The Birds and The Bees

Things have been a little too serious for me this week, so I decided to throw in a light-hearted post…

During the week of Christmas this past year (2011), I attended my Song of Solomon Bible study like I had every other week.  I still have a couple more sessions to go and I must say this Bible study has been a very “spicy” one!  ;)  Although this book talks about the art of romance, the art of conflict and several other topics pertinent to dating, courtship and marriage, a huge part of it is talking about that three letter word – SEX. 

That day, during our small group discussion, the topic came up about when and how you should talk to your kids about sex.  At our local elementary school, a second grade boy was caught showing porn to other kids on the playground on a cellphone he had taken from home.  Many of our children could’ve been one of the kids this child showed those images, since they were all outside during the all-school noon recess.  Luckily none of them had seen anything, but we all determined that we wanted to be the first ones to introduce our kids to that whole topic.  Since all of our kids were in the age-group when many experts suggest talking about sex, we all decided we would have “The Talk” that week.

I remember it like it was yesterday…  It was Christmas Eve night, right before bedtime.  We have an Advent tradition where we read a Christmas story each night, leading up to Christmas Day.  The kids love opening the Christmas book-box to see which book would be next.  This night was no different!  We were all sitting by the Christmas tree getting ready to read one of our Christmas stories.   The lights filled the room with a warm glow.  We were all snuggled up on the floor together.  My husband and I told the kids to pull out the next book.  Of course we had rigged the box and placed “God’s Design for Sex: Book 1” by Stan and Brenna Jones next in line.  Our daughter pulled out the book and asked, “What’s this?”.  My husband and I smiled and explained we were going to read a different story tonight.  We asked if either of our kids had heard of the word sex.  To our relief both shook their heads no and asked what sex was.  One child even said, ‘What’s Ses?’ (misspelling intended).  We said we had a book to explain more.

Now, the first book in this awesome series is pretty mild.  It’s geared towards three to five year-olds and mainly talks about God’s plan for families and doesn’t jump into all the juicy details.  It does, however, mention some anatomy terms and explains how babies are born.  The book depicts a conversation between a little boy and his parents.

Excerpt from the book “God’s Design for Sex: Book 1 - The Story of Me”, page 25:

“Mommy, did your tummy get as big with me as it did with Sarah?”

“Yes it did!  And, when the time was right, you came into the world through my vagina…”.

At that moment, our four year-old son had a look of shock and horror streak across his face.  With his eyes as big as headlights, he shrieked, “Babies come out of vaginas?!”

 It was all over at that point.  Both my husband and I burst into gut-rolling laughter and had a hard time pulling it back together to read the rest of the book.  For the rest of the time, our two children giggled and laughed.  Our son kept chuckling and shaking his head, saying over and over, “Babies come out of vaginas.  What?!”.

After the kids were tucked into bed and sleeping, the two of us kept laughing about how crazy it must be for these innocent children to hear for the first time that babies enter the world through a mommy’s vagina.  Shocking to say the least!

Although we didn’t keep our composure quite like we wanted, we did accomplish our goal.  Our kids heard the word sex for the first time from us. Not from their friends or other classmates.  Not on the school bus, not on the playground or anywhere else.  With the help of a Christian book, we were able to paint a beautiful picture of how God intends for all families to function.

Have you had “The Talk” yet?  How did it go?  How old were your kids when you first talked to them?  I’d love to hear your stories!

Link to buy the four books in the series "God's Design for Sex":  http://mops.christianbook.com/gods-design-for-sex-books-revised/stan-jones/pd/060130?item_code=WW&netp_id=458252&event=ESRCG&view=details