if you will, of life and when they get together in the woman's fallopian tube they travel together to her uterus where this fertilized egg gets implanted. The uterus is a place for this embryo to get nourished and begin to grow and it will ultimately serve as a temporary house for the baby until it comes out of the mommy. And yes the answer to where the baby comes out is the vagina.
While this may sound like a lot of information for such a young child, it is the basic facts about how life is created. It is the truth and a much more valuable lesson then what they may already be hearing on the playground. It may help to show your child simple sketches or drawings of the male and female anatomy to help explain the process.
Follow your child's lead. Some children will be satisfied with the basic information and others will continue to press for more facts. How do the egg and the sperm get together? Again, the truth is the best answer. You should add your own values and belief system throughout any of these conversations. These beliefs should include things such as when you feel it is appropriate for a man and woman to make a baby - when they love each other, when they have made a serious commitment to each other, when they are married. This is a personal decision and should reflect your own family values. A man puts his penis in a woman's vagina and the sperm comes out and this is how the egg and the sperm meet. It is that simple. The language doesn't need to be masked, and telling them fairytales now will only teach them not to go to you for relevant information in the future. There really is no stork that brings babies to mommies and daddies and children should not be lead to believe in this cute but inaccurate myth.
Once again, I want to remind you to check your own anxieties at the door to these conversations. If your child feels as though you are uncomfortable having this discussion now they will be less likely to come to you in the future when the stakes are much higher.
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I mentioned that a great deal of independent research has found that women batter men as often as the converse, but our socio-legal system refuses to acknowledge that reality; it paints domestic violence as something that men do to women. Your recent series on domestic violence referred to batterers as men and victims as women, despite the reality that there just as many female perpetrators and male victims.
In such a course, boys will learn:
1) That, despite all of the research that has found that women batter men as often as the converse, the odds of males getting jailed for these offenses is far greater than the likelihood of females getting jailed for these offenses. (You have helped perpetuate these falsehoods).
2) That females can refuse parenthood, but that they are also free to impose it on males.
3) That in any unpleasant encounter with a female, that female can accuse him of "sexual assault"; and that the male had better protect himself from such false accusations with electronic surveillance. (Just ask Soner Yasa, the Edmunton cab driver who was able to refute false accusations made against him by four female passengers).
4) That males are better off not marrying and having children, because marriage all too often results in financial and emotional circumstances of divorce that statistically double a divorced man's suicide risk (while leaving the suicide risk of women unchanged).
You can avoid the pain of having to coach sons in these sad facts of life that potentially await them by taking steps that would do away with these double standards and unequal justice.
Another brilliant article - thanks.
Abi