My eight year old daughter asked a thoughtful question on the way to school recently: "So, when they took me out of your tummy, could you see digested food and stuff?"
Of course she asked me this. She is a super smart kid. She also knows she was born via cesarean section and that the doctors cut open my 'belly' to take her out. Belly, tummy, stomach. I've used these words interchangeably with her since she was teeny tiny. Never the word uterus. And even as a biologist I didn't think twice about it. Until the morning when Coco asked me her question... and it became immediately apparent that a more detailed conversation with her was appropriate. Not about sex. But about her body.
I enthusiastically went in search of a great book on girls' physiology. But I quickly learned online that either 1) I had no way of viewing a book's content or 2) the limited content I was privy to was irrelevant. So I headed off to a local book store to browse the pages of their stock and again was disappointed. The few books on the shelves were not what I needed -- though I was impressed to see American Girl tackling acne, menstruation, body odor, and social media.
So I returned to my computer, now in search of female anatomy photos on google images. And even here I struggled. Lots of renderings of legs spread eagle, some with awful, wirey pubic hair. Maybe in a couple years (though without the pubic hair). There were quite a few good depictions of the uterus, which is the direction I eventually took. But what I really wanted was just a simple, elegant drawing showing the organs of the pelvic and abdominal cavities on a female torso. An image depicting the difference between a stomach and a uterus.
What I *really* wanted was a scientific book written for a young, mature girl about her body's physiology and what each organ does for her body. Why was this so hard to find?
I imagined myself writing the book I was missing as I sat my daughter down and showed her a cartoon image of a woman's uterus. Out of context, but at least a starting point.
And this is what I said to her:
A person's tummy or belly (motioning to my own general abdominal region) is officially called the abdomen, and it has many organs - each that performs a specific function. The stomach is where your food is digested (not where a baby grows). Below your stomach is your intestines where nutrients from your food are absorbed into your blood stream. Waste moves into your colon and comes out your rectum.
Other organs in your abdomen include your pancreas, liver, spleen, and kidneys - each with many important tasks.
Below your abdomen is your pelvis and this is where your uterus is. The uterus is where a baby is made and grows. Only women have a uterus. The uterus has two arms called Fallopian tubes and each Fallopian tube holds an ovary.
It then seemed appropriate to continue with a version - my version - of the "where do babies come from" speech. And this is how it went:
A baby is made from only two cells: one from the mommy and one from the daddy. The mommy's cell is called an egg and egg cells are stored in the ovaries. Every month, when you get a little older, an egg cell will be released into one of your Fallopian tubes. If a daddy's cell, called a sperm, is in the uterus at the same time, then the two cells can meet and this is how a baby first begins.
I then showed my daughter two electron micrographs, the first of a human sperm attaching to an egg and the second of the cellular division that occurs after fertilization. In my mind, two of the greatest miracles of life. The fusion of two unique cells into one and the exponential division of this new hybrid cell, the zygote, into early stages of a new life.
Colored electron micrograph of a sperm and egg cell.
Electron micrograph of zygotic cell division after fertilization
My daughter sat quietly at the kitchen counter, attentive and interested though asking few questions. How much of my diatribe had made sense to her? I wasn't entirely sure, though I was confident she at least now knew the difference between a stomach and a uterus. I could save the discussion of the pancreas for another day. The talk about sex for another time. This was a win and I was happy to take it. It was a bonding moment for my daughter and me. I was imparting a great academic wisdom on my eight year old's growing mind and she was patient enough to hear it.
Two weeks later I got an email home from school. Inherent though not explicit in the note was the word "inappropriate." Apparently Coco shared "where babies come from" with her second grade lunch table and the teachers were unthrilled. She (and I) were kindly told that the subject was more appropriate for home than school.
I asked her that afternoon what exactly she had shared over lunch...
"You know. How babies are made in the uterus and that the mommy's cell comes from the... fopian... fopilian..."
I chimed in. "Fallopian."
"Yes, the Fallopian tube."
Wonderful I said - and I gave her a big hug. A win.
Since then, I've continued to imagine (and draft) what a physiology book might look like for an eight year old. And if I ever write one, our school should stock it in their library as far as I'm concerned. I also came across this image online - which is the best I've seen that reasonably portrays organs of the abdominal and pelvic cavities on a female model. I just wish her beautiful CGI breasts were a little less beautiful and a little more realistic.
