Dad Doesn't Have a Crotch

I was more than a little dismayed to hear my daughter tell me that I don't have a crotch. So I immediately jammed my hand into my pants to confirm that all parts were intact and located in the appropriate places. Normally I wouldn't do such a thing. I'd simply look down and know that the dark haired beauty was trying to play a trick on me.

But, it is disconcerting to be told that such an important part of my body was missing and since I had taken a nap earlier that day I thought it was prudent to confirm that Lorena Bobbitt had not visited my home. Upon my verification that all parts were working and accounted for I looked the little girl in the eye and said that she was mistaken.

She shook her head at me and explained that I can't have a crotch because I am a boy. I told her that gender didn't matter and she shook her head again. A moment later she pointed at her brother and myself and that said that we can't have a crotch because we were blessed with a penis.

 Side note: She didn't say blessed but that is because she doesn't understand that it is a blessing. Come to think of it, had she referred to having one as a blessing I would have shipped her off to a castle and surrounded it a team of  Navy Seals.  And any boy that approached her would have learned that my presence is synonymous with death.

Fortunately she did not say so and the first grade boys aren't going to have to smear lamb's blood upon the door frames of their rooms to avoid being visited by yours truly. I am not even close to being ready for her to start dating yet, but I digress.


You may be wondering why the dark haired beauty saw fit to talk about crotches and my lack of one. Well, the answer is that she and her mother read a book about babies. The very same book that was used after the We Aren't Chickens! A Child Questions Reproduction discussion from this past spring.

So mother and daughter sat on the couch bonding while learning about reproduction. As they were reading her brother suddenly shouted that he would never stick his penis in a woman's crotch because he thinks it is disgusting. I think that when he made his proclamation I fell off of my chair laughing.


He and I have had this discussion before, but it is not a priority for him. Until relatively recently he thought that girls were relatively useless. They didn't like to play the same games he did and and they were good at wreaking havoc in his life. That attitude may be changing a bit as he asked, "Dad, Can You Teach me About Girls."

Anyhoo in the manual for how to raise a boy it specifically says that you should never laugh when your son says that he won't have any interest in reproduction- guess I must have slept through that chapter. Whoops.

So this brings us almost to the present. After I picked myself up and reapplied the daddy poker face I looked at my son and said that he didn't need to worry about it now. There would be plenty of time to worry about this later. And since he is my child he made a point of asking me to explain why I said that.

I said that it is good to enjoy being a kid and that we should all keep our crotches covered and private. This of course is what led to the dark haired beauty's lecture about boys not having a crotch. It also led to more questions from her about "spatial" concerns as to what fits where and how it works. Perfectly innocent questions from the six year-old but still a bit disconcerting for dear old dad who is not interested in providing the sort of detailed answers she was looking for.

Midway through it all her older brother looked at me and said that he thought that he was old enough to know these things and that he wanted to know how many times you need to do it to get pregnant. I paused for a second and he told me that he knew that to be good at things it was important to practice and that is why he was asking.

For a moment I could see an older version of him in college explaining that he needed a study partner to help him practice so that he didn't flunk Reproduction 100. Common sense won the day and I did not share this image with him. But I did tell him that some things were better left unknown and that he really didn't want to know what happened with his mother and I. He told me again that he thought that was old enough and I asked him to trust me when I said that he really didn't want to know.

He agreed as opposed to his sister who still insists that boys don't have crotches. Something tells me that one day they will be thrilled to learn that stories like this have been immortalized here, but that is a story for a different day.

If you are interested in reading about some other discussions with my kids take a moment to look at Conversations With The Kids and you'll find links to other posts that are related to this.