As you put them to bed at night, they will often ask you questions. It will increase their love for you to know that a baby grows inside its mother for nine months; to know how the baby is born; that childbirth hurts you; to know that the baby is fed from the breast after it is born, and that even while inside its mother she feeds it through a tube which is afterwards cut off, leaving a mark called the navel. Even the bodily difference between boy and girl will be quite obvious to them once they know that the baby is born from its mother, and therefore needs a large opening to pass through. It is good that boy and girl should each know how the other is shaped, but this knowledge must come to them very naturally and early on in life.

Make all this explanation spiritual, open, obvious. Make no mystery about it. Take examples from the Hail Mary, from the feasts of the Church, just to show how natural it all is to us Catholics. Here is a small practical example; if you are feeding a baby at your breast, you can do it quite modestly, yet without trying to hide it from your other children. Or if you are going to have another baby, you can tell your children a month or so beforehand; let them do small jobs for you to save tiring you and the baby.

Alongside this policy of truthfulness and gradual growth in knowledge, give your child a positive training in modesty right from its earliest days, by gently teaching it not to touch, or show, or speak about these parts except when they have a reason for it. Your help will be especially necessary if they are getting into the habit of rubbing and exciting these parts. But do not be harsh with them, even if they do occasionally embarrass you by their behaviour or questions in the presence of visitors! Correct them, but do it gently.

So much for the knowledge of childbirth which may be given to your youngest children. For the time being, they do not need further knowledge, and I suggest you should not tell them of the father's part just yet: "unveil the truth as far as it appears necessary" (the Pope). ⁸ Often they will seem

⁸ The Pope Speaks to Mothers, C.T.S. S 168.