What shall the parent do who has never spoken of these things to his child until now the child is ten, eleven, or twelve years of age, and especially if the parent has given the child one of these evasive answers in reply to its innocent questions?  It may be said in passing that if the parent has thus evasively answered the child’s first questions, he will never be bothered in all probability with any more questions.  For the best way to set up the barrier is to answer questions falsely; and one way to establish confidence and to facilitate further communication is to answer truthfully.

The child may know more or less than you think it knows.  The parent does not know what a ten- or twelve-year-old child knows or does not know.  Again, a parent does not know at what time or in what way or to what extent the child’s sexual life and impulse have already awakened.  And the parent does not know to what extent the child may know “what ain’t so.”  It is a mistake in most cases for the parent to try to find answers to these questions by questioning the child.  For just as a parent may start wrong by deceiving the child, so the child may start wrong by deceiving the parent, and even a pretty good child, especially after it has been deceived by the parent, is likely to follow the same cue when it is questioned by the parent.  The parent should not tempt the child to such a misstep.

Again, the parent, whether mother or father, should never try to open the conversation or resume it at a time when the boy or girl is likely to be interrupted or distracted or is eager at the moment to be somewhere else and doing something else.  The mother and daughter quietly sewing together, or the father and son off for a walk, or sitting on a log, or lying on the grass, are ready for a confidential talk.

If the boy or girl was deceived in response to its first questions, the father or mother may retract in some such way as this:  “Do you remember, Molly, that when you asked me where your baby brother came from, I told you the doctor made us a present?  Well, that’s the way fathers and mothers answer little children, just as we told you that Christmas presents came from Santa Claus.  You came to know that papa and mamma are Santa Claus and that Santa Claus is a fairy story—­and so you have probably already learned how the baby came.  The baby really grows in the mother’s body—­did you know that?  Do you know how long it takes for it to grow there?  No?  It takes nine months.  Before you were born, you were growing inside of your mother’s body.  The blood from your mother’s body flowed into your body; in this way your body grew.  When the baby comes out of its mother’s body, it does not hurt the baby, but it hurts the mother.  It was so when you were born, but your mother was so happy to think she was to have a baby and to feel it growing inside her body that she did not think much about the pain.  If your mother is ever a little tired and cross, you must remember that she loves you beyond anything that pain can measure and that she deserves your tenderest care.”