And Now I Know the Rest of the Story

Growing up, we all had moments in our lives that impacted us and strongly shaped how we view the world. Some of those moments shook the foundation of what we knew, or what we thought we knew, and taught us a great deal – possibly more than we wanted to know.

A lot of things fit all of those conditions: the first time we learned about death, the first time we ate a school-issued lunch and, of course, the first time we learned where babies come from.

As I’m sure is the case for most people, the first time I learned where babies come from was a jarring, unwelcome experience. The information was heaped on me in an unsolicited manner, much like the overcaffeniated people selling timeshares who make it difficult to go anywhere these days, including even Dairy Queen.

I was eight years old, and the messenger of darkness was an older woman – a nine year old by the name of Natalie Something. (I’m omitting her last name not to protect her, but because I don’t remember it. It’s not important.) I was enjoying a sunny afternoon outdoors at my then after-school program (it’s no longer my after-school program), when this harbinger of evil skipped over to me with a grin on her face.

She asked me the seemingly innocent question, “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

Not knowing the devastation she planned to deliver, I happily obliged by answering, “I have one brother.”

Barely able to control her giggles, she informed me, “That means your parents had sex twice.”

She skipped away, giggling even more furiously than when she approached, leaving me shocked and confused. Not to mention a little nauseous.

I don’t remember how it was that I knew about sex, or how much of the particulars I knew (like why people participated), but I did know about it because I was shaken by the revelation. I didn’t have to ask what sex was, just why God would allow such a thing to be true. Perhaps I saw something on TV after staying up past my bed time, or maybe I heard someone’s older brother talk about it. However I learned of it, I never gave it much thought until Natalie’s brief biology lesson.

In my mind, I probably thought sex was just something done by actors, and even then only because they were getting paid to do it. If anyone in real life actually did it, it was only those people who lived on the fringes of society – belly dancers, lion tamers, New Yorkers. These types of people.

If a subject wasn’t talked about on The Dukes of Hazard, I didn’t care. For all I knew, Daisy wore those skimpy shorts because they were the only pair she had. Looking back on it, that’s true. No one on that show ever changed their clothes. Ever! I know they were poor, but if they could afford enough gas to drive 100 mph all over the state of Georgia, surely Uncle Jesse could afford to go down to the thrift store for ONE new shirt.

I’m getting off topic.

At any rate, as I watched Natalie ask the same question of each of her peers, subsequently destroying the will of the other kids on the playground, I dismissed the notion that my parents secretly put her up to it. My memory is fuzzy after this. Before completely blacking out, I think I ran inside hoping no one would see me and start to think about what my parents had been up to. I was also grateful that I wasn’t the kid in my class who had five brothers and sisters.

(At this point I should mention that three years earlier, a different girl told me Santa Claus isn’t real. If it had been the same girl, you could argue that I grew up around a child with a particular mean streak. However, the fact that two completely unconnected little girls delivered these pieces of information speaks volumes about the female population. Somehow I’m not gay.)

Despite Natalie’s efforts to crush my fragile soul, I eventually grew into a reasonably well-adjusted adult (insert your own joke here). Nevertheless, I can assure you that my son won’t learn about the birds and the bees, or even hear the term ‘sex,’ until he’s 27. And my daughter won’t learn of it until she’s 45. Why the discrepancy in their ages? Well… because that’s just the way it is. I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’m the dad, I make the decisions.

And I’m confident that I’ll have as much control over the situation as my parents had when I first learned the facts.

Yikes.