i asked my mom that when i was like five and she pulled out one of my toys and said that it was her baby maker or something and i dont.

she never told me the stork story....>_>'' when i was like, ten she actually told me.

xD Parents must dread kids asking them that question.

But that's only because most countries are so uptight about sex, isn't it. It's all tied in with religion, even if you're not a regilious person the Church has implanted Shame into all of us with regard to anything to do with nudity and procreation.

Don't imagine I'm some hippy nudist from me saying that, I'd be just as mortified by any kid asking me the same thing. xD I can just see why we're like this.

Interestingly enough, sex ed starts at the age of 4 for kids in Holland. Holland with its legal prostitution and so on, and is taught by people who aren't horribly embarrassed about the whole thing, telling kids this is something you shouldn't do unless you're married or you're gonna go to hell, etc. Consequently, there's none of the awkwardness that surrounds talking about sex that there is in other countries, because these kids grow up knowing this stuff and it's no big deal. So there's none of the taboos about sex either, so the average teen isn't desperate to do it just because it's such a wicked and bad thing, and because of this Holland has the lowest teen pregnancy rate of the whole of Europe...

Go figure, huh.

Everything made in China. Except babies. They made in vaChina.

OMG!

I guess that's because of China's not so clever law about one child only...that's biting them on the butt now, isn't it?

I don't recall ever being told one of those ridiculous stories. What I do remember was a book called "Where did I come From" which uses cartoony pictures to explain the facts in an easy to understand and digest way.
It's still around, just for kicks I found it on the Barns and Nobel's website:

Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle | 9780818402531 | Paperback | Barnes & Noble

I'm pretty sure my mom had to explain that sorta thing to me when I was about five. My younger brother was born. I can't remember how that talk went though.

My parents abdicated all responsibility of telling me and likely my younger sister anything about sex. At all. When I was 10-11 we had a sex ed thing in school. I say thing because it had far more to do with our indoor/outdoor plumbing and hormones than sex. So, when my daughter started asking questions I told her in very biological terms about it. She was mortified and I think my frankness scared her.

We had a most amusing discussion when I found out I was pregnant with her brother. Not 30 seconds passed (she was 10yo) and she said "OMIGAWD YOU HAD SEX!!". Well duh.

Originally Posted by Elmira Swift

When I was 10-11 we had a sex ed thing in school. I say thing because it had far more to do with our indoor/outdoor plumbing and hormones than sex.

We had this as well. In the fifth grade (ages 10-11) we were separated by gender and took turns watching a video pertaining essentially to our gender's puberty (the other gender hung out in the neighboring classroom, both classes had joined together for this event). Like yours this was not about sex. The female part of the video was primarily about the period and the male form what I heard was about the penis.

The true sex ed came in the 7th grade. We watched a live shot video of a fetus developing in a woman's uterus but it begun with the conception including a shot of the male ejaculation. It showed all the way up to the baby being born.
There was also another video but I think that was just another one covering puberty stuff smilier to what the fifth grade video was. Except this time opposite genders weren't sent out of the room.

But I had that book when I was far younger than when either of these happened.

When I was a wee lass, my grandma watched Look Who's Talking with me because, hey, it's about sassy talking babies! How could this not be appropriate for kids?! Well, turned out it wasn't. The movie started with a sex scene, the conception of the baby. So of course I had questions. My grandma is actually a pretty vulgar person who is not remotely ashamed about sex (shockingly ass backwards about other things, but that's another conversation for another time), so she decided to give me the straight truth, but watered down to the basics and put in terms appropriate for my age.

So she starts out with something like "well, men have a... hot dog... and he puts it into a woman's.... uh...." and here she was probably asking herself "what is the most vaginal food I can come up with," but I decided to help her by suggesting "hot dog bun?" I wasn't really putting together what she was saying with my own anatomy, it was just that I was thinking of something that a hotdog would go into. But, you know, I wasn't really too far off.

I know the film you're talking about Cherry and agreed, the opening scene showing the conception of the baby girl is certainly inappropriate for small children. In fact the film I mentioned from 7th grade sex ed about the fetus development, it was very smilier to the process in the uterus shown in Look Who's Talking Now.

My parents were one of the lucky few, I don't remember ever asking them that question and I think I never did. I just learned that we come from our mother's belly because of seeing pregnant women.
I also thought kissing a guy would make me pregnant. So yeah, I never really wanted any guy to kiss me out of fear from getting pregnant. I believed that until I was 14 or 15, my friends and classmates found it hilarious that I was so innocent. One of my friends parents are doctors so she explained to me everything. I felt like a small innocent girl when she was talking to me.

I never asked that question. But I've heard children asking it, and to my sister she said she came out of my mum's belly, which was true, but what I thought about it was that I ripped open my mum's belly and came out I was never a curious kid though And here, no sex ed at all Except for the things like 'you should not do anything you feel uncomfortable' and all that beating around the bush shit. Hm.

Woah, like on Total Recall? xD

Seriously though, we're the only species on the planet that has all this awkwardness and embarrassment about sex. I find it amusing that humans as a whole tend to think of themselves as the superior species, when a great deal of our behaviour shows how very false that opinion is.

We're the most advanced, and because of that we've invented all these hang ups, go humanity...

Originally Posted by Lexadis

I never asked that question. But I've heard children asking it, and to my sister she said she came out of my mum's belly, which was true, but what I thought about it was that I ripped open my mum's belly and came out I was never a curious kid though And here, no sex ed at all Except for the things like 'you should not do anything you feel uncomfortable' and all that beating around the bush shit. Hm.

This reminds me of the story my grandmother told me. She was pregnant with my eldest uncle when she was 16 and it never scared her because it wasn't until she had a talk with her own mother that she realized the baby comes out of the nether regions. She thought it would be surgically removed. Then she was terrified! But she loved my uncle, even when she was offered a chance to leave him in other hands (I think it was her aunt or someone she knew) she refused. By the way to clarify 'eldest' I have 5 uncles by her and 1 aunt.

My brother had a sex ed class in like 5th grade, at the time I was in 2nd. When he came home he told me, so I never had to ask. I do remember my mom making a conversation about bras really awkward though. I can't imagine how the sex talk would have gone!

My kids have already started asking, I think they started in Kinder. I've told them the gist of it, I figure to tell them more details of it as they get older and ask again (and again, and again). Start with the basics and work my way up to safe sex and what not.

Though I currently have both of my daughters afraid of giving birth because of the chances of pooping while in labor (OMG!), the pain of pushing out a baby (also, OMG!) or the possibility of having a cesarian and your organs being outside of your body (once again, OMG!). Apparently the story of the nurse telling me I'd feel better once my uterus was back in my body really stuck with them... ;)

Whoa, ok I didn't know that part of the C-section. XP

omg melody.

Mellie, cutting the pregnancy rate of Menewshans; single handed.

;) The more you know!

I have a knack for it Jelly. I doubt any of my children will ever go through a teenage pregnancy like I did! Education is key!

I found out from my older sister and her best friend at the time. They explained it visually... with barbie dolls. I don't think it really sank in until I was eight or nine, though. I don't remember how I felt about it, exactly.

I never questioned my parents about sex. There was this feeling of taboo connected to it, this feeling that they would be upset if I asked them those sort of questions. We never had the customary discussions about puberty, sex, or relationships. I suppose they chose to abdicate their responsibility to do so. The best advice they managed to scramble together was a blanket, "don't."

I've been unnerved by my parent's attempts to pry into my private life since I was rather young. I don't know exactly how young I was when it started, or the catalyst for it. Regardless, the dynamic of our relationship has always been rather formal. Not that we are estranged or anything. We've just always been really private. I honestly forgot to tell my parents I was dating who is now my fiancee until we had already been dating for around a year. It simply never occurred to me that they would be interested.

I guess that explains the entire not every having those discussions.

Originally Posted by admonished nonsense

I never questioned my parents about sex. There was this feeling of taboo connected to it, this feeling that they would be upset if I asked them those sort of questions. We never had the customary discussions about puberty, sex, or relationships. I suppose they chose to abdicate their responsibility to do so. The best advice they managed to scramble together was a blanket, "don't."

I've been unnerved by my parent's attempts to pry into my private life since I was rather young. I don't know exactly how young I was when it started, or the catalyst for it. Regardless, the dynamic of our relationship has always been rather formal. Not that we are estranged or anything. We've just always been really private. I honestly forgot to tell my parents I was dating who is now my fiancee until we had already been dating for around a year. It simply never occurred to me that they would be interested.

I guess that explains the entire not every having those discussions.

My mother and I are somewhat the same, though she'd be more than interested in who I'm dating we've never really had talks. That was my aunt's job. To this day she's always initiated talks without an invitation to but my mom is not that kind of person. She seems to expect me to approach her and I am not an approacher (I guess I get that from her) so yeah that works well. :P

Originally Posted by Darkness Within

She seems to expect me to approach her and I am not an approacher (I guess I get that from her) so yeah that works well. :P

I think my mum was probably the same. Though this wasn't really tested. I saw this thing in a magazine at my nan's when we were there one Sunday. It was a sketch of a calendar with one of the weeks ticked and something like "menstrual cycle" printed above it. I asked her what menstrual cycle was and she started in with what was clearly going to be an explaination. But because of what she said I asked, "oh, you mean periods?" and she said yes and promptly said no more. xD

So I think she was doing that passive abstaining thing. Only going to say something if I asked first. Luckily for her, I never asked about anything else, lol! I only asked about that menstual cycle thing because I had zero idea what it was as that term hadn't been used when we were taught about it at school. I'd no doubt not have asked my mum if I'd known it was something to do with that. ><

Melody ~ my daughter being at the hospital numerous times when we thought I may be in labor was enough to deter her from any baby-making activities for going on 6 years. Also helped to describe a c-section with only slight (hey! I'm not THAT evil!) exaggerations about the procedure.

Where we live it is not uncommon for girls a couple years younger than my daughter (16yo now) to have babies. I'm often having to tell people the little boy with me is MY son not my daughter's. Makes me wonder just what they are teaching kids in school right now. My daughter is homeschooled so... she gets the glaring dramatic truth from me.

@ Melody: I think I would have physically recoiled from my computer reading that if I wasn't so taken aback by it. My brain screamed no, and my body was like, I totally concur.

I didn't ask my parents about it. I was a laissez fair child and what information came to me, came to me. I do remember asking my mother to confirm my suspicion that Santa Claus wasn't real, though.