How Are Babies Made and Other Questions Kids Ask

Are you even a parent if your child has never asked you awkward questions that stupified you for a minute? Exactly. Are you prepared for this? Do you know how to explain how babies are made?

Kids say the darndest things and also ask the darndest questions. Hence as a parent, you have to always be prepared to answer like you know everything. Just kidding, you can always say: Oh wait, let me search on Google. Just kidding again, this will make your children think: Wait, why don’t we remove this middle step of asking our parents and search Google instead, which is fine, obviously, but at an appropriate age, like 18. Oops, I won’t say it again, but you know what I mean.

On a serious note, we have to take out the big guns and be prepared for nearly every question to remain the smartest people in the world in sparkling curious little eyes that ask us these questions. Sometimes, they may be questions that make us do a double-take and actually wonder, but that’s okay, our kids are making us question so many things, and learning about them. If we don’t know the answer though, what should you do? You should say: That’s actually a very good question, let me think about it and get back to you. If you have one of those though, that say no, just tell me now, good luck!

How are babies made?

I believe in being honest. But every parent has their set of beliefs and their own parenting style, so if you want your children to believe that a stork got the baby home, you do that. But how do you explain to a four-year-old how babies are really made? Even though I’m all for honesty, it doesn’t mean I am ready to give sex education classes to such a little child just yet. This doesn’t mean we don’t teach them about bodily autonomy and the names of their private parts because we do. But I feel it’s way too soon to introduce the sperm and egg.

So how do you explain it then? Well, I told my child that when you really want a baby, then God puts a tiny little embryo into the mommy’s belly and that embryo grows into a little baby over the course of nine whole months. We told my three-year-old about my pregnancy right before he turned three and he waited patiently for six whole months before he could see his baby brother. I even took him to one of my ultrasounds where he saw the baby and heard the heartbeat. He witnessed my belly growing bigger and bigger and knew the baby is growing bigger and more and more ready to come into the world.

He had a lot of questions about how the baby would eat and we explained how he eats whatever mommy eats, which was countered with: Then Mommy should only have milk because the baby can’t have anything other than milk when he’s born.

What is a belly button? How do we press it as a button?

Honestly, this stunned me, because it made me wonder how much children think. At what age do we train them to stop thinking and where are we going wrong?

How do you answer this properly? Remember how when the baby is in mommy’s belly he gets all his food and nutrition from mommy, well that’s how the food goes in, from the belly button. Then I explained how there’s a pipe going from the baby’s belly button and that’s how the baby gets all his food, actually, all the good parts of the food that mommy eats, all mashed up.

Then when the baby is born, he doesn’t need it anymore because he can now use his mouth to drink milk and eat food later on, so then the pipe which is called the umbilical cord is then clipped and cut off and a little stub is left. I showed him his own photograph of the stub with the clip and he understood. Then I explained how the clip part sort of falls off and the leftover stub becomes the belly button. We don’t press it because it’s not really a button, we call it so just because it looks a little like a button, doesn’t it?

Is God a boy or a girl?

This question also made me do a double-take because what?! Then I thought about what I am teaching my son and how this will influence his personality and his character.

“You said God is not human, then why do we say He?” he went on, perplexing me more and more. This is why we need to do our research before we attempt to answer our children. What is the answer though? God is in fact not human. He is an intangible entity. A divine light that transcends the limits of gender and having a physical tangible appearance. But how do you explain this to a four-year-old?

You tell him: God is a light you know He’s not a human being, right? Then how can He be a boy or a girl? He doesn’t need to be a boy or a girl. We say He only so that everyone can say the same thing. It’s just language. In your heart, God is neither a boy nor a girl. God is just God.

Why does God give us pain?

This is a difficult one. Then I get down to thinking about it and wonder which ones are the easy ones? Because there are no easy ones. These kids think long and hard about their questions and choose: Which one will make my mom or dad more confused? Then they think some more and ask a question that is even harder.

Sometimes there is no right answer, we all answer our kids the way we think and the way our kids will understand. Yes no one loves us as much as God and He hates to see us in pain, but He still lets us be in pain. This is because He knows humans may tend to forget Him in happiness but they will always turn to Him and only Him when they are in pain. Maybe He gives us pain because He loves us and so that we turn to Him and ask Him to take the pain away.

Why does poop have to be yucky?

This question is a reality check for every parent that thinks her child only asks philosophical questions. It doesn’t get more philosophical than this. But it’s a real question and if you think about it hard enough, it makes sense. I mean why does it have to be yucky? For a moment, you start to ponder over it yourself before it dawns on you that you are the parent and the grownup and you have to think of a suitable explanation to tell the kid who is waiting.

Well, we eat food, I explain to him, and the food goes through our digestive system. It gets mixed with our saliva and then other juices inside our tummy to get digested. Then the goodness from the food gets absorbed by us and goes into our blood, and the other part that is left has gone through so much that it starts to smell bad. It also has bacteria and germs that make it smell bad!

There are so many questions in the minds of our curious little monsters, I mean sweethearts, of course. Ahem. We should always encourage these questions and give appropriate responses. If you don’t know something, even saying “I don’t know” is an appropriate response. Believe me, I have said it plenty of times and I am still the one that he thinks knows the most and is the wisest. LOL. That is us in the minds of these little admirers of ours. We know it all.