ARE there five more terrifying words that can come from the mouth of your offspring than “where did I come from”?
I think not.
Gone are the days when a simple “oh, you came from the pumpkin patch” will cut it with my daughter.
Not only does she want to know the ins and outs – so to speak – of how she came into being, she wants to know everything, in detail, about ‘it’.
I suppose there’s only so long she could keep believing a stork dropped her at my doorstep.
But how do you know when children are ready to hear the truth about the facts of life?
Well, the day they find a copy of Where Did I Come From on the top of the bookshelf might be a good start.
It happened.
She found it.
And there were questions – boy, were there questions.
No amount of diversion would steer her off track.
So I braced myself for ‘the talk’ and ended up breathing sighs of relief when the first “difference” she noticed between naked cartoon men and women was that the women wore lipstick.
Phew!
She wasn’t interested in the birds and the bees at all.
And once we got talking about lipstick – a subject matter I suddenly had plenty of interesting ‘facts’ about – she pretty much forgot about the rest of the book.
Or so I thought.
Having managed to steer clear of the most delicate topics that evening I thought I was in the clear.
Until she woke up the next morning and told me she had noticed “other differences” between the naked cartoon couple.
“Uh oh,” I thought. “Here we go.”
Then she told me the man was bald; and I smiled.
I get to keep my child a child for a little bit longer.
Now to hide that book…