Q: If your 10 year old kid asked you "where do babies come from?", would you make up a story or tell them the truth?
Allow me to present the flipside to Calvin's arguments.
I'm allowed? Great.
Let me start off by saying that it's a lot easier to lie than to tell the truth. Why? Because the truth involves facts. And facts are hard enough to come with. Try to think of a fact about chronic pyelonephritis......exactly, you're stumped! Now think of a lie...eureka! Of course I know that chronic pyelonephritis is the disease that killed off all the dinosaurus in the mezzanine era.
Now let's think of other reasons why parents would lie to their kids in reverse backwards alphabetical order:
1) Aprotection
You might be thinking it would be protection for the kids, like you don't want them to know that "electric toothbrush" of yours is actually a nose trimmer. But it actually can provide protection for the parents themselves.
"What? The tooth fairy only gave you a penny? What a cheapskate!"
"Santa gave you a math workbook for Christmas instead of a Wii? What a nerd!"
"The piece of meat is actually frog and not chicken? Those chinese characters at Super 88 are so tricky!"
Basically, parents can use these lies to hide the fact that they are stingy, no fun, and frog eaters. Quite effective.
2) Blaziness
Parents are too lazy to explain the real thing. Kids just won't understand because they aren't mentally ready, aka stupid. Technically, if parents tell their kids everything, it will ruin the joy of discovery. And we all know that parents don't want their kids to think that they are thieves of joy.
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26) Zfear of misleading
And finally, parents don't want to mislead their kids with false truths. And plus, there's nothing worse than being mislead. Why? Hey, look over there!
So at this point hopefully you've realized that I haven't answered the question at all. So here's what I would do. Instead of giving them the truth all at once, I would tell my kids little bits of the story as they get older. The hope is that the story will somehow evolve into the truth. Remember scientific-sounding "facts" are more believeable than any other kind of "fact".
I'd start out by explaining the asexual process. "When a person decides that they love themselves very much, this person decides to split up into two and thus a baby is born!"
As they become a little older, I begin to add complexity to the story using molecular science. "When an electron and proton love each other very much, they collide, thus become neutra--I mean, and thus a baby is born!
Then, when they are of the right age (somewhere between 10 and 50), I would tell them about the birds and the bees. I would explain to them that birds and bees don't mate with each other to become a super flying animal (Beware of the mighty beebird!). From there, hopefully either TV or school will finish off the explanation for me.
Good question, keep them coming.
