Understanding Your Body as a child

When I was about 8 years old, I had a UTI after playing in a muddy pond. When I went for a bath that day, I felt itchy and uncomfortable. But when I poured cold water on myself, it felt soothing. So I moved the bucket out of the way and opened the tap all the way till cold water poured directly onto my genitals. Not only did this soothe the infection, but it began to feel really good! It felt kind of ticklish and made me smile. A few days later, my mother gave me “The Playbook for Kids about Sex” by Joani Blank. At first I was embarrassed and a little scared that she had found out about my secret discovery of the cold water tap. She told me to ask her if I had any questions or didn't understand anything in that book.

So I took the book and hid in my favourite place in the house, the balcony. As I read the book and looked at the pictures, I realised that the tap was a common discovery for children and that I had no reason to feel embarrassed. It also explained the joys of sliding down a banister or bicycling on a cycle with a long seat.

The book was an eye-opener. It taught me about keeping myself clean, avoiding infections, being safe, knowing the difference between an adult who wants to help me take care of my body and an adult that is trying to use my body, Essentially the good touch-bad touch information. It taught me the names of different parts of my body as well as the names of parts on a boy's body. It told me about how our bodies function differently and grow differently. It taught me about how I may feel impulses and how to safely handle the impulses without getting hurt or misunderstood.

I read the book cover to cover 5 times in two days. Then I asked my mother to make a little alone time so that I could talk to her about the book. We talked in her room for about an hour, with the door locked, so nobody would intrude. She answered all my questions and told me that it was OK to talk to my father and ask him questions too. The main question I had was very simple. I wanted to know:

1. If I didn't want to have children till I was at least 30, could I stop my breasts from growing and my periods from coming till I was ready?

2. If boys had body parts that stuck out like a water hose, how did they sit down without hurting themselves, and how did they turn off the tap?

I expected my mother to laugh at me, but she didn't. She told me that our bodies adapt to help us stay comfortable. She told me that having children takes a lot of work, and that your body needs to practice for years, so that when you are ready to have a baby, your body already know what to do automatically, like learning to write by hand from a young age, so that you can think and write fast simultaneously to pass your tenth grade exams.

I then went and asked my dad the question I had. He told me that the switch to the tap is in the head, and that the same way I know when I want to go to the bathroom and when I am finished, a boy's brain knows too. He then told me that boys' fathers teach them how to sit and stand and walk without getting hurt, and that all boys are also told to be very careful about other boys accidentally kicking them when they play sports.

I had my book for reference, I had parents who answered my questions, and I was ready to take on the world. I felt like I had a secret knowledge about my own body, that nobody but my parents knew about!

Today, I tried to locate “The Playbook for Kids about Sex” by Joani Blank on Amazon.in, Ebay.in and on Google. Ebay and Amazon don't have it in stock in India, and there are no eBook versions available for download in India. This is exactly why many Indian children resort to Googling information about their bodies, end up looking at WebMD and other sites that are inappropriate for their age, and get the wrong impression of what their bodies need to look like. They see images of surgically modified bodies, that tell them they ought to developed at a certain rate, without letting them know that each body is different and assuring them that someday, when the time is right, that they will have all their body parts in place. To my friends who have children, please look up this book, and if you are comfortable enough, please find a way to get a copy for your children.