Dr. Ruth - Abridged Version

I had had enough of the kids last night and had to go sit on the stoop for a bit. They go to daycare with two boys, ages 12 and 7. My four-year-old is learning new expressions such as, "I got you right in the balls!" and "you hit me in the nuts!"

The nine-year-old joins in, too. It's been going on for about a month, and last night I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel. I kept trying to explain to them why they shouldn’t use expressions like that, but they kept cracking themselves up and the conversation just spiraled out of control. I ended up shouting. I don’t know why I got so upset about it, but it just really irked me that my kids were laughing hysterically about body parts. My parents would have slapped me silly, but here I was, willing to explain the whole reproductive process to them, and the little jerks were laughing.

“First of all,” I bellowed, “they’re called testicles, not balls!” And secondly, girls don’t have testicles! Only boys have testicles!”

That word was a major hit. “Vesticles!” the little one shouted as she jumped on the couch.

“Not vesticles, you dope. Testicles.”

“Besticles,” my four-year-old sang at the top of her lungs. “Besticles, besticles, besticles!”

I'm pretty sure the Indian people next door heard that. I don't know if they knew what we were discussing, but they really couldn't have missed the announcement.

The big one joined her on the bed. “Testy-cules!” she hollered. "All boys have testy-cules!”

I was exasperated. Now it was worse and I didn't know what to do to make them stop.

So I stomped off to the computer and printed drawings from the internet, which they both thoroughly enjoyed. I started with just the male anatomy, but then they had some questions about the female anatomy, too. So I printed that (what the hey, I was already in up to my neck.) I told them the words for everything in the pictures, showed them where the baby comes out and answered all the questions. They were half impressed and half intoxicated with this new information.

“Ba-gyna!” the little one kept saying. She was the more delirious of the two. But I think she actually liked the word.

“No, virginia,” the nine-year-old corrected her.

I am raising lunatics, I thought.

“Enough,” I finally said. “Cut it out. It’s your private body.”

Man, what is it about penises and vaginas and breasts that people think is so hilarious? I get the feeling that God is laughing at me somehow - that I spent too much time pointing a finger at what my mother and father did wrong and what I was going to do differently. And what is God's point, I ask myself? I think it's this: everything I swore I would do differently with my kids is also ridiculously futile. We live in a fallen world. Get over it.

At any rate, I told my daughters that these were not funny words, dirty words, or joking words. They were just words for private things, not to be shared in school or on the play ground or with strangers or members of the opposite sex.

“We won’t, Mom,” they said solemnly.

Finally, I held up drawing of the male. “Now,” I said, "Do you have anything on your body that looks like this?"

They both shook their heads. The little one rolled her eyes, as if I had forgotten what she looked like in the bath tub. The big one snorted and giggled. I folded the papers and put them on the book shelf.

“Right. And neither do I. So stop saying you hit me in the balls. I don't have balls and neither do you. Do you understand?”

They both nodded.

“Any questions?” I asked in my best drill sergeant voice.

They shook their heads again.

“Good. Then off to bed.”

We all marched down the hall. I was wiped out, emotionally, physically, psychologically; as usual, I doubted myself as a mother. I wondered if I’d told them too much, if they’d go to day care the next day and tell the lady I showed them pictures of testicles and vaginas. Wow. I am one crazy ass mother. But what was I supposed to do?

As they crawled under the covers, the little one sat up and squeezed me tight around the neck. I held her close.

“I love you, Mom,” she said. “You’re the best Mom in the world.”

“I love you, too,” I said. “And remember, you can always ask me questions about stuff like that, OK? You don't have to be a silly head.”

She nodded. “I have a question,” she whispered, her little eyebrows arched earnestly.

“Yes, sweetie?” I asked. “What is it?”

A slow smirk spread across her face. “Can I see that boy picture again?”