I have decided to adopt the Boy Scouts motto of “be prepared” as my parenting motto. When you have kids, especially young one, there’s no telling what curve ball they might throw your way. Mine went something like this: early Saturday morning Tyler came up to me and asked me if it hurt when they cut me. Well, I figured he was talking about my C-section since I had explained the circumstances of his birth already. “No, no not that. Did it hurt when they cut your penis off?”
Let me just say that I had not had any coffee yet and it was early. Oh, did I mention I had not had any coffee yet? So I was in sort of a lack-of-coffee-early-Saturday-morning-brain-fog. So, I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly. So I asked him to repeat what he said and sure enough, he had asked about the cutting off of my penis. Now, what really confused me was the fact that we had already had the talk about anatomy before and I thought he understood but apparently, he didn’t. His understanding was that all babies are born with a penis and then for some reason- either the choice of the parent or the whim of the doctor- some have their penis cut off and they then become girls.
So it was time for a refresher course on anatomy and X and Y chromosomes and all that jazz. After I explained it to him, I asked if he understood. He said he did and then ran off to play somewhere. Now does this mean he “fully” understands? Before Saturday I would have argued that he totally understand the whole anatomy thing as well as where babies come from but this experience has taught me that he probably is still too young to really understand the whole shebang. As parents we should realize that we will probably need to have many talks about issues of sexuality with our kids before they come to full understanding. I realized that when I had “the talk” with him earlier he was probably too young to understand what I was saying, hence his confusion on Saturday.
For more information about this subject, see:
Talking With Kids About Sexuality
Sexual Development in Early Childhood