The Talk

When I was young and thought my mother was crazy and out-of-touch, I promised myself and my future daughter that I would be a cool, laid-back, understanding mom. I’d be the kind of mom that my daughter’s friends would look at and say, “Wow, it is so stellar that your mom is, like, so totally awesome.” I was a child of the 80s. Back then, that was the hip way to talk.

But then I grew up. Well, kinda. And I have discovered that I don’t need to be L’s best friend and be a part of all the gossip and late-night talks about which boy is the cutest in class. I just want her to see me as someone she can come to with any problem or question and trust that I will give her an honest and direct answer.

I have struggled with this idea of truthfulness and how it extends (or doesn’t extend) to Santa, the Tooth Fairy and all those other harmless lies we tell our children. I play along, but will always fear that these untruths will taint my image as someone who can be trusted. But this past weekend, when my baby girl curled up on my lap, looked at me with those beautiful, blue, trusting eyes and very sincerely asked, “How does a baby come out of your stomach?” the last thing I wanted to do, was to give her an honest and direct answer.

I paused only slightly and then said, “Well, when it is time for the baby to be born, you go to the hospital and the doctor gets the baby out.” Ha! I did it! That was an honest and direct response that only answered the question asked. No need to elaborate, right?

Wrong.

“Yes, Mom, but how does the doctor get the baby out?”

Damn. Now what? Do I really want to get into this right now with a five-and-a-half-year-old? Is she old enough to know where babies come from? Of course, she’s not asking how the baby got there -- at least not yet. But, if I open up this discussion won’t it lead to The Talk?

Crap, she’s noticed how long I’ve been silent. Now any answer I give her will take on a magnified sense of importance simply because of the time it took to answer it. What if I tell her and then she goes and blabs it to all the other kids in preschool and I get angry phone calls from parents who weren’t even thinking about The Talk, but now must have it because obviously our household is one of sin and promiscuity and our daughter is a fountain of sexual knowledge?!

Okay, say something -- anything!

Speak, woman!

I know! Maybe she’ll accept the c-section explanation better and will be easier to comprehend. Okay, fine...go with that...

“Well, um, sometimes the doctor will have to get the baby out by opening up the mommy’s tummy. See, he makes a cut from here to here and -- ”

At this point, L burst into tears. Clearly, that was not the right direction to take.

I was hit with a litany of “I don’t want the doctor to cut open my tummy! I don’t want to have a baby! Don’t make me, okay Mommy! Promise I don’t ever have to have a baby!”

I was trying to calm her down and assure her that wasn’t a decision she had to make right now. The only way I could get out of that situation was to promise her that I was not going to make her have a baby now or any time in the future. That stopped the tears, but we both walked away from that encounter emotionally drained. And I felt like a huge failure. One of the first big moments in our relationship as trusting daughter/truthful mother was blown all to heck.

I spent the rest of the day worrying about it and trying to figure out how to rectify the situation. I simply couldn’t let her go on thinking that child birth was the horror show she was envisioning.

That night, before I tucked her in, I sat down on her bed beside her and said, “L, can we chat for just a minute about something?”

“Sure, Mom.”

“Well, you know how we talked this morning about how babies are born and you got so upset?”

“Yes. I cried and cried." She began to look concerned again and asked, "I don’t have to have a baby, do I?”

“No, honey," I replied. Then in a lighthearted manner I continued, "Look, L, there’s something else I need to tell you. See, there are two ways a baby can be born. One of them is for the doctor to open up the mommy’s tummy, but the other way is for it to come out from somewhere else.”

“Oh. Where?”

“Well, you know how our body has a lot of different holes, right? And each one is for something different; our nose is how we smell, and our mouth is how we eat, and our ears are how we hear. Well, you know that you have a hole in your hiney where the poo comes out -- ”

People, the disbelieving look on her face said, “Cheese and crackers! Lady, do not tell me that babies come out of your butt!”

Quickly I said, “And then there is your hoo-hoo. Babies come out of your hoo-hoo.”

Her response was to pause for a moment and then crack up laughing and say, “They come out of your hoo-hoo?! Ooooh, that is so gross!”

To which I replied, “Well, yes, it sorta is.”

(On a side note: I know that it is considered the progressive way of parenting to use the correct anatomical words for body parts. And we do use the correct words for everything but the hoo-hoo. I hate the V-word. It just sounds icky to me and I never use it. Perhaps it was all the years of being taunted with the horrible nickname Vagina-Regina. Whatever -- hoo-hoo it is.)

“Does it hurt?”

Yes, it hurts worse than anything you could ever imagine and you will wish someone would club you over the head with a metal hospital stool just so your could focus your attention on some pain other than the excruciating sensation of Mac truck trying to drive its way out of your hoo-hoo.

“No, it’s not that bad. The doctor can give you some medicine that makes it not hurt at all.”

“Do you drink the medicine?”

“No. Brace yourself...it’s a shot. But, the shot doesn’t even hurt.”

“You don’t feel the shot?”

No, because you are already writhing in so much pain to the point where a gigantic needle being shoved into your spine is hardly even noticeable.

“Nope. Don’t feel it at all.”

Then, my little girl let out a huge sigh of relief and a big grin spread across her face. She said, “Okay, Mom. Maybe I will think about having a baby after all.”

“That’s great, L. Just don’t think about it for another 20 years or so, okay?”

She threw her arms around my neck and said, “Thank you for making me feel better, Mommy.”

I hugged my baby girl and said, “You’re welcome, Monkey. Now you get some sleep, okay?”

For the love of all that is ovulating, please fall asleep before you remember to ask me how the baby gets in your tummy in the first place...

“Good night, L. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mommy. Good night.”

Whew!

Being truthful is hard work. Where’s the stork when you need him?