The Life Cycle: A 5-Point Method For Answering Kids’ Questions

The life cycle was a mystery to me until I was ten. I’d brought in the mail one day so many years ago, thrilled at the heft and bulk of the items I’d found in our mailbox, feeling somehow important for being the one to serve as intermediary between sender and receiver. My mother thanked me and made two piles: junk and bills. There was never much of anything else.

It was understood that the junk was mine to do with as I pleased. I leafed through these colorful and important looking texts and found something called The Life Cycle Library, which was a series of books designed to teach children the facts of life, A/K/A the birds and the bees. It was a subject I’d wondered about, but hesitated to bring up with my mother, who was older than most of my friends’ mothers and who was (and is) refined, reticent, and shy. It just wasn’t the sort of thing we’d discuss.

I thought, here is just what we need, a guidebook to help my mother navigate this tricky subject with me. I brought the leaflet to her attention and asked, “Can we order this?”

She looked. She said, “You want this?”

I said, “Yes.”

She said, “Fine. I’ll order it.”

And so she did.

I’d actually kind of forgotten about the books when I arrived home from school one day months later, to find my mother had left The Life Cycle Library, complete with the accompanying Parents’ Answer Book, on my bed.

So that’s how it would be, I thought to myself. I shrugged. Good enough. I’d get the answers to my questions, which was the main thing. And I’d get those answers without making my mother uncomfortable, which I decided was, on balance, a good thing.

The book series accomplished the job adequately enough. I learned the mechanics and there was nothing sordid, kinky, or embarrassing about the experience. I just felt a bit lonely or perhaps cheated about the way my mother had dispelled any notion that we could discuss these things on a mother/daughter basis. Or at least, that was the impression she left by providing me with the Parents’ Answer Book, thus obviating the need for um,
parents’ answers or parent participation on any level.

That was okay with me. You make allowances for the people you love. I loved my mother and I understood that this was something we couldn’t talk about. She was from a different generation and she was different from me in most ways. I was open and excitable and would talk about anything. She was quiet and regal. I knew she loved me even though I was loud and a bit rough around the edges. And I respected her more than anyone in the world (still do).

Even so, once I had children of my own, I had already decided that my way of handling the topic would not be my mother’s way. I would not give my children a book and then walk away from the discussion. Instead, I did as the experts suggested with a bit of my own stamp on the subject for good measure. Here are the 5-point guidelines I adopted for teaching my children the facts of life:

1. Answer questions as simply as possible as they arise
2. Don’t giggle or fidget nervously as you answer your children’s questions, but respond in the most matter-of–fact manner possible
3. Don’t offer more information than your children seek
4. Don’t use cutesy names or descriptions for body parts
5. Explain that this is a private subject to be discussed at home with parents and not with friends (and certainly not with strangers)

This is the method I have used throughout the years of parenting my many children and it has served me (and hopefully my children) well. I imagine that some parents will disagree with my method. They may think I am overly forthright or perhaps not forthright enough.

Take the fifth point—the business about this being a private subject—I submit that we are talking about private parts and therefore this is a private topic. But just because something is intimate or private, does not mean it must be shameful. There is a way to convey this distinction to children.

By the same token, I recognize that some parents will disagree with teaching children about the birds and the bees at a young age, as questions occur. I don’t want my children talking with other children about this stuff, because the parents of the other children may not approve of them learning about the birds and the bees at a tender age. And that is absolutely their right.

I am a religious person and in transmitting my values to my children, I always made sure they knew that bringing new life into the world involves the divine. Another parent may not agree with my decision to invoke the divine in a discussion of the birds and bees. Another parent may want to discuss this issue in technical or scientific terms or not at all.

I think the main thing to understand here is that parents should think about this topic before the need to address questions becomes an issue. Know how you will handle these questions. Find a way that feels comfortable for you, a way that fits the culture you live in as well as your own personal norms.

But most of all: be ready. The questions will come.  Guaranteed.

Don’t be caught flat-footed and open-mouthed when they do.