The Talk: Scrotum. It's a Funny Word.

Last week I related my experience trying to explain vagina to my then three year old son.  I thought that was hard because he was having difficulty understanding alien junk.  Turns out that was nothing compared to his next question.

A few months after our vagina talk, I'm sitting on the couch enjoying my morning coffee and reading a book.  Frick is playing with his cars on the floor next to me.  All of a sudden he gets up and approaches me,

"Mommy, can I ask you a question?"

(Not looking up from my book) "Shoot."

Frick drops his pants and grabs hold of his penis.

"I know what this is for (shaking his penis at me) but what is this for?"  And with that he reaches under and grabs his balls to illustrate what he means.

OMG!  I almost spit out my coffee.  A couple of things are going through my head once I get over the initial shock: 1) I know that as a responsible parent I am supposed to answer this question in a matter of fact tone using words he can understand, and 2) Scrotum is way too funny a word for me to be able to say it out loud.  It's just one of those silly words guaranteed to cause hysterical giggling on my part.  "Vagina" was kind of difficult but "scrotum" would be downright impossible.  My brain begins searching through, and then rejecting, almost my entire mental Rolodex of synonyms for "scrotum" in an attempt to select a term I could use with a straight face.

Scrotal sack.  Nutsack.  Nuts.  Balls.  Stones.  Gonads.  Nards.  The beans.  Bollocks.  Cojones.  Nuggets.  Family jewels.  Package.  Manjigglies.  Testes...

How was I ever going to be able to explain this?

Meanwhile my son stands there, his junk in his hands, waiting patiently for me to finish having what must have looked like a mini-stroke.  I stall for more time by getting him to put his pants back on.  My response?

Summoning every ounce of self-restraint, I somehow manage to say the word "testicles" without stammering or giggling and then launch into a ridiculous analogy of a "Little Swimmer Factory"  that was closed for business now but that would open up some day so he could make babies.

"Mommy, I can't make babies.  Vaginas make babies."

"No, Mommies and Daddies make babies together.  A Mommy needs the Daddy's little swimmers to make a baby."

"But how does she get them out?"

"They come out of your penis."

(Horrified) "What!?!"

And he listens with growing shock and dismay as I calmly explain the mechanics of baby-making.  I can see the wheels turning as I talk, contemplating the significance of what I am telling him.

"And that means you and Daddy...?"

"Yes."

"And that I...?"

"Uh huh."

"And some day I'm gonna...?"

"You'll want to.  When you grow up you'll like doing that and that's normal."

"No way.  No way am I ever going to want to do that!"  And then, clearly having had enough, he stalks out of the room shaking his head and muttering, "Huh uh.  No way....just,  ew!  Man!  In my house!  Some people."

The Talk: Let's Talk Vagina

A lot of people have a lot of different philosophies about how to handle The Talk with their kids and I'm not here to say one is better than the other.  Whatever philosophy you have it is probably ridiculous because nothing feels sillier than trying to explain sex to your kids no matter what.  For me The Talk is not just one excruciatingly awkward informational hour but a painfully ongoing conversation that sometimes borders on the inappropriate.  And what better way to handle my parenting PTSD than to use it as blogfodder?  And because this Talk is an ongoing conversation I can probably stretch it out over a few posts.

And so I present to you the first instalment of The Talk: Let's Talk Vagina

It all began at the tender age of 3 1/2 when Frick was trying to figure out the differences between boys and girls.  It was very confusing for him.  Every time he thought he had it there turned out to be some kind of exception.

"Girls have long hair and boys have short hair, right Mommy?"

"But what about Gramma?  All your Grammas have short hair and they're girls."

"Oh.  Right.  Ummm, boys wear pants and girls wear dresses?"

"I'm wearing pants right now."

"Oh.  Girls have boobies?"

"Girls don't get boobies until they grow up and we don't wait until they're grown up to know they're girls."

"Well then how can you tell?"

"Because boys have a penis, like you do, but girls have a vagina."

"A va- What?!?  No they don't!  They have a penis!"

"No, they don't.  I don't have a penis!"

"Yes you do!  I've seen it!"

(WTF?)

"But I don't have one!"

"Yes, you do!  It's a hair penis!"

Oh boy.  It's really amazing how a blank slate of a brain will interpret information sometimes.  Apparently Frick's young mind needed to interpret my pubic hair as a "hair penis" because that was the only thing that made sense to him.  Explaining this was going to be tricky.  Also, I really needed to trim my lady garden.

"No honey, that is not a penis.  I have a vagina.  It's very different from a penis and it is what makes me a girl."

(Skeptical) "No.  Penis."

In this moment I am mentally struggling to find some way to explain this to Frick so that he will not only understand but also be convinced.  The only thing I could come up with was to show him a picture.  I was pretty sure my pregnancy book had diagrams in it so I told him to sit tight while I went to find the book.

Utterly unconvincing.

Frick easily understood the penis diagram.  That was familiar.  But the diagram for the vagina, with the uterus and ovaries made absolutely no sense.

"You do NOT have that!  You're tricking me!"

"I do.  You just can't see them because they're inside of me."

"Penis!  Hair Penis!!!"

Once Frick gets an idea in his head, his brain locks onto it like a pitbull.  You almost have to pry the idea out of its stiff dead jaws.  Diagrams were not going to cut it.  He was going to have to see the real thing.  There was nothing else for it.

I sure as hell wasn't going to show him mine.  Besides, he'd apparently seen it before and that's what got us into this mess in the first place.  I knew all I would get from the internet was porn.  So there was nothing left but whatever was in my pregnancy book.  And all of those vaginas were in various stages of childbirth.

Well...

.... at least they left no room for ambiguity.

After possibly traumatizing my son with these graphic, but thankfully black and white (and therefore artistic) photos of babies emerging from vaginas, he no longer doubted.  He was quiet for a moment.

"Mommy?"

"What?"

"I'm glad I'm a boy!"

Because You Asked For It: Double Feature! Penis Discovery and V. C. Andrews

Bitches in the Burbs has been nominated for Parents.com's Funniest Mom Blog.  And they totally deserve to win.  The thing is, they're struggling to get votes and I can see why.  I've been trying to vote for a couple of days but my shitty internet skills combined with Parents.com's incredibly shitty site is screwing their chances.  I tried again today but my password isn't working.  Maybe the rest of you might have some luck, so first check out their blog (it won't disappoint) and then go here to vote and maybe you will have better luck than I did.  I'm still trying but in the meantime I have worked out my frustrations with the site by presenting to you today a Because You Asked For It Double Feature, courtesy of Parents.com and their Ask Parents forum.

Source: Parents.com

My soon to be 5-year-old son has recently "discovered himself" and we are constantly seeing him with his hands down his pants playing with his penis.  Is this normal for this age, and how do we respond to this without making him feel embarrassed?


                                                                                            Jessica625

Dear Jessica625,

Your son is almost five and he only just recently "discovered himself"?  I think you might have bigger problems on your hands than how to talk to him about pocket pool. Five years? Jeez, Frick got right in there the second the diaper was opened.  I used to have to pin his little hands down with my feet as I wiped his butt or there would be all kinds of nasty mess!

Funny story, when Frack was 8 months old he still hadn't shown any interest in his penis and I was so worried about it!  Like maybe he didn't have any feeling in his penis.  Or maybe there was something wrong with his brain that made him not know it was there.  Or maybe he was one of those people who would never be interested in sex and then would never give me grandchildren and then all my hopes would be pinned on Frick.  You have no idea the relief I felt when he finally started taking off his clothes for the express purpose of penis access!

If I were you I would encourage your son to continue his long overdue discovery as much as possible.  But there's a time and place.  Have a talk with him.  Bedroom: good.  Bathroom: good.  During morning announcements in Kindergarten class: not so good.  During morning announcements outside of a Kindergarten class, thirty years from now: really not good.

                                                                                              Mommy Rotten


Source: Parents.com


I have a boy and a girl who are pretty close in age.  My son is 3 1/2, and my daughter is 2.  I put them both in the tub for bath time and recently I was wondering when I should start giving them separate baths.  They really enjoy their time in the tub together.


                                                                                                  ldanielson06

Dear ldanielson06,

Okay, is this like one of those things that happens online where intonation doesn't carry through and that could change the whole meaning?  Like, do your kids really enjoy their time in the tub together or do they really enjoy their time in the tub together, know what I'm sayin'?  Is that why you're so worried?  Because you're afraid of starting some kind of crazy incest thing?

If there's anything I learned from V. C. Andrews, it's that incest only happens between siblings who have been locked away together for several years during the sexual awakening of their adolescence.  Or between a naive (I wish I knew how to type umlauts) 13 year old hillbilly girl and her rich uncle she just discovered she had, or between a 13 year old girl and her boyfriend who turned out to be her long lost rich brother she didn't know she had until after he had developed an unhealthy sexual obsession with her.

Unless you are extremely wealthy, or extremely dirt-poor, or have long lost wealthy relatives on the verge of death, or any deep-dark-horrifying secrets, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.  Let them enjoy bath time while they can because in a couple of years they are going to hate each other's guts with a fierce passion that should last until shortly after one of them moves out.

If you do fall into those categories you should know that the incest usually happens under conditions of rape and far-fetched stupidity.  That and the rape almost always results in a pregnancy.  The good news is that you have what, 11 years until she turns 13?  That should give you some time to plan a strategy.  Like buying her a rape whistle and putting her on the pill.  And um, yeah.  Maybe quit it with the baths.

                                                                                             Mommy Rotten