The Birds and the Bees: Part I 

So… About that talk… 

Decisions, decisions, decisions… Here is a video of a man facing that very question but under much more dire circumstances as he is asked while watching a big game. Oh! The agony of having to choose between a conversation that could shape your very child’s thinking of the world and a big game!   

 

      

Video credit: Animation, music and story written by yours truly.   

Origin Story – Just how those birds and bees came ‘bout anyway?   

While the exact origin of the birds and bees may not be known their are quite a lot of references to the birds and the bees.   

The Spring
Thomas Carew (c.1640) 

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May.
Now all things smile, only my love doth lour;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season; only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.
The Spring Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost  

While I love literature, my God, what a terrible period – even getting down sounded boring. Way to water down women’s sensuality, guy.   Quick translation through that mumbo-jumbo: Spring is here and there is gettin’, and son, the gettin’ is good.   I think a much more interesting cultural reference to the birds and the bees comes from Cole Porter.   

Cole Porter - Let's do it

And that's why birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love   

Look me straight in the face and tell me after listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s cover of this gem you’re not ready to get down. I’ll look you in the face and call you a liar.   

So… About that talk… 

The talk eventually happens for anyone who has children. I know that day will come with my children sometime as well. Yesterday, however, I was caught off guard a bit when a student of mine (I’m an English teacher in Japan) asked me where babies come from. I was a bit flabbergasted as to how to answer her question and after a pregnant pause, pun intended, just basically told her the tired old story of the stork delivering babies but with a bit of a wrinkle. I explained that Toki’s bring the babies to parents in Niigata, yadda yadda and that was that. Niigata, Japan, where I’m living now, is home to the Japanese crested ibis (toki), an endangered bird native to Japan.        

The Formative Years…

Back when I was a young whippersnapper I asked my parents the same question as we all do. I remember it vividly. My family and I were eating Chinese at restaurant close to the beach. Slurpin’ away on my Egg Drop Soup, it occurred to me that many animals come from eggs but what about humans? I mean, I didn’t come from an egg right?   I sat subdued, “pull it together, Jenkins! You must have the answer up there somewhere!” After racking my brain for an unbearable 20 seconds or so, I blurted out, “ Mom, Dad, where do babies come from?!”   

My mother immediately began to speak, my father objected, “Windy, don’t do it.”   

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HEED HIS ADVICE – is what I should have said.   

“We just have to tell him, David, it’s the best way, Oprah said so.” (I’m not kidding, she really said that)   

“Well, honey, when a man loves a woman he takes his privates and he puts them inside the woman’s privates for a while and when they love each other very much (is she talking physically or mentally here? No one can be sure) then the woman has a baby grow inside her and the baby comes out of her privates 9 months later!   

I sat with a blank stare. My father sat with his thumb and index finger rubbing his eyes. “I wish I never asked!”   

When it comes to the birds and the bees what was your experience hearing for the first time? 

What will you/have you told your children or children who have asked?   

Curious to hear your responses.   

The Birds and the Bees: Part II coming soon.