The Facts of Life

The Facts of Life
by Dave Wright

The cow grunted and pushed. A clear bubble of fluid appeared from her vagina as if it were wrapped in cellophane. “What’s that?” asked a six-year-old girl who had been standing next to me among the crowd at the Minnesota State Fair.

I looked behind me from my crouched position to see if the girl’s parents were nearby. Not seeing anyone particularly interested in her question, I proceeded to answer it. “That’s the cow’s vagina,” I said. “We are expecting the cow to have a baby calf soon.”

I am a veterinarian who was volunteering at the Miracle of Birth exhibit, and I was monitoring the progress of the delivery.

“Where is the baby calf now?” inquired the girl.

“It’s still in the cow’s tummy,” I replied. “It’s in a big sack called a uterus. The uterus is made up of muscles that will push the calf though the birth canal when the time is right.”

“Where is the daddy?” she asked, apparently understanding my explanation so far.

“That’s a good question,” I said. “The daddy is called a bull. He is still at home.” (I didn’t feel I needed to complicate matters with the details of artificial insemination.)

“Why isn’t he here?” pressed the girl.

I looked again for parental help. Still nothing from the bystanders, many of whom were interested in how I would extricate myself from this impetuous girl. “The daddy bull got together with the cow about nine months ago in a process called mating. He really doesn’t need to be here for the birth.”

“Oh,” said the girl, a small crease appearing between her eyebrows. “But how did the baby calf get in the cow’s tummy in the first place?”

“That is a question for your mom or dad to answer,” I said, “but what I can tell you is that the baby calf begins to grow in the cow’s belly after a tiny cell called a sperm from the bull meets up with a tiny cell called an egg from the mommy. That’s when the miracle of birth begins.”

I was rescued from the girl’s next probing question when a young man touched the girl’s shoulder and said, “Karen, we have to go home. It’s getting late.”

“But I want to see the baby calf born,” she complained.

“I think it might be a while before the baby will be born,” I explained to her, “but I have enjoyed visiting with you.” Then I stood up to greet the young man and the woman standing behind her who had been listening all the while. “How did I do?” I asked with a sheepish grin.

The woman laughed. “You did just fine, thank you.”

She turned to her husband who added, “We will have ‘the talk’ before school starts next week!”

As I watched Karen leave the building holding her father’s hand I thought, I wish someone had had that conversation with me when I was six.

I grew up with two younger brothers—no sisters—and my mother was a very private person. I don’t ever remember seeing her or any other female naked. I suspected that there was something special hiding between a girl’s legs, but I had no idea what it might have been. Once, on a Christmas shopping trip to Dayton’s department store, our young family had finished browsing the toy department and Dad had circled back to purchase our gifts. We boys were left with Mom in the women’s section. She was distracted looking at the scarf rack when my brother and I slipped under a mannequin to discover the secret that must have been hidden under her dress. I remember being dragged out by the hood of my parka before I caught a glimpse of what was not there.

Sex, babies and how they were made were taboo subjects in my Scandinavian home, and the explanations for these mysteries left me with a knit brow that still exists today.

My mother apparently had delivered me and my second brother with relative ease. When my mother was pregnant with my third brother, who is seven years younger than me, I remember looking at her growing belly and asked her how babies were born. She replied matter-of-factly, “It’s kind of like pushing really hard when you’re having a BM.” (We couldn’t say “bowel movement” in our house. We called it “making fish” until I was ten.) I was mystified. About that same time, I’d heard Carol Burnett’s description of childbirth: “Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.”

I puzzled over these contradictory explanations of childbirth until I found copy of The Human Body, a small hard-covered book that was tucked behind our collection of World Book encyclopedias. The book was so tattered with wear that someone else must have found it as interesting as I did. I stole peeks at it when no one else was in the house as if it were a Playboy magazine. The biology became clear, but the details remained obscure.

Always the academic, I thought public school would come to my rescue. I waited anxiously for our health teacher to call the class to order. He closed the blinds, set up the movie projector, and turned off the lights. This was more exciting than a new episode of Bonanza! I sat up, sharpened my number two and waited for a revelation. The movie flickered to life. The title filled the screen: “Adolescence-A New World for Boys and Girls.” Then I noticed the disclaimer in the lower right-hand corner: “For Boys Only.” What good will that do me? I thought. I already know about boys. I need to know about girls! I folded my arms and leaned back in my chair. The movie narrator began, “Let’s start with anatomy.” Then the film broke. “Sorry, boys,” said our instructor as he flicked on the lights. “Anatomy will have to wait until I splice the film.”

The disappointment of the broken film was followed by the disappointment of its content. The diagrams in the movie were no different than those in my copy of The Human Body. The film was preoccupied with the arrival of pubic hair, the importance of deodorant, and the certainty of emotional turmoil. Nothing was said about sex drive or erections or ejaculations—and certainly nothing about orgasms. Those details must have been reserved for the sequel, a film that is still buried in the archives of the old junior high school. The movie used the dry and evasive term, “coitus” to explain “the physical union of male and female genitalia.” At that time, I was so naïve and immature that I had never even experienced a wet dream. What the heck? I thought. When the time comes, am I supposed to take a pee in there—or what?

I grew up Lutheran. For Lutherans, sin follows us like a cloud of gnats. It nibbles our ears. It invades our nostrils. It stings our eyes—and the granddaddy of all sin is sex before marriage. I think it was Number XI on the first draft of the Commandments (a corollary to Number VI—the one about adultery), but that draft is laying at the base of Mount Sinai in a pile of rubble. By the time Moses hammered out the final draft, writer’s cramp probably forced him to settle for Ten. In any case, all of us Lutheran boys knew that sex before marriage was forbidden, so the thought of it became an obsession.

I considered converting to Catholicism. The Catholic boys I knew believed that it was okay to experiment with sin. Commit a sin; confess it to a priest on Saturday night; then walk away free to conduct another experiment. Public confession in the Lutheran church is a generic affair. We lump our sins together, confess them privately on Sunday morning and receive a wave of absolution. But Lutherans don’t really believe that forgiveness can be that easy. We view the concept of grace with skepticism. Guilt lurks in the backs of our minds, sometimes haunting us for years.

With all this confusion fluttering around in my head, I was faced with the terrifying prospect of dating. I remember it as a tortuous affair. On my first attempt, I prepared by jotting down a list of twenty questions. It was like cramming for a final exam. Before ringing the doorbell, I pulled out my crumpled note with a sweaty hand and reviewed my list. “What does your dad do for a living? How many brothers and sisters do you have?” The poor girl had to endure a census interview. It never occurred to me to ask something interesting like, “Have you ever had sex before?”

The connection between sex and pregnancy had become apparent, but I was also learning about birth control. I had read somewhere, “When implemented properly birth control is 99.9 percent effective.” That left me certain that the one-tenth percent failure would apply to me. If I were to have had sex, the nagging possibility of fatherhood lingered as a perfect deterrent to adolescent libido. The girls I dated remained as safe as a novice in a nunnery.

When I became a parent, I wanted to ensure that my sons were better informed than I had been. But I thought it would also be prudent to explain to them the small possibility of failed birth control—and of course the complications of ensuing fatherhood. One evening after dinner when the boys were wiping the spaghetti sauce from their faces, I tossed them each a small foil package. “Do you know what this is?” I asked.

Even at the tender ages of late grade school and early junior high, they laughed incredulously, “Dad, is that a condom?”

“Yes,” I replied seriously. “Let’s talk about how they are supposed to work.” After they opened the little packages, I filled them with water. I did not tell them that t I had poked a tiny pin hole through each package. I was shocked when not one drop of water escaped the latex balloon. I thought they missed the point. It was not until this past year that my younger son, who now has two (planned) daughters of his own said, “I never forgot that demonstration of yours. I saw you poke that pin through the package. Even though no water escaped, I knew that a little sperm could have made it through.”

When your son or daughter begins to ask probing, uncomfortable questions about sex and reproduction, I recommend that you schedule a visit to the state fair. Corner an unsuspecting veterinarian. Introduce your child and say, “I’m going to get a porkchop on a stick. When I return, I’ll bet you will know all about the facts of life.”

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