Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 October 2004 20:50:39
Well, that was one journey home!
"Mummy, I've been wondering......... how did I come to be born?"
Well, do you mean how did you begin inside your birthmum's womb (echoes of our conversation about the stork and the gooseberry bush) or why did your birthmum decide to have a baby? Both? Oh, er... right. Hold on while I just negotiate this roundabout.....
Thus my seven-year-old began to explore with me the wonders of human reproduction - how the egg waits in the body until it meets with a sperm (goodness knows how the sperm gets there!) and how the mummy's body prepares in case a tiny baby, no bigger than a full stop, is going to be made - how the baby grows inside the womb and becomes ready to be born. How the mummy and daddy choose a name for the baby and watch the baby develop until it is a little boy and is taken away and put up for adoption! "Hold on, love, while I just overtake this milkfloat."
From this point on to the concept of adoption and why some children can't stay in their own families. How it was interesting that the names of both boys' birth mothers are the names that I always wanted to be called when I was a child. How love sometimes means being strict and cross with people and caring that they do the right thing.
Next, just as we negotiate the traffic lights, comes "Well, mummy, if only God knows how babies are made from no bigger than a full stop, how did God make the earth? If he made it from nothing, where did it come from? And if he made it from something, where did that come from?" Ooh look, the lights have changed. Now, where did I put first gear?
"Isn't it just mind-blowing, Mummy, to think that we might not be related by blood now but our great great great great great great and several more greats grandfather and grandmother were actually Adam and Eve?" Hmmm... when I've just slalomed these parked cars we'll have a chat about fundamentalism and a more interpretive view of the Bible while valiently trying to let you come to your own conclusions about what you believe.......
"Mummy, can you be a Christian without actually believing in the Bible?" Right, now that's an interesting question.... and it's lovely to be able to discuss things openly..... and I am not going to try to influence you one way or the other but I know that whatever I say actually will and..... what precisely are you driving at and... ah, precisely what I'm driving at is the car in front which seems to have stopped unexpectedly...
"Oh, and mummy.... is tinned salmon actually made out of tin?"