Ironically enough, they both started asking at the same age.  Don’t ask me how that happened—I’ve yet to understand it.  Why my second grade daughter came home (more than once) from her conservative Christian school asking, “Momma, what is sex?” is still a bit of a mystery to me.  Though seeing the precociousness of her class now, in sixth grade, I am less surprised they were already talking about sex on the playground at that age.  Inaccurately, mind you, but discussing it in misguided detail, nonetheless.

Interestingly enough, each of my children asked a very different question of me when the time came, as it did with Buddy, my current second-grader, this past week.  While Bub knew “the S-word” and was very interested in getting in on this clandestine conversation that only big kids were able to partake of, my Buddy had a very different question in mind.  And while both questions had similar answers, this glimpse into how their little brains work so similarly yet so differently was very amusing to me.

While Bub was curious about the relational aspect of this proposition (what is sex and how do two people do it?), my little Science Boy, who lives on National Geographic documentaries (and a healthy dose of Dirty Jobs when anywhere near a TV with cable), was purely curious about the mechanics.  Indeed, he’d been asking me, as had my daughter, for quite a while about “this whole sperm and egg thing.”

“So, I get that the boy has the sperm and the girl has the egg—but how does the sperm get to the egg?  I can’t figure that out.  How does that work?”

“That’s a very good question, Buddy.  When you’re a little older/when we’re not speeding down the freeway/when we’re not in the middle of the movie theater/when we’re not out to dinner at the mall/when I’m ready to break this to my BABY, Momma will explain it to you.”

That time came this past week, with less fear and trepidation than before but with fear and trepidation nonetheless.  After asking for the third time (which, by the way, is a good indication they’ve been thinking about this for a while and are ready to hear the age-appropriate answer), I told him I would get my book out and explain it to him one night that week.  He reminded me every night.  “Momma, don’t forget you’re supposed to answer my question tonight.”  Oh, no, I’d not forgotten.  Not by a long shot.

And so it was that I snuggled up with my eight-year-old son on a cold, wet night last week with a book of “body pictures,” took a deep breath, and explained to his inquisitive little mind the mechanics of making babies.

“Ewwww, that’s weird,” had been my daughter’s reply, four years ago.

“So, what about _____?  And what about _____?  And what about _____?” was my son’s.

So many questions in his little brain.  And we’ve barely skimmed the surface.  I answer them all, watching him process each response, reassuring him I will answer any question he has, ever.  I know there will be many, many more, with a mind like that.  I pray he will continue to come to me with them.  And I pray I will continue to be able to answer each one as they come, with love and wisdom and discernment.

I concluded our “little talk” that night with the same admonition I’d given his sister: This is something that only mommies and daddies should explain.  So if your friends are talking about this on the playground and ask you questions about it, you need to tell them they need to talk to their parents.  Got it, Buddy?”

He looked at me with his screwed up “what are you talking about” face.  “Why would we talk about this on the playground?” he asked, incredulously.  “That would be weird.”

I chuckled.  How very different from his sister.

“Indeed, Buddy.  That would be weird.”

And yet, somehow, it happens.

family life humor motherhood parenthood parenting raising boys