It is time for another edition of how do you make a baby only this time we’ll call it the same sex edition. If you spend time digging through the archives here you’ll notice that when I am not talking about basketball, politics, religion or threatening my internet troll I am relating parenting stories. More than a few of them deal with my children and their questions, comments and thoughts about how we make a baby. I am pretty good with these conversations. Most of the time they don’t faze me and I handle them with ease and alacrity.
I attribute that to being one of the greatest dad bloggers ever, maybe even the best. Of course you usually won’t find me on the greatest dad blogger lists because I don’t play nicely with some of the other players. I bite, gouge eyes and engage in a little bit of fish hooking. Some people call that playing dirty but I call it protecting myself. You fight with honor and I’ll sing your praises from alongside your hospital bed. Ignore that last digression into the land of nonsense and join me for the story of how my children got into an argument about whether you need to have a man and woman to have a baby.
It is the joyous tale of two children who debated for hours about whether two women can figure out a way to have a baby without using a man’s help. Â I don’t know how the conversation began or why but I can tell you that my kids were fired up about it. So let’s provide some background and then I’ll fill in some of the details for you.
My kids go to school with the children of a same sex couple. I haven’t any issue with same sex couples and believe in gay marriage. FWIW, I think that the kids and I have discussed marriage a few times but I don’t recall going into great detail. Mostly it focused on divorce and what happens to the kids, but even that was limited.
Anyhoo these wacky kids of mine start talking about how you make a baby and find themselves in the midst of a heated argument. Not that unusual for them because like many siblings they engage in a love/hate relationship. Nor is this the first conversation about this topic. A while back my daughter went ballistic because her older brother insisted that humans come from eggs. Â I remember her screaming at him that we aren’t chickens. I hate to admit it, but it was pretty damn funny. Don’t know where she got that idea because we haven’t ever taught her anything that resembles that. What would be the point of such a hard boiled discussion. Sorry for the eggciting humor.
During the most recent debate my daughter spent time verbally fencing with her brother because she had proof that two girls could have kids. Â And her proof was that some of her friends have two mommies. Her older brother insisted that the two mommies couldn’t have gotten knocked up without involving a man. Although he did admit that he wasn’t clear as to how the man was involved, just that he was.
When I walked into the room the two of them immediately began shouting at me to tell her brother/his sister that they were right. I of course demonstrated my noble and wise nature by telling them that they were taking all the fun out of making a baby. This generated two confused looks and a series of questions as to why it is fun and how much do I like it. I immediately made a mental note to have the filter on my mouth serviced because clearly some of the stuff it is supposed to catch slipped through.
Fortunately I am fast on my feet and I asked my daughter why she says “Girls rule, boys drool.” It had the desired effect of changing the topic and I was able to circle back to our discussion about whether a man is needed. I asked them both if they could tell me how to make a baby and received big smiles and red faces in return. My daughter said that to do it you have to “touch privates” and my son said that you need the stuff that “isn’t pee to come out.”
This of course led to the question of how do you get the “stuff that isn’t pee” to come out if a man isn’t involved, not to mention how do you do it even if he is involved. And because they love to ask questions we also got, “when does it come out,” “where do you put it” and “what does it look like?”
I told them that it comes out when moms and dads have special moments together and that it doesn’t look like much of anything. Of course they noticed that I didn’t answer where do you put it and not because I didn’t lack for answers. Believe me I had plenty of smart answers that I didn’t share with them. But it was getting late and I didn’t want to get into that. And truthfully I wanted to think a little bit more about the whole same sex line of talk. I have heard a few whispers among the parents about it. Most of them were in line with my thoughts but not all.
As I mentioned above, I support gay marriage. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest and I am not worried about people suddenly marrying their dogs or any of the other stuff that is sometimes mentioned. But I am worried about what my children hear so I wanted to see if there was a way to suss out whether any of the “wrong stuff” was shared with them.
I don’t see any need for them to be involved in a political/religious discussion about it and unless necessary I won’t introduce them to it.
A short time later my daughter called out to me and asked if I would give her hug and a kiss goodnight. Just before I left the room she told me that one day she was going to be a mommy and she would find out all of the answers to her questions even the ones that I didn’t answer. Two thoughts to share:
Damn, that girl is far too smart.
She really is determined to make me lose all of my hair. 🙂
G’Day Jack,
We have four children. The youngest is 38. Our eldest grandchild is 18. Only the other day as we were returning from a particularly enjoyable family picnic, I said to my wife, “How on earth did we survive?”
Somehow or other, we did and so did they. Now that’s luck!
Regards
Leon
@3884c43f625610ab1bb99b677867ea2a:disqus Perhaps I should put you in contact with my mother. She wants to know how my baby sisters got to be 37 but I don’t think that I should be the one to explain that to her.
Four kids- that had been my plan but since I wasn’t the one providing a womb with a view I was overruled.
G’Day Jack,
We have four children. The youngest is 38. Our eldest grandchild is 18. Only the other day as we were returning from a particularly enjoyable family picnic, I said to my wife, “How on earth did we survive?”
Somehow or other, we did and so did they. Now that’s luck!
Regards
Leon
@3884c43f625610ab1bb99b677867ea2a:disqus Perhaps I should put you in contact with my mother. She wants to know how my baby sisters got to be 37 but I don’t think that I should be the one to explain that to her.
Four kids- that had been my plan but since I wasn’t the one providing a womb with a view I was overruled.
These discussions are always “fun”. Â Just starting them with my 4 year old…more to come I’m sure.
Thanks for the preview.
@twitter-19175640:disqus Hi Aaron, They really are great fun and I love having them. Some of them are more challenging than others, but they really provide some special opportunities.
These discussions are always “fun”. Â Just starting them with my 4 year old…more to come I’m sure.
Thanks for the preview.
@twitter-19175640:disqus Hi Aaron, They really are great fun and I love having them. Some of them are more challenging than others, but they really provide some special opportunities.
Interesting conversation with the kids and sounded like you handled it with aplomb. You dropped alacrity in there so I had to come back with something.
My sister is in a same-sex relationship; in a previous relationship they had a son. My sister’s partner carried the baby. My sister considers him her son as well and when we get together at Christmas it was awkward to me because I didn’t know how to introduce him.
I heard my sister refer to him as her Godson and I just call him my nephew; it’s all good.
We have all the bases covered at Christmas; all the families meet at my other sister’s house. My aunt & uncle who are ultra conservative Southern Baptist are there; my gay sister and her partner are there w/ my ‘nephew’; and my niece who married a fine Jewish boy and converted to Judaism with his family are there as well. And you know what, it works just fine.
Kind of got off topic there Jack, but thanks for sharing the story.
@a76049f6a32a1e633a732b81bafb98c9:disqus Bill, that sounds like quite a family gathering. We have a relatively interesting mix here too. Life is filled with lots of these interesting moments and events.
I think that it is pretty clear that normal isn’t really normal- it is just a kind of construct that we put together.
I just try to roll with the punches and teach the kids to be good to people.
Interesting conversation with the kids and sounded like you handled it with aplomb. You dropped alacrity in there so I had to come back with something.
My sister is in a same-sex relationship; in a previous relationship they had a son. My sister’s partner carried the baby. My sister considers him her son as well and when we get together at Christmas it was awkward to me because I didn’t know how to introduce him.
I heard my sister refer to him as her Godson and I just call him my nephew; it’s all good.
We have all the bases covered at Christmas; all the families meet at my other sister’s house. My aunt & uncle who are ultra conservative Southern Baptist are there; my gay sister and her partner are there w/ my ‘nephew’; and my niece who married a fine Jewish boy and converted to Judaism with his family are there as well. And you know what, it works just fine.
Kind of got off topic there Jack, but thanks for sharing the story.
@a76049f6a32a1e633a732b81bafb98c9:disqus Bill, that sounds like quite a family gathering. We have a relatively interesting mix here too. Life is filled with lots of these interesting moments and events.
I think that it is pretty clear that normal isn’t really normal- it is just a kind of construct that we put together.
I just try to roll with the punches and teach the kids to be good to people.
Oh my. I am so not ready for those kinds of questions!
@shellthings:disqus They come far too quickly and once they start coming they come frequently.
Oh my. I am so not ready for those kinds of questions!
@shellthings:disqus They come far too quickly and once they start coming they come frequently.
Haha, the mouth filter fail metaphor.
Yup, gotta figure out how to talk to your kids about stuff, and younger than you think. Before my kids were that old, I was teaching a class on Torah literature, law and how to make good moral decisions to middle schoolers. At 12 and 13, these kids were starving to talk about tough issues. I once had a father scream at me because his son said I said Jesus was Jewish and that was blasphemy. I had a boy ask me in a whisper after class if God hates gays. I could see in his eyes exactly why he was asking, and I knew the dad was impatient in a huge rig outside waiting to go home. I realized that I had to have the guts to talk to my kids about things like sex and politics and religion, because I sure didn’t want them to pick up their ideas just anywhere.
You are right. If we don’t talk to our kids someone else will so it is important to talk and teach them the values that we think are important.
Haha, the mouth filter fail metaphor.
Yup, gotta figure out how to talk to your kids about stuff, and younger than you think. Before my kids were that old, I was teaching a class on Torah literature, law and how to make good moral decisions to middle schoolers. At 12 and 13, these kids were starving to talk about tough issues. I once had a father scream at me because his son said I said Jesus was Jewish and that was blasphemy. I had a boy ask me in a whisper after class if God hates gays. I could see in his eyes exactly why he was asking, and I knew the dad was impatient in a huge rig outside waiting to go home. I realized that I had to have the guts to talk to my kids about things like sex and politics and religion, because I sure didn’t want them to pick up their ideas just anywhere.
You are right. If we don’t talk to our kids someone else will so it is important to talk and teach them the values that we think are important.