Imagine......

[Sarahkka]

The poor thing!
It's good that she had at least one adult around who knew to reassure her and get her all sorted out.
But it kind of proves my point: you don't spare your children anything by keeping them ignorant - you just set them up for anxiety and humiliation.
I think it is particularly important to talk to your kids early about sex because:
a) whether we like it or not, kids are becoming sexual much earlier
b) that is how you teach them to respect their own bodies and rights and those of others around them.
I don't want my son learning about sexuality from a porno mag. I want him to be able to talk to me and ask me questions so that I can let him know about sex and love and respecting his partner and taking precautions and all that stuff.
I'm not going to go into those kind of details when he is a four year old, but I will have a conversation about it with him if he asks me.
I also think that having a no-nonsense attitude towards sex helps to open up the topic so that my kid won't be scared to talk to me. That's my best defense as a parent against someone messing with my kid, or my kid getting into sex too young, I think. Respectful communication and education, all the way.


Boy, we've come a long way from elephant labour, haven't we? LOL

 

[leedsforever]

we indeed have.... how conversations evovle ey?? lol!!!

But I agree 100% with you!! I wont by any means be ramming it down my daughters throat but if she comes and asks me at any age "where do babies come from" obviously there are ways of being less graphic but I wont be fobbing her off with any stork stories!! Like you said it may just lead to embaressment and confusion later on!!

I never once felt embaressed around my mum in talking about it!! In fact it was only last week I was saying how its a way to bring on labour lol..... my nan was there too!! We just had a giggle about it!!!
I just said "well it got the baby in there must get her out"
A relaxed attitude is the way forward in my eyes

 

[Neecee]

I'd like to be a cat, and be pregnant for about 28 days lol

Me too!!! Me too!!! I can do 28 days, no sweat!!!

How come it only takes 28 days to grow a new cat, but 40 friggin' weeks to grow a baby??? Surely we're not that much more complex!

 

[PeanutBean]

What an interesting thread! I can't really contribute to the elephant line of it as my expertise is in non-mammal mating. The worms I worked on all spawn together, eggs and sperm coming out into the sea, all at the same time. It's harvest time for lots of predators! So they don't get pregnant at all. The adults then die as the body actually ruptures to release the gametes. I'm glad I'm not a worm.

On the kids and sex thing, I quite agree, this pretending things aren't what they really are really annoys me. I don't remember ever not knowing about sex nor did I ever have any weird ideas about it. I reckon a part of it was being the youngest of 4 with my oldest brother nearly 9 years older than me. It's hard not to pick things up from the older kids! I was also very sensible about sex and waited until I was 16 and in a relationship with a guy I stayed with for 3 and a half years. I also went on the pill and used condoms. I don't believe for one second that kids go out and do it just because they what it is.

To take the thread even further from its origins, I get annoyed at the general level of lying to kids about allsorts of things, not just sex. For example, kids that believe in Father Christmas, the tooth fairy, etc. It's not that I think kids shouldn't be allowed to imagine things, but when they truly believe something wholly ridiculous they often get distraught when they find out the truth with a flashbulb memory of the time it all came it. It's one thing if they just pick up ideas from school or whatever but when parents reinforce it with a charade of wine by the fireside etc it just annoys me. I'm afraid I'm a scientist and I'd rather my kids put their imagination to more feasible or creative things than believing wholeheartedly in some nonsense lie.

 

[xXx Vamp xXx]

This thread made me giggle, saturday night I was babysitting my 7 yr old nephew, when we went to bed we decided to watch black beauty. As most of you can probably remember this begins with a horse giving birth... what interesting conversations came from that....and then, the nipple feeding comments, and then, the, well, my mommy couldn't breast feed me, but you can breast feed can't you. I think you should, unless you're ill, if you're ill don't breast feed, but if you're not you should. And you give birth out of your twinkle don't you? Well sometimes it's the belly, but usually it's the twinkle isn't it aunty Sian?

- It was an interesting night haha!

 

[Neecee]

This thread made me giggle, saturday night I was babysitting my 7 yr old nephew, when we went to bed we decided to watch black beauty. As most of you can probably remember this begins with a horse giving birth... what interesting conversations came from that....and then, the nipple feeding comments, and then, the, well, my mommy couldn't breast feed me, but you can breast feed can't you. I think you should, unless you're ill, if you're ill don't breast feed, but if you're not you should. And you give birth out of your twinkle don't you? Well sometimes it's the belly, but usually it's the twinkle isn't it aunty Sian?

- It was an interesting night haha!

Twinkle!!! How cute!!!!

 

[leedsforever]

To take the thread even further from its origins, I get annoyed at the general level of lying to kids about allsorts of things, not just sex. For example, kids that believe in Father Christmas, the tooth fairy, etc. It's not that I think kids shouldn't be allowed to imagine things, but when they truly believe something wholly ridiculous they often get distraught when they find out the truth with a flashbulb memory of the time it all came it. It's one thing if they just pick up ideas from school or whatever but when parents reinforce it with a charade of wine by the fireside etc it just annoys me. I'm afraid I'm a scientist and I'd rather my kids put their imagination to more feasible or creative things than believing wholeheartedly in some nonsense lie.

I was thinking about this and Im not sure how I feel about it!!I understand what your saying but I really like the whole father christmas thing!! It made everything so exciting!! And I dont remember being overly traumatised when I found out he wasnt real!!

 

[PeanutBean]

I was thinking about this and Im not sure how I feel about it!!I understand what your saying but I really like the whole father christmas thing!! It made everything so exciting!! And I dont remember being overly traumatised when I found out he wasnt real!!

It's just the blatant deception of it that gets me. I mentioned this to my mum and she said they never even mentioned FC to us but as soon as my brother started school he came home with all kinds of ideas anyway. I think I just believe in being honest with kids. Plus I'd rather they are aware that we get the presents rather than some magic man who defies the laws of physics getting all the credit! lol

I don't remember ever believing in anything like that but I still accepted him as a part of Christmas tradition. I never felt I'd missed out and didn't understand why other friends would put stuff out for him, but then even as teenagers some of them were saying they still did it!! Of course they knew their parents had the stuff, so I really don't understand that! It just all feels like some kids of weird power trip to be deceiving kids, it's not like they can't have fun without buying into these weird myths.

 

[leedsforever]

It's just the blatant deception of it that gets me. I mentioned this to my mum and she said they never even mentioned FC to us but as soon as my brother started school he came home with all kinds of ideas anyway. I think I just believe in being honest with kids. Plus I'd rather they are aware that we get the presents rather than some magic man who defies the laws of physics getting all the credit! lol

I don't remember ever believing in anything like that but I still accepted him as a part of Christmas tradition. I never felt I'd missed out and didn't understand why other friends would put stuff out for him, but then even as teenagers some of them were saying they still did it!! Of course they knew their parents had the stuff, so I really don't understand that! It just all feels like some kids of weird power trip to be deceiving kids, it's not like they can't have fun without buying into these weird myths.

I cant remember what age we stopped believing... it was quite young!! My mum never went down the route of writing love FC on the presants!! We were under the impression that my mum sent him all the presants for him to bring them back to us lol!!! As soon as we didnt believe that was it.... we didnt pretend to my mum nor did my mum try and keep trying to make him real!!

Arrr I love christmas lol... cant wait for this year

 

[PeanutBean]

I cant remember what age we stopped believing... it was quite young!! My mum never went down the route of writing love FC on the presants!! We were under the impression that my mum sent him all the presants for him to bring them back to us lol!!! As soon as we didnt believe that was it.... we didnt pretend to my mum nor did my mum try and keep trying to make him real!!

Arrr I love christmas lol... cant wait for this year

Where is the logic in that?!

You're cute about Christmas! lol

Our Christmas is gonna be so different this year, baby will still be so new, totally different experience.

 

[leedsforever]

I KNOW where is the logic??? I think its just the idea of going downstairs and our santa sacks would be there... mince pie eaten and carrot eaten too

Its helps to get kids to sleep as well!! I could never sleep on christmas eve but if you dont sleep then no santa

Christmas definetly lost its thing these past couple of years and has been more about my partying but now with my own baby around Im going to love it it!!! Even though she will only just be able to hold her own head up !! She will still be there

 

[PeanutBean]

Kids will always wake up at 4am! In our house we got a present on Christmas Eve at bedtime, DH and I do that now for each other. We also weren't allowed any presents until after breakfast. Another way is to help is to have a stocking of tiny presents on their beds to help calm them then have the main opening later.

For our birthdays my parents used to put our presents on the end of our beds so we could open them when we woke up. I remember one year waking up and it still being dark (my birthday is in Feb so this was no guidance of time) and opening all my presents then hearing my parents were still up! They must've only just put them there. Whoops! I think I wrapped them back up again!

 

[leedsforever]

Kids will always wake up at 4am! In our house we got a present on Christmas Eve at bedtime, DH and I do that now for each other. We also weren't allowed any presents until after breakfast. Another way is to help is to have a stocking of tiny presents on their beds to help calm them then have the main opening later.

For our birthdays my parents used to put our presents on the end of our beds so we could open them when we woke up. I remember one year waking up and it still being dark (my birthday is in Feb so this was no guidance of time) and opening all my presents then hearing my parents were still up! They must've only just put them there. Whoops! I think I wrapped them back up again!

how funny!!!

Its so funny how different families do different things!! Some of my friends had to get dressed and everything!! We never One year I had my step grandparents round.... my gosh I was soooo annoyed!! I woke up at 5am... which was the norm... and we had to wait till about 8 am!! I had my gameboy to play for 3 hours though!!!

 

[BeckyBoo]

O_O at this thread lol.