The Talk

Well, it was inevitable, and it’s happened. Not necessarily on purpose, but by virtue of the fact that we had a somewhat nomadic lifestyle for a while, homeschooling, and the fact that our kids really don’t watch much TV (videos, yes, but TV hardly any at all), we are likely later than most with “the talk.” We have introduced correct terminology for body parts and matter-of-fact discussions about childbirth (two of our children were born at home) previously.

Ironically, the topic was raised during morning devotional time. Reading about controlling our anger, we discussed Cain and Abel. The New Living Translation we use reads like this in Genesis 4:1:

Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, “With the Lord’s help, I have produced a man!”

Before we read any further, Pumpkin and Sweetpea said, “What does THAT mean?”

This was the last topic I expected to be raised during Bible study time!

But since it was, I asked them to wait until the next day and I would explain. Using as our foundation the concept that sex is a gift from God for marriage, I introduced four key concepts:

1. God created sex – Genesis 2:18-25
2. God sees sex as “very good” – Genesis 1:26,31
3. The union between man and wife makes them one – Matthew 19:4-6
4. A husband and a wife should reserve sex for their marriage alone – Exodus 20:14

And then, of course, it was necessary to explain the physical aspects. We looked at a diagram of flowers and talked about seeds and fertilization and how that was a principle established by God and that every living thing needs these two parts to join together in order to reproduce.

Our kids know enough about animal reproduction to have some excellent questions. For the rest of our talk, I borrowed from principles from Mary Flo Ridley’s “Simple Truths” CD (downloadable from iTunes) or available at Amazon. Everything was age appropriate, and explained with correct terminology. There were a few giggles and one “blech!” but then they started talking about something else.

Much less painful than I thought it might be. I highly recommend the two resources I drew from to arm myself for this important discussion:

1. Simple Truths – by Mary Flo Ridley
2. Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality – by Jim Burns