“I was thinking about what you said the other day—how you think you don’t ‘feel’ as much as other people, and they don’t seem to like it. I’m not positive that I’m interpreting what you meant correctly, but it sounds to me like you’re saying that other folks get really big emotions, and they express them a lot, and you don’t really do that. And they think that means you don’t care, even when you do. Are you worried about your feelings, or are you worried about how people perceive you? Either way, you are not broken or wrong simply because you experience and react to the world differently. Emotional skills are something all people have to learn and work on—no one comes out of the womb knowing that stuff!”

I remember being a teenager and watching the way television and movies talked about teen boys. Entirely too often, the underlying message was that all they wanted to do was “get some.” I can think of a laundry list of stories where being sexually active very early and very often was a driving plot point for the male characters. I also remember that characters who expressed their emotions or who were vocal about their feelings were treated as “soft” or “girly”—that in order to solidify their place in the high school pecking order, they had to abandon their emotional inner self in favor of being a tough, sexually active, popular guy. I also remember making the conscious decision to raise my own children very differently. I never wanted my child to feel like they had to determine where they fit in the hierarchy of high school popularity by compromising their own feelings or values.

“You do not have to change who you are or what you want for your own body just to fit in. People who are bragging about their sexual conquests are jerks who do not respect their partners and are quite possibly lying. You do what you feel ready for, and you don’t go broadcasting what you do choose to do for clout. Got it?”

Big Kids Still Want to Play

Something we forget is that when children, particularly male-identified children, grow up, they still want to participate in play. The hard part, I think, for kids who are going through puberty in the United States is the more recent cultural expectation that they shift from play to organized sport. Encouraging and facilitating non-sports play is one way to foster their social and emotional development as they enter puberty. Try yard games like bean bags, bocce, or spikeball; field games; or unstructured physical activity like tag, (boundaried) roughhousing/wrestling, even pool noodle sword fights. Be creative!

If Something Might Be Wrong

“Hey, kiddo—I just wanted to remind you that if you ever have problems with any of your parts—if something is sore, or itchy, or just feels ‘off’—you can come to me and we’ll find you appropriate help, okay? Even if you think it’s happening because of something you did or a mistake you made—all I care about is that you are safe and healthy. Please come to me if you need help.”

CHAPTER 7: IN BRIEF

Changing bodies can be incredibly confusing, disorienting, and sometimes downright scary. For people with a penis, changes (like erections) sometimes occur with an element of surprise that can add a layer of shame and embarrassment to the process. Children who have been informed of the scientific facts about these changes, and who have been given accurate information and space to ask questions, may feel more empowered to navigate the changes and potentially feel less stress than if they had been left to figure things out on their own via trial and error.

Key Takeaways

Erections occur when the brain sends messages to the body instructing it to fill the penis with blood. Erections are not necessarily indicative of sexual attraction—they can be, but they can also occur spontaneously.

Body changes for people with a penis are not dissimilar from the changes that occur for people with a uterus—they include changes in height, voice, musculature, body hair, body odor, and more.

Additionally, children may experience an additional drive for self-stimulating behaviors, and should be provided with safe, healthy, sanitary options for managing these behaviors.

One such option is encouraging condom use while self-stimulating, which theoretically could lead to increased ease of use, and may lead to more consistent use of condoms in future sexual relationships.

CHAPTER 8 Where Do Babies Come From? !

This is it. This is the chapter I know most of you are reading this book for. You might’ve picked this book up off the shelf and flipped directly to this chapter because you want to just get it over with—you want to prepare yourself for the conversation you’ve been dreading. But first, take a deep breath and remember that this is the chapter where a lot of us are going to have to go back and do the internal work of processing the trauma and embarrassment we internalized when we were given the “birds and the bees” talk.

The “you’re going to have sex, get pregnant, or get a disease and die” talks.

The “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free” talks.

The “no one likes a used piece of gum,” “no one wants a pre-licked lollipop,” and “no husband/wife wants damaged goods” talks.

Purity culture, fearmongering and misunderstanding around sexually transmitted diseases, and the specter of a life-altering unplanned pregnancy too often guide discussions around sex and intimacy as children are growing up. Regardless of where your morals are regarding when sex should happen, we can all agree that if people are going to have sex, they should have it in the safest way possible. A lot of us parents now know that we must be willing to have more nuanced, open, honest conversations with our kids if we want to both keep them safe and help them feel empowered to have the best relationships they can. That is why, if you did flip directly to this chapter, I encourage you to go back and read the first section of this book, “Foundations” (page 14). It will help set you up for predominantly positive outcomes from these tough conversations by solidifying the safe, loving groundwork you’ve laid with your child. Two of these Foundations, Curiosity and Consent for Knowledge, guided me through explaining my first nephew to my own child.

“There’s a BABY in there!” I pointed enthusiastically at my sister’s growing belly, letting my child in on the most exciting news I’d heard in a while. “In a few months there’s going to be a new baby coming!”

My kid’s response was to be expected—he was eighteen months old, so this was all very abstract—so he mirrored my excitement by clapping and giving me a “yay!”

A couple of years later, as my first round of friends started having children, my child got a little bit more invested in this “baby in the tummy” business. The fact that the baby was in there was taken for granted—he knew that was where babies grew—but the questions were getting a bit more existential.

“Mom, where do babies COME from?” he asked me one sunny winter afternoon shortly after his fourth birthday.

“They come from inside a person’s uterus!” I replied.

“Ohhhhhh, okay.” Satisfied at now knowing the name of the organ where a baby grew, my kid went back to playing. That didn’t last long, though.

“How does a uterus make a baby?” was the next question I had to field, just a few weeks later.

“Well, it’s super cool! There are two cells—one is called a sperm, and one is called an egg—and they each have half of the instructions needed to make a baby! You know, like your building sets—the instructions say which pieces go where, but each cell only has half! So the cells get together and share instructions with each other, and then the cells multiply and click together like the building pieces and make a baby!”

This. Was. MIND-BLOWING. My child chewed on this information, rehashing it over and over again, for months. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I finally got the question I’d been gearing up to answer.

“Mom … how do the cells get INTO the uterus to combine?”

You might think this is where our journey to answering “where do babies come from?” really kicks off, but that is not so. Our story begins all the way back when kids first start realizing that there are many humans other than themselves, and that some of those humans are babies. As we journey into answering any questions for our kids, it’s essential that we remember the lens through which they view the world—a lens that has only seen a few things and understands even fewer. Our job, then, is to give only the information that answers the question at hand, and in the simplest way possible. This is in line with a theory called scaffolding. Developed by psychologist Lev Vygotsky, it describes how information should be presented in small pieces that build upon previously presented pieces in order to create larger ideas. Many conversations with adolescents would not be as easy, or even possible, if they were not built onto information presented to the child earlier in life.

In order to help build your child’s knowledge base, I’ve broken down “where do babies come from?” into a series of basic steps that scaffold on one another. By following the steps in order, you may be able to avoid overwhelming your child with information they are not ready to understand, process, or internalize. Additionally, by having the information sectioned into smaller pieces, you have the answers to the next suite of questions at hand when your child is ready to hear them!

These conversations are not prescriptive to a certain age range—there is no one right age to have Mechanics conversations with your children—but I have included rough estimates of when a child may feel ready to approach their safe grown-ups with the questions from each section. I arrived at these estimates by combining a few different sources: my own personal and professional experience; the opinions of other child development professionals; and the psychological concepts I’ve mentioned previously in the book, such as Piaget’s theory of cognitive development—plus a concept I haven’t previously mentioned called theory of mind.

This theory posits that children do not develop the ability to see other people’s perspectives or even acknowledge that other people think differently than they do until they are in the ballpark of four to six years old. This inability to “zoom out”informed the way I wrote the scripts for younger children in this book.

Despite the theoretical lenses that contribute to the age-range recommendations, as we discussed earlier in the Consent for Knowledge chapter, one of the most important people to consult when deciding what information a child is ready for is the person asking the questions—the CHILD! Giving a child information about the content they are requesting gives them a sense of ownership over their knowledge. It also models to them that people’s right to choose what they know is of utmost importance—“The answer to that question might make you feel some interesting feelings, and it’s something other folks might choose to wait to learn.”

As I’m certain you’ve noticed already, the bulk of the language in this book is meant to be tailored to the child you are currently raising. However, as we venture into the topic of where babies come from, we must eventually discuss with our children the parts that they do not have. This is where we have to talk about the language I choose to use in this book—it is very biological and almost entirely gender-neutral. This might feel very foreign, even somewhat off-putting, but the language used in this discussion matters, and so does the confidence you feel in delivering this information to your child. However, if you are more comfortable using words like “mom” and “dad” or “man” and “woman,” that is a valid choice. (Just be prepared for follow-up questions like “What about Tim? He doesn’t have a dad?” or “My friend Carly has two moms—where did she come from?!”)

Being clear from the outset that the cells we are talking about come from a person with a penis and a person with a vagina, and those cells grow in a uterus, you can build a sense of clarity and honesty that are routinely reinforced with every conversation. Later, as they interact with more children from different backgrounds—adoption, IVF, and other less traditional methods of building a family—being adept with accurate biological terminology will matter even more. There will be no question that although Carly had to grow from cells from a person with a penis and a person with a vagina, Carly’s moms are her moms.

And as we discussed previously, using correct terminology helps children feel comfortable talking about their bodies with universally understood terms. As children grow, they need to be able to clearly and unashamedly report injuries or other important information about their bodies to their caregivers. A child who has been taught to call their vulva a “cookie” may report to their pre-K teacher that their “cookie is yucky”—and without context, the teacher would have no idea that this child is uncomfortable because they are having trouble wiping when they go to the bathroom. Using clear, accurate words not only keeps our children healthy, it also protects them from people who might wish to harm them and will exploit a child’s ignorance and innocence to do so.

As I’ve said earlier, one of the most important reasons for establishing body talk as a routine part of your child’s life is that it can help keep them safe. If your child approaches you with a question that seems premature, consider attempting to find out why the child is asking: “That’s an interesting question—what do you think about it?” Asking questions like that can help you parse if they are truly seeking the information you think they’re seeking, or if there’s been a misunderstanding or miscommunication. Further, it can help you determine if your child has access to information they should not have or if they are being exposed to things they are not prepared to see, such as being in the presence of a relative watching movies that are inappropriate for a child their age.

Sometimes it may even be necessary to let your child know that the information they are seeking is not information they are ready to receive: “I understand you’re curious about that because you heard it on the podcast your uncle was listening to, but that kind of language and information is for grown-up brains—your brain is still growing and learning, and when it’s ready, I promise I’ll answer that question for you. We can even write it down so I don’t forget.” Demonstrating that you are willing to both set and maintain boundaries that help protect their development and maintain their safety reinforces that you are there to help them. It reminds your child that you want them to learn in a way that is healthy, and you want them to have information that will empower them rather than frighten or overwhelm them. These boundaries may also help curb an older child’s desire to seek information for themselves from dubious peer resources or the internet.

Sample Scripts: Early Childhood

Phase One: Where Do Babies Grow? (birth to age 3)

This “conversation” isn’t so much a sit-down-and-talk conversation as it is a combination of observations and a general way of viewing the world. Establishing curiosity and a desire to make observations about the world we live in is one of the foundational pieces of these body talks. So at this stage of the game, we are mostly just observing and commenting on what we notice about pregnant bodies and the general process of being pregnant, like the number of weeks the baby has been growing or someone needing to sit down more often. Here are some phrases that you might want to include as you and your child notice pregnant people:

“That person has a baby growing in their uterus!”

“Auntie Kay has a baby growing—it will be born in July! That means that we will have Christmas, your birthday, the end of school, and camping before the baby is born.”

“That baby is really tiny—I think it was born only a few days or weeks ago!”

“We are standing up now so that pregnant person can sit down and rest their body.”

“Your preschool class had baby bunnies this year—they grew inside their mommy’s uterus, too!”