This is the fourth and final article from Sex & Parenting featured writer, Rachel Sarah. To read Rachel’s previous articles, go to the archives!

Although my five-year-old daughter and I now have separate bedrooms—after four years of sleeping together—I don’t exactly have privacy. My “bedroom” is half the living room. There is no door. It can be a challenge to keep my private life under wraps.

During the mad rush to get Mae to kindergarten this morning, I duck my head into the bathroom and command for the fourth time, “Please brush your teeth!”

“Mommy, what’s this?” she asks.

In her little closed fist is a Trojan Condom, still smartly packaged in gold, glittering in the morning light like a party favor she brought home from a friend’s birthday party.

Damn.

“Nothing!” I snatch the rubber from her. “We’re late for school!”

“But I want to open it,” she says.

White toothpaste encircles her lips. Her hair is in pigtails. She seems so pure, so innocent.

“No!” I say. “C’mon, let’s go!”

Normally, my sex supplies—condoms, birth control pills, vibrator—are stashed on the highest shelf in our bathroom, above the deodorant, aloe vera, and Band-Aids. But this wayward condom must have jumped off its shelf and landed on the floor.

I wish I could say that I stood still at this very moment and thought, Who cares if we’re five minutes late for school? Talking to my daughter is more important.

I wish I could say that I seized this opportunity to give my daughter an age-appropriate lesson on safe sex. I wish I could say that I am the kind of mother who has no qualms about showing her child what a condom is. But this morning, I say none of these things. Instead, I grab her jacket, dash down the stairs, and remind her, “It’s pizza day!”

There, that’s easy. We’ve moved on from safe sex to pizza. More important, the condom is back in its place and forgotten.

Still, after kissing Mae goodbye at school, my conscience starts speaking to me, as it often does.

She’s just curious, that’s all.

I remember the look of disappointment on her face as I seized the evidence. Why did I react so crossly, as if she’d done something wrong? She’s only five years old! That wasn’t right.

Oh, my baby, I’m sorry.

Haven’t I always vowed to teach her that no subject is off-limits, that she can talk to me about anything? We live in Berkeley, for heaven’s sake! I grew up in the suburbs with a Catholic mother who never uttered the word “sex,” and the last thing I want is for Mae to feel condemned. Don’t I want her to be educated and informed? Yes, she should go into this world knowing how to take care of her body.

What am I so afraid of?

Mae knows exactly what a penis and vagina are. In fact, one of her favorite books is Mommy Laid an Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come From? by Babette Cole, an ironic story about a sophisticated brother and sister who must explain reproduction to their nervous, afraid parents. Mae laughs when the parents try to explain that babies are made out of gingerbread or squeezed out of a tube.

The book has created a stir among some parents, who claim, for instance, that drawings of couples having sexual intercourse on a skateboard or suspended in the air by helium balloons are lewd and inaccurate. It has been banned from many libraries.

I’ve read this book to her over and over. So, why can’t I just sit down and tell her what a rubber is? What am I so afraid of?

It’s this: What if my daughter asks me if I have sex? What would I say to her? Yes, Mommy has sex. Didn’t you wonder why you sometimes go to a friend’s house for a sleepover? I’ve even had sex when you’re fast asleep in your big-girl bed in the next room. I sometimes worry that you’ll wake up when you hear the bed squeaking. I can make an awful racket! I’m glad that you’re finally a deep sleeper.

I don’t think so. We’ll postpone this conversation for later.

~~~

Tonight, Mae and I are back in the bathroom, brushing our teeth before bed. She’s wearing her Disney Princess nightgown and Dora the Explorer slippers. She looks so wholesome.

I don’t know the first thing about talking to a young kid about sex.

But I can’t stand it anymore. I open the cupboard, reach up, and pull the condom down from its spot on the shelf. I hadn’t realized that it’s an “extra-large,” a freebie I grabbed after a recent doctor’s appointment. This is going to be worse than I’d imagined. I take a deep breath.

“Remember this?” I ask.

She nods her head.

“I’m sorry about this morning, when you asked me what this was, and I didn’t explain it. I’m going to tell you now, okay?”

She puts her toothbrush down on the counter. Her face is eager and open. I bend down so that we’re face to face. I begin by reminding her how babies are made, like in the book Mommy Laid an Egg. As I talk, I rip open the package. Her eyes are glued to it.

“This is called a condom,” I say, pulling it out. She reaches out and touches the latex.

“Remember that a man has little seeds inside him that come out? Well, this traps the seeds so they can’t get into a woman’s body and make a baby.”

I swallow as she pulls hard on the latex. “They get stuck in here?”

“That’s right, honey.” She lets go, and it snaps in the air.

“But, Mommy, why don’t you want to have another baby?”

“Another baby?”

“Yes, I want a baby sister.”

Whew, this is going to be a breeze. I list all the reasons I’m not going to have another baby right now, like the fact that we live in a one-bedroom apartment that is too small for another baby, and the fact that babies cost a lot of money. I skirt around my relationship status: the fact that I have no boyfriend.

“Most of all,” I say, “I’m so happy with you right now, my big girl.”

Then she dashes out the door to choose her bedtime story from the shelf. I grab a wad of toilet paper and wrap it around the wasted condom. Well, it wasn’t exactly wasted. It did go to a good cause, right?

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