An age-by-age guide to The Big Talk: Sex

Intro | Ages birth to 3 | Ages 4 and 5 | Ages 6 to 8 | Ages 9 to 12

Ages 6 to 8

Your former fetus can read now and has taken to surfing the Internet instead of bombarding you with inquiries. Sorry, but you’re still not off the hook. The Big Talk continues…

Baby, Mama? If it hasn’t already happened, it will now: “Where do babies come from?” Luckily, you’ve got most of the building blocks in place—and we’ve got some helpers to make the sperm-meets-ovum free fall less freaky for you. The True Story of How Babies Are Made (99¢ per stream at SexSmartFilms.com), a four-minute new release from New York City sex-ed teacher–turned–filmmaker Mark Schoen, beautifully revitalizes a before-its-time 1971 book written and illustrated by Swedish author Per Holm Knudsen. Colorful and friendly, the animated short introduces the idea of lovemaking and its pleasures in a surprisingly non-stomach-turning way, and gives the straight-on about how a baby finds his way from the mommy’s belly into the Bugaboo (alas, the cesarean route isn’t mentioned). Therapists swear, too, by the books of Robie Harris, including It’s Not the Stork! A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends (Candlewick Press), recommended for four- to six-year-olds, and It's So Amazing! A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families (2009, tenth-anniversary edition, Candlewick Press), for kids seven and older. The two volumes collectively portray body differences and baby-making so clearly and fearlessly that they’ve reportedly been banned in conservative communities (which we take as a good sign). As you know, you shouldn’t leave it all up to the visual aids—but by now your kiddos and you are so cool with sex chat, the discussion should be cake.

Family ways Once they’re in school, your city kids will learn and play the days away with friends from all different sorts of families. The fact that some children have two mommies or two daddies, a mixed set or just one parent won’t seem strange at all—unless you tell them it is. The 57 varieties of NYC families make for good dinner-table talk, which needn’t get too, too technical. “There are no limitations on who we can love,” Perez says. “Kids get it.” Bonus points for throwing in the idea that some parents—because someone is single, has a same-sex partner or has fertility troubles—turn to alternative ways for bringing babies home: In vitro fertilization, egg and sperm donorship and gestational-carrier partnerships are all fair game. Kids should understand, too, that some babes come to their families from as far away as Estonia or Malawi, where they are produced in the same fashion as in the U.S.A.

Intro | Ages birth to 3 | Ages 4 and 5 | Ages 6 to 8 | Ages 9 to 12

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