Dawnings of Sex Knowledge

July 1932. 

  It was when Alan was about three, and Colin scarcely two, that the very first reference was made to the time when they were not. We we talking of our proposed visit to Granny, and I said, quite casually; 

 "You went to stay with Granny all by yourself, when you were a tiny boy. It was when Mother went away to fetch Colin, and you went to Granny." 

 The phrase "went to fetch Colin” seemed to stick, and came up occasionally in the months that followed, in connection with Granny. "I went when I was a tiny boy, when Mummy went to fetch Colin.” 

Although nothing further was said to associate it with the coming of babies in general, some such association must have been made in his mind, for I was surprised to hear it come out again in connection with the mythical Miss Bugger*1. She had a family consisting of two or three, while that even more elusive lady known as "the other Miss Bugger" had not any boys yet “Her mother was going to bring her one another day." 

 We went out to tea with a family of little girls, a rather unusual thing, as most of the boys’ friends are boys and contemporaries. Alan, aged 3 1/4 was intensely interested in them, and , having to retire, regarded with great interest, "the girls" down." The little girls Were so much bigger than he that he felt vaguely they must be grown-up, and suggested, doubtfully: "Little girls stand up to do a down?"

 "No," I said, “little girls sit down. Only men stand up, and big boys." 

 "Little girls have tails?” he wondered. "No, I said again. "Little girls don't have tails. Only boys have them." 

 This was most amazing, "Do little girls have nabels?" I was able to reassure him on this, and he repeated, in a satisfied tone, 

 “Everybody has nabels." 

 This exciting knowledge was frequently repeated at bath-time, and there always seemed satisfaction, after the recital of the surprising differences, to end with a joyful chant of :"Colin's got a nabel, Alan's got a nabel, Mummy's got a nabel, — Everybody's got to have a nabel." But so far, the question of the meaning of a “nabel" was not answered in full. True Alan had asked:"What's a nabel for?” but I, feeling the time not quite ripe, and with Colin present, had only replied, in-~ differently; "



 It isn't for anything. It is only a mark left on your tummy, Like a bump leaves a bruise mark.” 

 We had been so little in contact with "new" babies that I felt sure the question of their origin was not yet bothering him. 

 But when he was 3, we had for the week-end a "tiny baby", a little girl of six months old. I let the boys see her having her bath, hoping they would observe the anatomical difference, but making no comment on it. They said nothing either, but I soon learnt that to say nothing does not mean the child has not observed. In fact, the next development was a revelation, and a warning to me. After bath-time, I took the boys away, that the mother might breast-feed in peace. Unknown to me, Alan slipped back, and became an interested spectator. Luckily for me, the mother is a sane, modern girl, With very decided views on "truth, the whole truth" for children, and answered his questions in a matter-of fact way. He wanted to know, she told me, what was happening, and was amazed that milk could come that way -- they were bottle babies.

   “But where does it come from?" he persisted. "You know I drank a lot of tea for breakfast," she explained, " end I had some milk for supper. It comes out that way again for baby.” He seemed satisfied, and stayed till the end, coming quietly down again with her, without comment. That was a week ago, and though they speak of Baby, and discuss her coe bath', how she kicked in her pram, and the funny cooing noises she made which Colin imitates in a raucous voice, Alan has made no reference at all to her method of feeding. The mothers who say in a self-satisfied tone, that their children do not want to know because they have never asked might take a lesson from this reticence of 3 1/2. 

(*1 The Buggers or “Boogers" (in Alexander Bells Yorkshire accent) as they were called by the boys, were an Imaginary people who inhabited the world of the young Bell boys. They also, unsurprisingly, crop up in various places in the world of the “Doings of David and Peter”. Doris mentions here, she has other sketches about them.)

February 1933 

The breakfast egg brought up the subject of its origin, Colin opining that a "cockadoo" sent it. Alan thought it was a hen, which I verified. and then received the question: 

"But how does she make it? “

“Inside herself," I answered. "She has to eat a lot of grit and hard stuff and that makes the shell. If she doesn't eat hard things, it will have a soft shell like the one I smashed to-day.”

June  1933 

I had been discussing with Mrs, Dickins the coming of Mrs. Moxon's new baby. We had perhaps made it sound rather mysterious, as we were both sorry and worried about it, as the child was not wanted, and the father had deserted. In the afternoon, playing on the floor, Alan began to murmur :"Mrs. Moxon."

 ‘What about her?" said I, 

He looked embarrassed. 

‘Did you hear me talking about her to Mrs. Dickins?”

 He nodded, then looked up. 

"What was it she was going to do?” "A tiny baby is coming to her house." 

"But where is it coming from?" 

"It will grow from a seed, like everything else. You know when you put seeds into your garden, they grow up into plants. We can't make them grow, we can only put them in, God makes them grow. Well, just like that God gives Daddies and Mummies a seed. The Mummy takes great care of it. She doesn't put it out in the garden, where it might be cold, but keeps it in a warm place inside her and God makes it grow there till it is big enough to come.” 

"Then does it come out?”

 "Yes, then it comes out, and the Mummy wraps it up all warm and puts it in a cradle." That's how babies come. Mummies and Daddies can't do it ail, God has to make the baby grow."

 "What's God?" asked Alan, with startling suddenness. 

October 1933.

 The subject of the meaning of a navel, left somewhat vague before, cropped up again one bath night during the summer, and I gave David a simple explanation of the fact that before he came he was inside Mother, growing till he was a big enough baby to come, and that he had a pipe fixed to him through which he was fed. Then when the time came, the pipe broke and he came, and the navel was the mark the pipe left. He made no comment, but remembered, and connected the navel with birth, for some time after there arose a conversation about Peter a relation who had gone abroad before Peter was born. 

"She saw me,” said David, "because I came first." He thought a moment and then said: 

"Tell about a navel -- what a navel's for?" 

I intentionally misunderstood, not wanting to start the story again, and said, vaguely: "What about a navel?"

 "You know," he insisted, “about the pipe - and the food." So I had to tell it again.

March 1934 

In December 1933, I knew for certain that another baby was on the way, and would arrive the following summer. As nothing can be kept secret in a small house, where there are no spare-rooms and where no doors lock, or even shut satisfactorily, David found me turning out “the baby box", and hung over my shoulder to make interested comments. 

‘We've got lots of nappies left," he said. 

"Yes," said I, noncommittally. 

"we'd better not give them away, in case a tiny baby comes to see us. {We had once supplied a visiting baby with a change) 

This seemed a good opportunity to follow up, so I answered: "Yes, we never know when a tiny baby might come and stay with us."

 The idea sank in that a tiny baby might some time come to stay, and as David frequently saw me getting things together or watched a friend cut out baby clothes for me, the might, without any definite telling, became was. He and Peter accepted quite happily the fact that a tiny baby was coming, and that then there would be three of them. From an unguarded remark of mine to a friend in the street they picked up and repeated with emphasis: 

“And what you'll do when there are three, I don't knows" 

"Neither do I," said I, “but I expect you and peter will be able to do a good deal for yourselves by the summer when the tiny baby comes.

" There aren't so many clothes to put on in the summer, are there?" he asked and then, later, went on to suggest that if he could quite dress himself it would be a very great help. So he began to try, and one morning appeared in my room at 6.30, fully dressed and beaming with pride. 

“It was clever, wasn't it?” he asked and then: “It will be a help when you have to both and dress the tiny baby, and I can dress myself."

 I agreed that it would be a great help, and that the tiny baby would love to have such a clever big brother. 

Gradually I found, though, that he was still not satisfied as to where tiny babies (the phrase is his) came from, and though I did not want to bother him with the fact that I was carrying it, found it almost unavoidable. 

A sister sent for Peter's birthday, in March, a book of simple Bible stories, suggesting that they should be read at bedtime, on inscription which I read out and which David promptly remembered when he was in bed. The stories began with the annunciation and the birth of Jesus and when we had read, night by night, the stories up to the visit to the Temple at 12, I decided to go back rather than hurry on to the manhood stories. Forgetting the difficulties of the first story, which I had been glad to get through the first time. I began to read from the beginning, David allowed me to finish and then began to puzzle out all manner of queries. (Peter, who had a heavy cold, was already asleep). 

First he jumped to the Flight into Egypt.

 “Why did Herod want to hurt the baby?" and “Why didn't he want there to be another King?" and then suddenly: 

"What was the flying thing that told about the baby coming?" 

Now it happened that a friend's child was at that time suffering from a great fear of “seeing an angel", a fear which made him refuse to go outside after tea, or upstairs after dark. Feeling that angels were rather a disturbing subject, I explained that angels were special messengers from God to tell the news to Mary. 

“But why did on angel come?” asked David.

 "Because Jesus was a very special baby," I said. "God was sending him to be the most wonderful person that ever lived, so he sent a special messenger to tell his mummy he was coming, and another to his daddy to tell him to take him away, so that he should be very specially looked after.”

 I felt that it was worrying him and as I was leaving them with a flickering fire which might well make flying angels on the wall, I hastened to add: 

“God doesn't send messages that way now. He sends them another way He tells mummies in another way about tiny babies coming." 

Then I had done it.

"But how do they come?" He insisted. “How does God know to send them?" 

Again I had to try and explain that God helped them to grow, that he gave the daddy a seed and, because he had to go out to work, he gave it to the mummy to take care of, and she carried it about with her, and took care of it, and gradually i began to grow till it was big enough to cone, But David is not satisfied with outlines. 

"How did she carry it about?" he asked, and at last I had to say again that she carried it inside her and that I was carrying the tiny baby with me till it was big enough to come. 

“How will it come out?” he asked, and I supposed that a little door would open for it to come. i, was getting late and he was very tired, so I kissed him and told him that mummy was seeing to it all, and he need not worry his old head over it any more; she was taking care of the baby and would see that it came all right. 

"It's the mummy's job," I said, and left it at that.