A Lesson About Mammals

Both of my sisters recently told me that I need to watch a documentary called "Babies".  They made it sound awfully intriguing, so I decided to give it a whirl.  

It happens to be one of the movies you can stream from Netflix, so I was sitting at my computer completely dumbstruck by the way babies are raised in different cultures, when my seven year old son, Ethan, came into the room.

I hit the pause button on that movie so fast, it was like lightning.  Ninja skills with the mouse kind of speed.

Why?  Because I was watching a documentary that showed bare-chested African women, that's why.

My sons have never seen a bare-chested woman of any race, and I wasn't sure if this film was how I wanted them to first encounter that, or if they are even ready to encounter such realities.  I remember the first time I saw a National Geographic magazine, and I recall with perfect clarity the feeling of regret over the loss of my innocence.  So I shewed him away.

I know that it's the culture in many parts of the world to go without much clothing, and I know that breastfeeding is natural...  But we're talking about a seven year old boy and a whole bunch of boobies.

It took me about three days to finish watching this film, and during the last twenty minutes or so, both of my older boys came in to my room again, wanting to know what I was watching.  I gave it about twenty seconds of thought and decided that if I prepared them, they would be fine.

"Boys", I said, "this is a movie about four real life babies who are growing up in different countries around the world, and it shows naked women.   If that's something you're OK with seeing, then you can watch this with me.  If you don't want to see that, then you should go find something else to do."

They both said they didn't mind, (no shock there), so I hit the play button and away we went.

Not too far into it, the African woman is walking along a road with her small son, and he begins to cry, so she bends down and offers him her breast for a drink.  Ethan scrunched his eyebrows up and said, "Is that a bottle or something?"

How did my children get this far into life without knowing about breastfeeding?  I never imagined they were so sheltered.  They've seen people doing it, but I guess they didn't know exactly what was going on.

I explained what it was to Ethan and Cameron, and you would not believe the shock.  I asked them what they knew about mammals, and they told me all the basics - they give birth to live young, they have hair, etc...  I said, "Yes -- and they feed their young with milk they make from their bodies."  And then I uttered the words, "We are mammals."

Cameron immediately bolted from the room, and Ethan screamed and lifted up his shirt to inspect his chest.  "Are you telling me I'm going to grow those things??"

I was laughing so hard I had to end the lesson there.  Imagine their horror if they knew that they were both breast-fed for the first few weeks of their lives.