Preschool Sex Ed - The Truth about PCRLE

 Preschool Sex Ed - The Truth 

about PCRLE

-Sybilla

  In fifteen or twenty years when my now 2 1/2 year old daughter finds herself in a group of friends sharing their tales of when they first received "the talk" she will be unable to recall when she was first told about the birds and the bees, it will be as if she's always just known.
 
   Nine months ago when Corina's cousins and best friend were told they were expecting new siblings I told Corina that the ladies had babies growing in their bellies and that when they were the right size they would be pushed out of their respective mother's vaginas. She accepted this without question for a couple weeks then one day while she was peeing she asked

 "Mommy, do babies come out of reef-rahs or buttholes?".
 "Um..." I replied "Well, neither one. Babies come out of a hole that's below a woman's urethra. Let me show you."

After helping her wipe and dump her potty bucket into the toilet we went to the bookshelf and I got out my copy of "A New View of a Woman's Body" and showed her a photo of a spread vagina pointing out the urethra and vaginal canal.

"Oh," she said looking closely "But I don't want to have hair on my nie-nah when I have a baby."

 I laughed and said "That's a long way off -don't worry about it. Besides if you don't like your hair when it grows you can shave it off. Anyway, babies come out of this opening right here. It stretches really big."

"Mommy, did your vagina get big when I came out?"

"Well.... no. A part inside of me right by your head called my cervix opened up really big but you were coming out face first. The doctor told me you were stuck and she cut you out of my belly. Look, " I said standing up and lifting my shirt "This is the scar that was left after they cut me."

She reached out quietly and touched the scar and then skipped off to play.

    Soon, I was telling Corina that there was a baby growing in my belly too. I told her the baby was as small as a bug and swimming in water. Corina asked almost immediately "How did the baby get in there?" I told her "Daddy helped me. Part of the baby was always inside of me ever since I was a little bug floating in my mommy's belly and then daddy put the rest of the baby in there just a little while ago." She said okay and went back to pretending to grind medicine for one of the sick dolls with a mortar and pestle she made out of blocks. I wasn't trying to avoid giving her the mechanical information about how to make a baby but I didn't want to give more than she was asking for either...well it didn't matter much because it was only a  few days later when she popped the big one.

We were laying in bed before falling asleep one night, this is when she has all her best questions and insights, and she said

"Mommy....How did daddy put the rest of the baby in your belly?"
 For a split second I doubted the choice I had made to answer any question honestly and clearly but after a deep breath I started
 "Daddy put his penis inside the hole I showed you in the book. The hole babies come out of in women's vaginas. Daddy squirted the other part of the baby in there. But hey, if anyone ever asks to put anything into your vagina or touch it at all you need to say 'no!' really loud and come tell me right away okay? Because it will hurt you really bad. No one can touch you there except me, daddy, or a doctor until you are a grown up."
 She was quiet for a while.... "But what IS the thing he put in there?"

 Ug...are you serious kid?

"It's called semen." I said shortly "It looks like snot and has little things that swim in it called sperm. The sperm swims into an egg that is in my body and that grows into the baby."
She was quiet again and then said "Oh. Do I have eggs in my body too?"
"Yes. They grew inside your belly while you were growing inside my belly. Weird huh? Each one of the eggs in your body could be a baby."
"Oh! So, daddy can help me make a baby too?"
"No!! Ew. No. Daddy is my husband. He's only allowed to do that with me. Besides, you have to be a grown up and you have to make a baby with someone who isn't in your family."
"Why?"
"Because, the baby will be sick if you make it with someone in your family."
"Why will the baby be sick?"
"I don't know....Let's go to sleep please."
"Okay, mommy."
Five minutes later....
"Mommy, when I get bigger can I make a baby with Salem?"
"Ugh. Technically, yes. But it would be really weird. You'll find someone closer to your age if you still want to have kids later. Go to sleep please!"

    48 questions, 136 birth videos and 4 months later, playing birth is a daily occurrence at our house. Sometimes one of Corina's stuffed animals is pregnant and sometimes she is. Sometimes the baby is pushed out naturally at home or at the hospital and sometimes it's an emergency. She once performed a c-section on me using a rainbow colored flute and a plastic, toddler sized hack saw (that wasn't triggering at all!). I once saw her push out her baby in a standing position and then say "Breathe baby! Breathe!" and then decisively lean in and pretend to suck the dolls nose and mouth and spit on the floor. "Wah! Wah! Wah!" she cried victoriously "The baby is fine!" This is an emergency birth technique that most adults (in the first world) don't know about!
    Not too long ago she was playing pretend with Salem and said "Okay, now beaver will put his penis into raccoons vagina! Time to make a baby." Salem looked like he may throw up and turned to me shrugging his shoulders. Josh was laughing too hard to respond so I did "Continue playing if you're comfortable Salem. It's good for her to play out what she's learning....Um, maybe just don't initiate this game in the future please." Despite my up-bringing and personal conviction to let her learn unfettered and answer all her questions I doubted if this was the right call in the moment but later I thought about reading in "the Forest People" about how the un-contacted, tribal children would frequently play "house" which included building a grass hut, having a wedding and having fake intercourse with other kids. Play is how kids learn to be adults...even if it what they play makes the grown-ups uncomfortable.

   Why did I tell my two year old the nitty gritty of reproduction and show her a multitude of hippie birth videos on youtube? My parents were extraordinarily open with me about sex and pregnancy and I've always really appreciated that. My mom thought this was the best way to arm me against assault for life and also she was generally very open with me about adult issues and how the world works. I was probably three or four when I was first told about where babies come from - however, I thought that sperm was inside of men's pee somehow until I was thirteen. After explaining to me vaguely what sex was and how it resulted in babies my mom used a serious voice that she rarely uses to warn me that people may try to hurt my vagina or butt and to always tell her if anyone made me feel weird, touched me or said anything about those areas to me. I can remember exactly what she said twenty seven years later. After getting "the talk" I asked them how to spell sex. I was learning to write at the time and then hilariously their honesty shut off and they told me without much of a pause that the word was spelled "PCRLE" which I believed fully until about age eight. I think they were afraid I may write it down on my coloring sheet at preschool or something.
   Even now my family still uses the fake spelling of sex as a code word. "They said they were virgins when they married but I heard they were doing everything but PCRLE" or "When we got home there were two dogs having PCRLE on the porch! We had to spray them with the hose to get in the front door."
   Every parent has a different philosophy on how to deal with these questions but I think my mom was right. Absolute transparency from a very early age probably had a lot to do with the fact that I passed up so many opportunities to have bad/dangerous sex throughout my life.I wasn't anxious to have intercourse because there was no mystery surrounding it at all for me. Heck, I had even seen four babies birthed in all their graphic, bloody, slimey, fleshy glory in my parent's kitchen by the time I was dating.
    I believe that teaching our children about reproduction is the first and possibly most important step to taking our fertility back into our own hands. I don't want my daughter to get or stay pregnant if she doesn't want to and I want her to be informed enough and trust her body enough that if she ever finds herself getting forced onto on operating table she can say "No!" and check herself out and have her baby the way she feels is right.

 Women are the gate-keepers into this world. We (not dudes and not doctors!) should get to choose when, how often and in what way people enter this world through our bodies. We can't make our own choices if we don't understand well how things work and if we don't acknowledge the power that we hold.

footling-breech frog birth on the dining room floor?
Yes, you can do it!

GO GIRL! GO!

"Uhhhhh!!! Ohh!!!! Get this baby out of me!"