My wife and I were driving home the other night, it was late as usual, and the only child still awake was our oldest son Caleb. He's eight. From out of the dark silence of our minivan, Caleb spoke up and said, "Hey, dad... we were using the dictionary today at school and I saw the word s_x." He didn't want to commit such a heinous act as actually saying the "e" in "s-e-x-" so he just said the word "blank" between the consonants.
Pamela and I cut a quick glance at each other both thinking, "Here we go... we are going to have the talk." So I spoke up and asked him ever so nonchalantly, "Oh yeah? What's that word?"
He reluctantly said, "You know, 'sex'," very uncomfortably.
What is it about parents making things much more uncomfortable and weird than they need to be? I responded with my no-big-deal-attitude wanting to put him at ease over the word so I screamed "Don't ever say that again, ever!!! How dare you!!!"
Now calm down... I'm just kidding. I didn't do that at all; but that was the attitude of my father's generation in dealing with "the talk". Parent's used to corner the market - some still do - on making naturally-curious-kids feel much weirder over something - unbeknownst to us - that our parents frequented as often as we stayed the night with some friend or ran down the street to the corner store for a gallon of milk. I used to wonder so often why my family needed so much milk!
I responded to Caleb, "Oh, so what did the dictionary say that "it" was?"
The only thing he could come up with was "something about males and females."
With all the other kids asleep, I turned to Pamela with a quick nod and wink as I began to give him this grand fatherly explanation: "Caleb, sex is how mommies and daddies have babies. When two people love each other - a boy and a girl - they eventually get married and when they want to have children they have sex." (Ok, stop squirming in your seat, please, while you read this!) I decided this conversation wasn't the time to begin to explain to him the perils of the real world, jobs, mortgages, stress, gaining weight, night-time-TV and all that contribute to the stopping of parents making all the babies. I decided - in what I felt was a good fatherly move - to kept it simple for him.
My answer sufficed him on what sex is I guess as he jumped to another question. "Dad, does God have one girl out there for me? And how do I know who she is?"
"Phew!" Was my reply. Glad to change subjects! I said, "Yes, there's someone out there that you will meet one day, and that you two will have things in common that you both like and then you'll decide that you will want her to be your wife." I continued, "You'll be old enough to date one day when you become a teenager and you will need to be praying that God will show you the right girl for you."
He thought about that for a moment and said, "Well, there are three girls at school who I have stuff in common with."
I asked, "Oh really?"
He said, "Yes. There's this one girl who likes dinosaurs... and, I like dinosaurs. Then there's another girl who likes guy movies, but sorta girl movies too which I like. Then there's another girl that likes the same food as me." Then very seriously, as though the answer would turn his fated stars forever, "Which one do I pick?"
Pamela and I lost it at "dinosaurs", but not wanting to make him feel weird or funny about sharing with us we kept our laughs very low and under our breaths.
I told him, "Buddy, you keep praying, and mommy and I will keep praying too, and one day you'll meet a girl who likes the same movies... the same food, and, yes, even dinosaurs..., then God will let you know that she's the one that you can marry."
He seemed good with that answer. And eventually, Pamela and I know, that we are going to have to sit down with our precious, innocent little boy and explain to him "the thing" (without an "e") that will both drive him crazy and, if misused, cause him more grief than imaginable. Yet it is still "the thing" too that God designed that will bring him much happiness in marriage... when there's no stress, woes of jobs, mortgage worries, gained weight, the real world and night-time-TV. But thinking about it, it will be enjoyable then too.
It's amazing the conversations you will have with a dictionary, curiosity and an eight year old boy.
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