How do you truthfully answer questions of a 5 or 6 year old about procreation, childbirth and marriage without talking about sex, genetalia and pleasure. And is it a good idea to talk about them to a 6 year old?
I told them that sometimes a man will give a seed to the woman and that seed grows inside an egg in her body. It then grows until it's ready to come out, and that's the baby's birthday.
Super simplified (and perhaps sheltered), but not lying.
Marriage is even easier. Sometimes two people love each other and make a commitment to be together even when things are difficult. But sometimes they become too difficult and one or both of them decides they don't want to be married any more.
But yes, I do think it's good to indulge a child's curiosity.
My mother indulging my curiosity is precisely why I am who I am today. She's told me that my most frequent word was why. That voracious thirst for knowledge and understanding shaped me into the scientist that I am, and we certainly need more scientists if we are to solve the pressing issues of our society.
https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Funny-Word-Bodies-Feelings/dp/160...
Google Image search works too to show illustrations or medical drawings of sex organs.
But keep in mind that it’s easy for adults to project their adult experiences into children. When a kid asks how babies are made, they are very unlikely to be asking about intercourse or romance or eroticism or pleasure or any such thing, nor are they even likely to be particularly interested in those topics. They are probably asking for something about how a sperm and an egg combine to make an embryo and how that embryo grows up into a baby inside of a mommy. They might be interested in how the baby gets out. They might be interested in how the sperm and egg combine, and, depending on their age, they might be fascinated by genetics. Maybe they’re interested in how some animals fertilize eggs inside of mommies and how some other animals fertilize eggs after they’ve been laid. Some kids will be interested to learn that plants do this too. (But mosses are quite different, as are creatures like aphids and even oranges!).
And yes, kids should know how sex works, how consent works, and how sex results in babies before they figure it out by accident. But that’s unlikely to be anything that a 5 or 6 year old asks.
(5 year olds are very likely to need to be aware of consent in non-sexual contexts, though.)
Sometimes it's terrifying for them when they don't know the truth.
There are other childhood development phases such as edge detection physics that make parents bonkers. How many times do we have to pick up spoons from the floor before they just understand that stuff always crashes to the floor when knocked off a high chair?
It’s a recent societal invention to think this is all something to be hidden until the 365th day of the 17th year of life.
Typical pattern in Western Europe was women married at 19-22 in the 1500s. You can find outliers like Tuscany in the 1400s where it looks like that number is 17-21.
Typical ancient Roman marriage patterns were for women to wed at 20-25, it seems.
There's outliers, of course. Especially with elites: where political and other concerns often created pressures for early marriage.
Looking at the outliers in today's world, you can find e.g. in Sub-Saharan Africa about 35-40% of women wedding before age 18. So there's really only tiny pockets of the world in space and time where it seems that the average marriage would be under age 18.
So the answer is, it was always taboo for kids or anyone else to watch. People may not have always been able to hide it effectively, but they were always at least trying.
Not sure why you think this. Plenty of other animals become violent during marrying seasons, it's often an explicit part of their sexual behavior, at least for males. For example, most horned mammals (deer, buffalos) have violent conquests in the mating season.
When my partner was pregnant we told explicitly to our 2yo daughter that there was a baby in mom's belly. When the baby was born we told her we went to the hospital and the baby came out of mom's zezette/vagina (zezette is the french word for kids to call vaginas).
I understand that the sex part and human psychology might be harder to explain but you can definitely explain the mechanical part. Sex have a lot of taboos and emotions attached to it but you can describe it to a child without those parts taking a medical/anatomic perspective.
As they say in the Scrubs tv show: "Maybe the dirty little secret about sex is that it isn't so dirty after all"
When a 6 year old asks you about sex there are limits and a context to their curiosity. Usually there's some particular unresolved question in their mind that can be answered truthfully without going into things they're not ready for. You need to understand their mental state.
You don't need to pull down an anatomical chart and start talking about sperm. You don't need to clam up and lie or give them the impression the whole thing is an inimaginable eldritch nightmare. You just need to answer the question.
(Source: Bringing up kids, since these are the only sorts of questions parents have some special insight into.)
so my kid ask me what is prostitute?
someone who does sex for money
obvious question followed, what is the sex?
it's exercise done by adults in bed when they wanna have baby or sometimes even when they don't want because they just like the exercise
kids lost interest after that, now tell me, did I lie? by all accounts sex is pretty good calorie burning exercise
btw. I told them already like year before that how is baby done, that penis goes inside vagina, then sperms go from penis to egg inside and there will grow baby, didn't even bother with some bees and other crap, but dunno how much kids remembered because they were not interested about it. we also watched already around that time amazing (dubbed) TV show Il était une fois... la vie (Once Upon a Time... Life) though I think it's more suitable for old children, I liked it when I was in primary school
we still though tell christmas gifts are brought by santa claus/baby jesus
I remember really appreciating it and keeping track of my sister’s current size on a piece of paper from 1 cell onward.
Even now many of the ways we teach science are not complete - they’re true but not the whole story. Is Newtonian physics untrue or incomplete?
Why would it be a bad idea?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1609804856
https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Funny-Word-Bodies-Feelings/dp/160...
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-Stork-Families-Friends/dp/076...
“You remember how Mommy used to be in so much pain? That was her (name of sickness). It can no longer hurt her, and the pain is finally over for her. The sad part is that Mommy’s body lost the struggle with (name of sickness). That’s why she is no longer with us now.“
“So, is Mommy dead?”
“Yes, my dear. The (name of sickness) was just too strong in the end. The doctors worked so hard and did everything they could. In the end, even they weren’t able to help Mommy. We’re going to be very sad for a long time and that’s going to be tough for us. But you’re not alone, we’re going to get help wherever we can, and we’ll be pulling through that sad time together.”
Recently such a case was discussed in a question/answer column in a Dutch national newspaper where two experts answer such dilemmas. “When do you tell a child that their father isn't their biological parent?” was that week's question, and the answer was a unanimous “As soon as possible”. Don't hide it, don't make a big deal out of it; just explain it in terms a child can understand. Keep it hidden, and the moment they learn the truth (which inevitably won't be through their parents) you will have to deal with very strong feelings of betrayal and rejection that could have been avoided.
It seems that the younger children are, the more readily they can just accept such facts. Keeping secrets will inevitably backfire and cause trust issues.
He’s now 3 and he’s definitely discovered playing with his peepee is fun.