Today, I was reading past posts from the blog, babyandthegeeks, and came upon her post, Confession. Near the end of the post, there is information about the book, What Makes A Baby. I clicked onto the link and was thrilled with what I saw.
What Makes A Baby is children's book written by Cory Silverberg and illustrated by Fiona Smyth. The book is a tool for parents to help educate their children when they ask the dreaded question "where do babies come from?" This book doesn't skirt around the topic with the typical, "when two people fall in love..." scenario. This book is special. Cory, a sex educator, realized that not all babies are made between a man and a women in a bed, so he wanted to write a book about babies that are made through assisted reproduction (including IVF, donor eggs/sperm,) adoption, LGBT families, and more.
I have not purchased or read this book, but it will be one of my first purchases once our child comes into this world. I think that it's important for children to have books and toys that represent them, whether that be a book about how they were conceived through ART, or a baby doll that has mixed nationality. I think that it's surprising with all of the cultures and families that make up this world, that so many of the books and toys for children use the blond hair, blue eyed child with a mom and a dad that live in a house with a white fence and a puppy. It's said that so many children do not have toys that represent them and their families.
If my some-day child ever asks about where he/she came from, I want to be honest with them. No matter if they're adopted, or conceived through IVF, I think it's important for my husband and I to convey how hard we fought for them, how much they are wanted, and how much we love them. I think that this book could be an amazing tool to help us do just that. I want to stress to my child from an early age that there are many different families in this world, and just because a family is different from ours, doesn't mean that they should be treated any differently. This book could help us explain how our child came to be, and could also clear up any questions our child has about their friend who is adopted or who has bi-racial parents.
So, when your child asks the "where do babies come from?" question, what are you going to say? Are you going to explain how they were conceived from an early age? Tell them small bits of information as they get older? Of course, this is a very personal decision, but I'm interested to see what your thoughts about this are.
I LOVE this book. I'm a nanny and sometimes answer the tricky questions. I always make sure to be as inclusive as possible in my language, and no matter how we have kids, they'll know their true story. I'm definitely buying this. Thanks for the link!
ReplyDeleteLove this. I am going to check out this book.
ReplyDeleteWhat a neat post. I'll definitely need to check it out! We always planned to tell our kids where they "came from" (now adoption in our case). I thought it would be fun to show them pictures of them as embryos when we were going through IVF!
ReplyDeleteI've thought about getting that book if were able lucky enough to have a child. Even though our future is so uncertain I've thought a lot about the "where babies come from" question. I came up with an analogy that I really like. Eggs come from women, they are kind of like castles and the Egg people live there. Sperm come from men, and they are kind of like an army. They don't have a castle of their own and whenever they see one they attack. Eventually the Sperm people break down the walls of the Egg castle and one special Sperm is made king. The Sperm people and the Egg people learn to live together, rebuilding the castle into a baby, and that is why babies look part like their dad and part like their mom. Sometimes mommies and daddies don't have sperm or eggs of their own so another kind man or woman will donate it for them. The egg castles have wheels like trailers so doctors can move them from one woman to a laboratory where the sperm army is, and then back into mommy. So not all babies look like their Mommy or Daddy, they may look like another kind man or woman, and that's okay. Mommy and Daddy would still love them just as much.
ReplyDeleteAnyway that's what I came up with one day in the shower haha.