h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When I was a child I was told nothing. When I started menstruating my father sat down to tell me the facts of life. He told me nothing I did not already know, except how the seed was planted in the woman's tummy and I was too shy to ask. I learned that much later.

When I was a mum with four small children, a friend lent me a lovely little book with drawings of chicken and eggs on the first page, dogs on the second, I think, and cats and other animals, all with their young. On the last but one page there was a drawing of a nude man lying on top of a nude woman and on the last page they had a baby. I left that book around because my children were supposed to find it by themselves and read it out of curiosity, which never happened.

One evening, when my husband was travelling, I put the book on the table after dinner and we did not get up from the table until several hours later. The kids all looked at the book and then the questions began. They asked me everything they wanted to know, about twins, about birth defects, about the down syndrome, abortions and the actual birth, even sexual violence. I took care only to answer their questions and not go beyond that, but I told them that if they wanted to know anything at all later on, they should not hesitate to ask me. After all, the bigger ones were only nine, ten and eleven years old and I knew they would only absorb what they could grasp and were interested in.

The way babies were made was easily accepted by my children as I explained it and used the real names for all the anatomical parts of the female and male bodies. I did emphasize though, that the husband and wife, when they loved each other very much, wanted intercourse and that it was wonderful being joined together like that. I also told them that intercourse not always produced babies.

My smallest child was only three years old at the time and she accepted everything so naturally, that in the years to come she kept forgetting and used to come regularly back to me to ask about one thing or another. There was no awkwardness about any of it, on the contrary, it was sheer delight to speak frankly about the most natural thing in the world with all my children. There were so many questions accumulated in each of them, and God knows if they would have asked me or their father if I had not goaded them on.

I shall always be grateful for having used the little book to start building a very open relationship between them and me which lasts until today. We have never had any secrets. Now they have their own children and are bringing them up the same open way.

There is nothing shameful about love and children should always be told the truth when they ask questions. That is my belief.