The Birds and the Bees

Of our 3 children, Micah is our thinker. And he asks a lot of really good, and really hard, questions. LOTS of questions. All the time questions. Non-stop questions.

Last night on our way to Bible study, out of the clear blue sky he says to me, "The only way a mommy and a daddy can have babies is if they're married." Since this sounded more like a statement than a question, I tried hard to be non-committal in my response, rather than going into all the ways that unmarried people often have babies together. I want to protect some semblance of innocence in my almost 6 yr. old. Lord knows, he picks up stuff like a sponge. Just being in pre-school around other children his age gave him more of an "education" than I was ready for.

So, I replied, "Oh really?" since he sounded like he already had it figured out and wasn't really asking. I figured he'd respond with some statement of confirmation that he knew this was the ways things were. Yeah right. Unfortunately, obviously unsatisfied with my lack of affirmation towards his theory. he pulled the "rephrase this statement into a question" tactic. He said "The only way a mommy and a daddy can have babies is if they're married, RIGHT???" Here we go.

The same mom who tells her kids about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy suddenly developed a conscience and didn't feel like she should lie in this particular situation. So I delicately explained that the BEST way for mommies and daddies to have babies is when they are married, but that some mommies and daddies do have babies when they aren't married. Surprisingly, he didn't feel the need to pursue that matter further. Yet. But I have a feeling this conversation is going to come back and bite me sometime in the future when I least expect it.