Gal Gadot shared her third pregnancy with daughters 'the PG way.' How should parents explain baby-making to kids?
She may be Wonder Woman, but Gal Gadot is like any other parent scrambling for answers when children ask, “Where do babies come from?”
The 35-year-old star, who in March, announced her third pregnancy with husband Yaron Varsano, with an Instagram photo captioned, "Here we go again," paid a virtual visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live. During the Thursday show, Gadot revealed how she told daughters Maya, 4, and Alma, 9, that she was having a baby.
When asked by host Jimmy Kimmel whether her children had asked where babies come from, Gadot answered, "Are you kidding me? Of course. Alma had the whole session when I was pregnant with Maya and Maya is now super curious about how the baby got in there, how is she going to come out and all of that."
"So we explained the PG way, you know, 'Mommy and Daddy had a big hug, Papa planted a seed in Mommy's tummy,'" she added. "So we're doing this, the birds and bees, how we know it."
Gadot also shared the fun way she informed the girls about their unborn sister.
"At the beginning ... we did a whole thing,” she told Kimmel. “We got them cupcakes and we got [a] cupcake for each member of the family, including the dog. And then, there was one cupcake left and I told them, 'Do you know who this cupcake belongs to?'" Gadot said that when she pointed toward her stomach, Alma yelled "Noooo!"
While some parents avoid the "birds and the bees" talk altogether, others use technical terms to help children understand the basics of reproduction without delving into the emotional nuances of sex.
According to Sharon Silver, the founder of Proactive Parenting, a direct approach is reasonable but it's also wise to build off children's curiosity.
“The truth is, with young children, you can’t just give them the nuts and bolts,” Silver tells Yahoo Life. “With kids that are younger than 6 or 7, it's best to follow their line of thinking" and omit explicit details.
Silver suggests turning the question around by asking: "Where do you think babies come from?" and addressing children's responses from there. By engaging on an age-appropriate level, which can be quite imaginative, you'll better communicate information they can process.
And while it may feel harmless to use euphemisms, Silver says correct terminology will avoid confusion. For example, explaining that the baby is inside the "uterus" instead of the "stomach" allows children to gain a better understanding of anatomy.
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