In olden times, children were not told the "facts of life."

[raccoon]

They were told stories about storks, cabbage patches, etc.

One thing I wondered about recently. In olden times, many people lived on farms, where
livestock bore calves, piglets, colts, etc.

Would you think the children would observe the animals and extrapolate the experience to humans? Or wouldn't
they?

Anyone here who came by the "facts of life" in that way--or maybe your parents or grandparents did?

[Callmecrazy]

1. The facts of life that I know...

You're born, you grow up, get married, have kids, go on a few diets, get divorced and live happily ever after.

[panader0]

2. "Get born, keep warm, get blessed, try to be a success."

Apologies to Mr Zimmerman.

[monmouth3]

3. Girls bathroom, 6th grade, 8th grader told us "all we needed to know." She was pretty accurate...

[haele]

4. Didn't have to be told for the most part.

Storks, cabbage patches, etc were tales for the toddlers and for protected middle class and wealthy children.

Rural kids and working class kids - especially children that grew up in homes where the entire family slept in the same room - pretty much knew the facts of life by the time they were five or six. Those kids were the majority of the children prior to the boom of the 1950's.

Haele

[trof]

5. My 'talk' was brought about by an unfortunate incident.

I was raised by a single (divorced) mom.

A boy in my 4th grade class who was wise beyond his years called a girl a two-bit whore.
I thought he was the coolest guy I knew, so I aped him and called her the same name.
I had no idea what it meant.
Me, she reported to the teacher.
"trof called me a name."
"What did you call her?"
"A two-bit whore."

BOOM! Off to the principal's office.
Phone call to mom at work.
Mom came and picked me up.

Poor lady.
Not only did she have to explain to me about sex and how babies are made, she had to explain prostitution too.

When I found out about baby making I thought it was GROSS.
And I could NOT imagine my own mother EVER doing something that yucky.
sigh...

[elleng]

7. Sorry about your and your mom's initiation!

We ALL 'thought it was GROSS, And could NOT imagine our own parents EVER doing something that yucky,' didn't we???

[hunter]

6. Never any secrets in my family. I knew how it worked so long as I remember.

If my mom's explanations were confusing my artist dad drew pictures.

"Casual nudity" was utterly unremarkable in our family. Often no swimsuit needed. Human anatomy was never a mystery to me. My mom would breastfeed any kid who was hungry. I'd even seen my great grandma's breasts half way to her naval and long past any bra would matter. Traditional crowded two-room Scandinavian homes are not all that private, especially on wood stove hot water tin tub bath day. I'd also seen my naked grandpa being chased by his mom's mean old rooster after he'd been skinny dipping in the canal and my great grandma trying to suppress her laughter.

All my siblings, kids, cousins, nephews, nieces, and now the next generation, they are all very much "wanted," maybe especially the occasional surprises.

Every kid in our family knows how "birth control" works (or fails...) long before they care to test it out for themselves.

[nolabear]

8. In fact I did, quite by accident.

I always described our household with "my mother put plastic slipcovers on the furniture." That fell apart in the disasters of later years, but up til I was nine it wasn't the most easygoing, life-embracing place in the world. It was kind of tight and prissy, iykwim.

BUT, my cousins had a dairy farm. The kids were near enough my age that I absolutely adored going there when we managed it every couple of years. I got to do things I never dreamed of otherwise, build fires, stomp around out in the pasture, hang in the barn watching the milking and bottle feeding the calves, and so forth.

One afternoon we were coming back from the "branch" when we came across a cow giving birth. I was eight, and had no idea what was up, but my cousins did and they and I sat down and watched from a distance, for what seemed like a long time.

After a while I realized that their father, my Uncle Goose (Yes, they called him that. Big old Adam's Apple) was sitting with us. We all just sat there and watched that baby being born, with all the feeling you might associate with church. Uncle Goose asked me if I'd ever seen anything being born before. I said no, and he just patted me on the back and said "Well, when you go back to school you might not want to tell everybody. You know a lot more than they do now and their parents usually want to tell them about those things." I don't think I've ever felt so sophisticated since. Their warm, affectionate and pragmatic attitudes about critters, life and death made a big, big impression on me, and probably helped me through my own mother's death not long after.

[Kali]

11. great story

[nomorenomore08]

13. +2

I agree, great story!

[NightWatcher]

9. you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have

Seriously, I'm the first to do this?

[nolabear]

12. LOL! Apparently you are, but now it'll be in my head for days.

[RebelOne]

10. My aunt told me about how babies were born.

My mother would never have told me otherwise. There were no sex ed classes when I was in school.

[lastlib]

14. I guess I shouldn't put it this way, but......

yeah, I learned it from the farm animals....!

(I'll leave it at that!)