My Kid Asked Me, “Where Do Babies Come From?”
Cathy: What do you do when your kid comes to you and says, “Where do babies come from?”
I’m here with J.D aka Jen Devine from superstar…I don’t want to get wrong. http://superstarhealtheducation.com/ and I’m Cathy Vartuli from https://theintimacydojo.com/ and
Jen: Oh, you’re really good at letting that one roll right off your tongue
Cathy: ‘coz I’m always saying
Jen: intimacy dojo, I’m like
Cathy: Well, I’ve always done it.
Jen: I can’t even say that fast.
Cathy: I’m always…..we have like a thousand videos so I’d practiced many times.
Jen: Amazing.
Cathy: Yeah, yours I’m apologizing
Jen: Superstar health education.
Cathy: How can I get
Jen: I get to learn how to say it. It’s super-fast.
Cathy: Yeah. You….you can just
Jen: Superstar health education. I can’t even do it myself. Okay
Cathy: So if….if someone comes…you teach children about sex
Jen: Yup.
Cathy: and….and I love that you do this. If a child came to you….you know it comes to a parent and there’s like where do babies come from, how do you know what to tell them and how to help them feel comfortable in a way that you don’t end up scarring them or scaring them?
Jen: Okay, well. Okay, in a classroom I usually turn that question around
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: back to the class to find out what they know
Cathy: Oh, that’s nice.
Jen: and inevitably in the lovely areas I work which include San Francisco, Marin County, San Jose, New York City all over the place inevitably the kids can come up with usually about eight different ways.
Cathy: Oh
Jen: And
Cathy: Cabbage Patch?
Jen: No. None of them involve mythology.
Cathy: Oh, that’s good.
Jen: and they’re usually right on target.
Cathy: Oh, wow.
Jen: So, for a parent you might condense it a little bit but I’ll tell you what I….what I usually call out of the classroom. So first of all we always know that like in order to start a human being you need a sperm and an egg, right? One of the common ways that can come together. One of the most common ways is like penis going on vagina and ejaculation could happen. Sperms swims up to a place where an egg is and might start a pregnancy eventually, right? That’s one common way and kids are like “yeah, okay what…yeah” and they usually know they’re just wanting us to actually say that. Then
Cathy: It’s nice to have things confirmed.
Jen: Yes, exactly. Then there’s all these other wonderful ways that children have come into the world and usually the kids have heard about oh
Cathy: In vitro and
Jen: Yeah, like so you go to the sperm bank, a generous person get some give some sperm, person goes there could be a single lady or a couple or and she brings it home and puts it inside her own body. It swims to the place for the egg is and boom…boom, that’s another way. In vitro fertilization an egg gets taken out of a body and a sperm gets taken out of a body and they meet in a laboratory dish and doctor helps the egg and sperm get together and that nice doctor lady have then helped to put back in the body of a person with the uterus and the person with the uterus boom has a baby. Oh, wait egg donors. Wait my eggs don’t work very well. Where am I going to get an egg? I don’t know how to go to the egg bank. Well, I have a friend who has an egg who’s willing to give to me, sweet. So then that egg goes into a dish in the laboratory with the sperm bank egg or the egg from a person and there’s sperm from the person and then they put that back inside a person with the uterus and then boom that’s another way to make a baby. Oh, wait I don’t really want to have a baby come out of….of my own uterus.
Cathy: Adopt.
Jen: Hey, I know we could adopt a child or have foster kids that’s really cool or I know a lady who’s willing to have a baby for me that’s called a surrogate. That’s awesome. That’s seven so far. Sweet, okay. Let’s see what else? Oh sometimes there are two people and they have they get together and they have a child maybe adopt, foster or you know the penis and vagina thing and then they have a child then they realize “hey, we’re not really compatible for raising this child together.” “I know that’s a little sad” “but it’s actually really great.” “I’m happy we’re separating.” So now this kid goes with this person lalalala. “Bye! I still really like you kid totally.” Okay and then this person over here starts a new family by meeting new person. Hey, I’m the new person. Now, I have a kid in my family. Sweet. Hey stepmom. Awesome, right? So then we have all these cool blended families
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: and you know grandparents who take care of children. So there’s all these different ways we make families and
Cathy: The poly families where
Jen: I was just going to say that poly families where there’s multiple adults taking care of children and then in the queer community there’s also what we call family which is a bigger family.
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: We all choose to add into our family by choice who may not be related by sperm and egg relationships and that’s also really neat. So how do we start a family? How do we get a baby? Lots of ways, right?
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: Lots of ways. I probably can’t even sum out ‘coz usually my fourth graders school me on that they’re like “hey, Ms. Devine you truly forgot to….to you know the penis and vagina type.” And I was “oh yeah. You’re right I forgot that.
Cathy: That works so
Jen: Sorry.” Or whatever. I leave one out.
Cathy: Yeah
Jen: Oh, yeah lots of different ways. So
Cathy: Yes
Jen: there’s some cool books about that
Cathy: I….you know
Jen: How do you
Cathy: when you were sharing…..yeah
Jen: Yeah.
Cathy: I’m sure there are. Well, maybe can you tell some….few of them?
Jen: One that I really like is called What Makes a Baby
Cathy: Oh
Jen: by Cory Silverberg and it’s like designed for little kids.
Cathy: Oh, that’s Cory Silverberg
Jen: Super cool.
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: Great colors, great pictures, it doesn’t leave anybody out, it talks about bodies with uterus and bodies with sperm, bodies with eggs and they’re all like really bright colorful pictures that like
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: little kids can relate to and it’s just told in a really like sweet way about like there’s a story in the sperm and there’s a story in the egg when you mix them together they make a story together.
Cathy: Oh, nice.
Jen: Then you’d become that story
Cathy: You need story. Yeah.
Jen: Very neat.
Cathy: Very cool.
Jen: Yeah.
Cathy: Yeah and as you’re sharing this, I realized that a….a lot of people are nervous when….when the talk is going to come
Jen: Oh, it’s not
Cathy: and they’re
Jen: the talk it’s a million lots of little talks over and over again every time something comes up they relates to bodies which is like every moment
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: every day.
Cathy: but like you’re answering the question they actually asked versus
Jen: Right.
Cathy: like if I was already braced to like “I have to know how to talk about sex.” They may not be what they’re asking at all.
Jen: No and in fact, yeah sometimes kids are like “wait, how did the….you know where it is? Where was the sperm bank?” Like that’s actually what they want to know.
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: So sometimes you have to find out exactly what it is they’re asking.
Cathy: Rather than jump for it.
Jen: When they say “where do babies come from?” You say “why….I’m wondering why you’re asking?” You know like “well one of my friend on the playground told me that you go to the hospital and you buy the baby” and you’re like “actually let’s correct that.”
Cathy: Yeah. They are expensive.
Jen: They are expensive but that’s…..they….you don’t have to buy them at the hospital usually.
Cathy: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Do you have anything you might want to add on this besides your….
Jen: Clarify the question.
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: Be a lot shorter in your answer that I am. That’s always my trouble is be short and sweet and ask if there any further questions
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: and then the kid will either say “no, that’s all I wanted to know” or they’ll say you didn’t actually answer their question well.
Cathy: Yeah.
Jen: you know
Cathy: Oh, there you go
Jen: They’ll call you on it.
Cathy: Nice.
Jen: Yeah
Cathy: Yeah. If you have questions, comments, thoughts please leave them below. We’d love to know what you think.
