The Birds, the Bees, and the Elephant in the Room

May 20, 2024
Mulholland, a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota—Morris, debuts with a sagacious parenting manual for teaching children and teens about erections, gender, periods, sex, and more. To ensure children feel comfortable asking potentially awkward questions, Mulholland encourages parents to frequently remind their kids that “there’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you.” She suggests that parents might answer “where do babies come from” by telling children between two and five that babies form in the uterus “when two cells combine and help each other grow,” while those between five and seven can be told that “sex is when a man puts his penis into a woman’s vagina.” The sex-positive advice emphasizes the importance of teaching kids that their desires and urges are normal (“Let kids know that it’s okay that they’re curious and want to touch their bodies”). Mulholland provides sensible sample scripts for broaching such topics as body odor, period products, and shaving, though the chatty tone occasionally grates (“This. Was. MIND-BLOWING,” she writes of her young daughter’s reaction to learning how babies are made). Still, this will be a boon for parents.