Enquiring minds: My daughters and sex

Wisnu Pramudya, Contributor/Jakarta

Baby's favorite book for the past two years has been one on the human body, especially chapters dealing with reproductive health and genitalia. She knows all a girl of 4.5 years needs to know about penis, vagina and urethra, although she does sometimes get body parts mixed up.

"That's what happens when you read her books on astronomy and the human body at almost the same time," I chided my wife when she reported that according to Baby, the three openings underneath a female human body are the urethra, vagina and Uranus.

Repeated readings, however, have not satiated her quest for knowledge on the subject.

Recently she caused restrained giggles from sales assistants in a bookshop-cum-Muslim boutique because she kept lifting the dresses off mannequins, and even slipped her hands up under the sarong of a life-size male doll.

My wife whispered from behind, "What are you trying to do, Baby? Are you trying to find the penis?"

Baby nodded eagerly.

"Well, did you find any, there?"

Baby whispered back, raising her little finger, "Yes, I did, Mommy, but its so small."

My wife never had the chance to learn if it was really there or what size it was, as Baby had already darted to another corner of the bookshop where she spotted another life-size human body, the kind that we use in biology classes.

She grinned, and said, "Tubuh laki-laki (the male body.)"

My wife and I do not think she is obsessed with sex, of course. It's just that she is overcame with a healthy curiosity about people and her world. In all her innocence, however, sometimes she makes it rather hard for her parents to keep a straight face. The kinds of question that she asks would probably make parents more squeamish than us drop dead.

One day, she was lying on the floor while working on her coloring book. I was sitting nearby, reading, when she suddenly pointed toward my groin and asked, "Dad, what's that?"

She of course knew perfectly well that the area she pointed at was the place where a penis was usually attached to the human male body.

I tried to ignore her, and answered carelessly, "It's a pencil".

"Well, take it out then, I want to use it. Then I will break it!" she said, gesturing toward all the broken crayons and coloring pencils on the floor.

My wife stifled her giggles, then, failing to maintain her composure, escaped from the room.

My sister recently gave birth to a baby girl. Suddenly, Baby became preoccupied with anything related to nursing; she demanded loudly in department stores that she be given nursing bras. Sales assistant tried to help us by saying the stores only sell bras to people with, well, breasts, but could say no more when she argued that she, too, had breasts though small yet.

"But you are only five years old, you don't need bras, yet," I said.

"But I will soon grow big, next year I want to nurse babies," she insisted.

My harried wife finally relented and brought her two pairs of training bras which were, of course, too big for Baby. She wore them anyway, and proudly told any members of the family that she was wearing a bra.

"Do you want to see my bra?" she asked her grandfather.

"Oh God, don't let her ask anyone that question when she is bigger," my wife muttered a prayer under her breath.

After visiting the new baby, she returned home virtually bursting with questions. "Dad, why doesn't Sister have a baby?" she asked me about our eldest daughter.

"Sister is not married yet, and as we are Muslim, it's haram (unlawful) to have children out of wedlock," I tried to be as helpful as possible. "She will get married in a few years, OK?"

I told her that I would have to meet with the prospective young man, find out if he was an upstanding citizen, his devotion to his religion, his job, his responsibilities, etc.

I also told her I would perform the istikharah (a prayer for guidance when having to choose between alternatives).

"And will Allah let you know?"

"Yes," I said, running out of breath.

Several days after that particular conversation, my wife reported, "Baby asked me this morning to teach her to say the istikharah, because she needed to decide whether to marry you or Grandpa."

My wife and I realized that there was no way this line of questioning would stop some time soon, and could not help but thinking that in so many ways, our eldest daughter's questions were easier to deal with. Sister is indeed different from Baby. She is much quieter, prefers to stay in her room reading novels, listening to Islamic songs and playing computer games.

When she was only nine years old, Sister demanded that we explain why Allah had cursed the Pharaoh of Egypt. Nowadays, she bombards me with questions about all manner of subjects.

But if we thought there would not be any embarrassing questions coming from her, we were mistaken indeed, for one day, as we were driving from our home on the outskirts of Jakarta to Central Jakarta, she suddenly blurted out: "Dad, what does 'f*** you' mean?"

It took us more than 20 minutes to explain that away to Sister, while inserting messages about what Islam thinks about loving and intimacies between a husband and a wife. In the meantime, Baby was sitting there, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as she awaited her turn to ask yet another question.

-- The writer is a freelance journalist based in Depok. He can be contacted at wisnu.pramudya@journalist.com