Do you know where babies come from?

Recently I asked my nine-year-old daughter this question.  Luckily she did not.  I wanted to be the one to talk to her about it versus “learning” from friends.  I’ve talked about having “The Talk” in a past blog but I’d thought I share my experience of doing it as a parent.

My daughter was in the shower when we had the talk.  I felt that was a little less intimidating all around since we weren’t sitting and staring at each other.  I told her I wanted to talk about something and then simply asked, “Do you know where babies come from?”  As she said no, I discussed some basics about sex including correct anatomy terms and explaining eggs and sperm.  I made sure to include some of my and my husband’s values.  I let her know that we would prefer her to be married before engaging in sex but at least to be in love.  We talked about why people would have sex when not wanting a baby.  We even talked about how gay couples have babies as she had some excellent questions and guesses about how that would work.

It went much smoother than I think people thought it would go.  I know that when I told my close friends and family that we had The Talk, they were surprised I did it at such a young age.  But I don’t think nine is such a young age.  And my daughter is young for her grade (she is in the 4th grade) so she is in class with kids that are closer to eleven.  Also, I knew I wanted to talk to her about before it became embarrassing for her (and maybe me) to do so.  I want her to always feel she can ask me questions about sex or anything.  I believe this conversation made that easier. 

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