Hi Ladies, Yesterday my sister's daughter who is 7 years old asked a question and I didn't know what to tell her. Her question was "why are kids born only after you get married ? " Though my own daughter is only 3 yrs old, this put me thinking on how we should handle such questions from kids. I know keeping quite or shooing them off will only increase their curiosity. I want to know how some of you experienced mom's (dad's too! ) have tackled these situations.
hi Rani i have been getting such questions ever since my dd was 3 years old (now going to be 4 soon). she still asks questions like "when do i get breasts?", and any answer i give, its followed by a "why so?" "that means, my hair will grow long and breasts come both at the same time?".. recently her aunt (my younger cousin) got married.. question for the day "when will i get married? after i get long hair & .....??" so every now & then she has questions around that, along with the several other questions that keeps bothering her. i do answer every such question and i am now allowed to get away with some crap. i think we need to get creative enough to generate age specific answers to such questions. the ones that i use today might not work out when she is 7 years. but one thing she has been made clear is that she shouldn't be asking such questions in public and that she can ask only me/dh.. after a few embarassments; she now seem to have got the point.
That is so nice of your DD Asha.I had a smile after I read your post.Thanks for making my day:thumbsup. BIL's DD asks some questions.Not scary though.:hide:
Thanks for stepping in Asha. You are right in saying that we need to customize the answers based on thier age. Also, we need to honestly answer these questions, so that the child finds you approachable to ask any questions. I read somewhere that depending on the age even the most intimate questions can be answered in a watered down version of the truth... I am still trying to figure out what should a watered down version for my above question .
I have no idea.But on a funny note though after attending 2-3 marriages, my uncle's daughter who is very fond of makeup and photos said 'Everyone is getting married.When am I getting married'?:rotfl:rotfl:rotflShe was just 4 yrs old that time:biglaugh:biglaugh. I would add another one too.My BIL's kids talking in my room when I was there for my 1st wedding anniversary. A to me: Why dont you have kids yet? U r married and married women have kids. B to A: Hey fool!! Dont you know our aunt got a kid only in 2nd year.So only in 2nd year, married women get a kid.:biglaugh:biglaugh The funniest thing was that this observation was done by younger brother who was in 1st std and he was correcting his elder brother:rotfl
Thanks for your comments RajaLakshmi. Soumya, that was hilarious. Sometimes it also amazes on how these kids can make such inferences .
hi Ranise, even I have been facing many questions like that from my cute DD ever since she was 2 or 3 yrs old. Now she is 10 !! The most recent one was directed to both me and DH over dinner. How do some children resemble the dad - the baby comes from the mom's stomach, then how? That had us dumbstruck for a second and even before we could think of an answer, she said - "Is it because the Genes Pass?":rotfl I am sure she didnt understand what she was talking but this guess of hers was based on a summer camp she had attended where one of the things they spoke about was hybrid varieties of vegetables. as for ur kid's question, about why babies are born only after marriage. My DD had asked this once too, to which my reply was: A small baby needs at least two persons to take care. So God waits for the lady to be married, so that both husband and wife can take care of the baby:thumbsup
Ranise, I am not in your shoes yet, so no direct experience of replying to such questions. I think we should give them simple truthful answers according to their age and add more details to the previous explanations as they grow older. I second you on being honest with the children and telling them watered down version of the truth. They shouldn't get an idea that we are telling them lies, else their trust in us might go down. But as Asha said, what if we get unexpected questions out of the blue that we don't know how to reply to. I think we should compile a list of questions from ILites' experiences and simple truthful answers to be able to handle such questions that are thrown to us.
kids can come up with the darnest of things recently one of my people had gone to the hospital with her three yr old son. the kid looks at the other pregnant woman and wonders why is she so fat? the mother replies saying that the women has a little baby in her stomach, The boy wants to run away from there with the fear the the preg lady would eat him upto too since she has already eaten her little baby.