Minivans

On a recent drive home from school, Ben and I talked about his day. Since he had taken a field trip to a nearby hiking trail, I asked how he had gotten there.  He said in someone’s van, and began listing the people who owned vans. The discussion turned to the difference between vans, and how to know when something was a minivan. I explained that most family-owned vans were minivans, but if the van held more than seven people, it was probably a passenger van. To bring the point home I explained that Hana’s friend’s family drove a passenger van because they had a family with five or more kids.

After an exclamation of wonder at anyone having lots of kids he wanted to know why a family would have so many kids when, in his opinion, two kids were the perfect number, and were all that was needed.  I reminded him that many families had more than two kids, and in fact if his grandfather Paul (twelfth of thirteen), or his dad (fifth of five) had parents that felt this way, he wouldn't have been born. Furthermore, many religions don’t approve of birth control and hold larger families in high regard.

To this he asked “what is birth control.” I reminded him that we had talked about sex and how babies were made by a sperm from a male coming together with an egg from a female in the past. Then added that birth control took many forms but was often men wore a balloon called a condom over their penis to trap the sperm, as well as protect them from sexually transmitted diseases. 

After an acknowledgement that this sounded familiar, he asked so how many times did you and dad “do it” to have Hana and me, quickly adding that he thought that  no more than two times would have been necessary.  Surprised by the directness of his question, I paused before replying gently that this was not an appropriate question to ask anyone, even your own parent.  I quickly added that there are many reasons people would choose to have sex, some of which in addition to having babies involved love and recreation.  He then apologized, embarrassed for asking something he shouldn't have. On the whole, he found the whole subject to be gross, starting with kissing, which is fine for now.

It is funny to think about how much of my relationship with Ben is bound to the subject of vans.  My dad died right before Ben turned two years old and I was in a bit of a fog for at least the first year or two afterwards overwhelmed with the task of moving and caring for my mother. Ben’s delayed language skills limited his ability to express his needs and added to his frustration and mine. During that time, we bonded by finding things we could do together without language. Since I was obsessed with fitting my newly enlarged family into one vehicle and he loved minivans, we began test driving them together. I can only ponder how this this subject will continue to bring us together in the future.