One sunny spring morning I was helping my mother with the dishes while a soap opera played in the background. I was six or so, and for some reason kept running between the rooms.
At one point, a woman was straining to have a baby. Her brow was moist. Her hair messy, but still pretty. She was wearing an ugly hospital gown and screaming. AND screaming. Pan to a shot of giant open mouth, cut to a shot of squalling, screaming baby.
Well I thought…I know a secret!
I ran back to the kitchen, and tugged on my mother’s wet sleeve.
“Mom!” I proudly crowed, “I know how BABIES are made!!!”
There was a pause. A moment later,
“Really?” This came out slightly strangled.
“Uh-huh. That lady was screaming and the baby, it came out of her mouth! Then she stopped yelling.”
I don’t remember my mother’s face, but I do seem to recall her hands gripping the counter tightly.
A week or so later, I was messing around in the area we called “the library”, really just eight shelves of books and a giant eight-track player. Sitting on top of the eight-track was a very pink, and very cutesy book, the name of which escapes me at the moment. I do remember that it was clear on one thing-when a man and a woman love each other, they become VERY close, and nine months later, a baby comes. Through the vagina.
Reading the book alone, I didn’t really get it. I sorta knew the parts, but really, I didn’t. But the pictures were fun.
Flash forward to my own daughters. By three each knew the proper terms for their “equipment,” and boys’. And it’s not a big deal-as I explained to my eldest, you wouldn’t give your elbow some silly name, so why your vulva or penis?
One day, rooting in the book bins at my favorite thrift store, I found a new copy of A Child is Born and immediately snatched it. It was exactly what I would have wanted to have, and wanted my daughters to see. Exactly how a baby is made, created, and birthed.
Showing them was not traumatic. Uncomfortable yes, especially for my husband at the page with the erect, infrared penis. Sitting with my girls, and showing them, exactly what their bodies can do if they want, and how they do them, was freeing. No more soap opera babies or white knuckle conversations. Just glorious pictures of the miracle of our bodies.
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