Shanna was talking about her vulva this morning and acting questioning (this is where her language skills get a bit muddy) and I said, “Yup all girls have vulvas.” And then I stopped. Actually, no. All girls don’t have vulvas. But most girls do. And very few boys have vulvas. Man. I think things are going to be complicated to explain to her.
That’s an awesome userpic.
Well, I do…
While I don’t advocate *lying* to kids, telling them partial truths is often age-appropriate. Plenty of time later for her to get more info, eh?
I’m not sure how I feel about that. The problem is that my mom believed in that and it caused me an awful lot of problems. I don’t think that kids necessarily need to hear 100% of the truth of everything, but… it’s hard to figure out the line.
Like in this situation I think I will probably say in the future, “Most girls have vaginas”. Once she is old enough to question that I will follow up but I probably won’t offer anything past that until she asks. I think I’m not going to be comfortable with the old standby “Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina”.
I guess my only concern with not going with the boy-penis-girl-vagina thing is that being hella open (most ___ have ___) might lead to awkward moments at school-
and I just remembered you’re doing the homeschool thing so it doesn’t really matter! Never mind. 😀
I’m curious for an example of a partial truth that caused you problems? My initial response was similar to Paulas, on the order of, kids aren’t really thinking in complicated terms, and I don’t think giving them elaborately complicated answers is necessarily appropriate. Example being “where do babies come from” right now for Frogling is no further developed than her noticing the pregnant belly of one of her teachers. She plays at putting things under her shirt and saying she’s making a baby. She isn’t interested/wondering how the baby got there, nor does anyone need to tell her. I think certain information is too complex and potentially scary to a little kid, and thus not good to give. I applaud your insticts to educate her with the understanding of gender vs sex vs biology, but I just don’t quite think it’s a point worth trying to make with her YET. (iPhone impaired posting)
I’m not trying to get into it with her at this point. I’m realizing that I need to watch what I say. I would prefer to not say stuff that I will need to backtrack from later.
Wouldn’t girls-by-choice prefer that your daughter assumes they have vulvas rather than asking if they’re the sort of girl with a vulva “or are you a girl who has a penis like most boys”??
Given that the people she would ask are people who are adult friends of mine I don’t think they would be all that upset. I know that her godmother would be just fine explaining the situation.
Ah, then it’s easy since you just ask them what they’d prefer.
having raised an anatomic boy and girl we always approached it as to what *they* had.
“I have a penis!” – why yes, you do.
“I have a vulva!” – why yes, you do.
simple and direct makes it a lot easier on everyone.
this place where my family lives is a *very* diverse community where hand-holding and kissing partners of any combination you might wish to imagine are common.
my kids caught on
that people are different
without us even ever mentioning it.
we didn’t fuss over it – it just happened.
relax.
kids learn by example, y’know.