Mummy
lays an egg
Saturday 29 July 2000
I went in with Matthew to the local library this morning. Deb was doing some shopping so we played in the park first and then went to the library. We wandered through the isles to the children's section, where he spied the shelf of Thomas the Tank Engine books, and I had to read some of those to him. On the way, though, I'd picked up a couple of books I thought might be fun to read to him. One was about diggers — I swear, I've learned way more about diggers, road-building, steam shovels and the construction industry as a whole in the past year than I did in the previous 37! — and the other was called Mummy Lays An Egg. It looked a fun children's book.
After Thomas the Tank Engine we sat down to read the books I'd chosen. It was a nice comfortable couch, and we sat with my arm around him and him nestled up against me.
The digger book was fine, albeit a little sexist — Man digs the hole, digs the tunnel, lays the road etc — and then we started Mummy Lays An Egg.
It started pretty cool. Hippy Mum and Dad decided it was time to tell their kids about how babies were made. So they did.
“Boys are made from spiders and snails and puppy-dogs' tails.”
“Girls are made from sugar and spice and all things nice.”
“Babies are delivered by dinosaurs … Babies grow from seeds in pots … Babies are found under rocks … Babies are squeezed from tubes … Mummy laid an egg on the couch and it exploded and you two kids popped out!”
Well, I thought, this was great. It was a fun book about parents having fun with their kids.
Then the story turned on its head. The kids laughed at their hippy parents and said, “it's obvious you don't know how babies are made, so we're going to have to tell you!”
So they did.
They told their parents they'd got some it right, because, yes, there were seeds and tubes and eggs involved. They drew some pictures of men (showing their little "seed-pods" and tube the seeds flowed from), and women (showing where the eggs waited for the seeds).
I looked down at Matthew, wondering just whether I should go on. He was in rapt attention.
The next page had a kids' drawing showing the various ways men and women could, not to put to fine a point on it, get it on. On the couch. In the garden. In bed. On a skateboard! (I guess as kids the practicalities may have been a little lost on them).
I looked down at Matthew. He was making notes.
The next page showed kid's diagrams of the sperm having a race to be first to the egg. “I won!” shouted the winner. “We wuz robbed!” shouted the rest.
I looked down at Matthew. He was giggling as I read.
The rest of the book showed Mummy growing bigger and fatter, and bigger and fatter, and bigger and fatter until the baby was born. The final page showed the hippy parents with stunned looks on their faces as their kids concluded the lesson for them.
I think I had a similar look on my face. I looked down at Matthew. He was nodding his head with a, "yeah, seen it all before" look.
Debbie came into the library. I wanted her to experience reading that book to a two year old. She didn't know I'd just read it to him and sat down to read it again.
Matthew waited patiently as she went through the first half of the book. He knew the hippy parents were just trying to lead their kids astray.
Debbie got to the lesson part of the book.
She first started faltering as Matthew started pointing at the man going, “ooohhhhhh, seeds” and then at the woman going, “oooohhhhh, eggs”.
She stopped completely at the skateboard drawing. “I'm not sure we should be reading this book to Matthew”, she said, “he's much too young for it”. She closed the book.
She looked down at Matthew. Matthew smiled. Matthew pointed to her belly and said “Baby!”