IT’S scary how fast kids pick things up these days.

It was a quiet Saturday morning and I was sitting in the kitchen, tucking into my favourite bowl of cereal when my son Hafiz, then eight, walks in.

“Hey dad,” he starts, grabbing a glass and making his way to the refrigerator.

While I continued munching and reading, I could hear water being poured into the glass, slowly and deliberately. It went on forever and gave me this inexplicable urge to unload my bladder. The fact that it was a tall glass probably had something to do with it but knowing Hafiz, something was brewing inside him and he was just waiting for the right time to spring it on me without inducing a massive coronary.

He finishes up, pulls up a chair directly in front of me and plonks himself right down. And then he just looks at me. Like that little girl in The Ring. It would have been super freaky had it not been for the fact that we had rehearsed this routine so many times before. I had it down pat. I knew that was my cue.
In between gulping mouthfuls of cereal, I asked.

“Okay, Hoopie. What’s on your mind?”

“Dad, what’s S-E-X?”

I almost spewed out chunks of Koko Krunch across the dining table, right out the window and into the lawn.

Such a sweet child. He even had the courtesy to spell it for me.

I didn’t need to go through my copy of Parenting For Dummies to figure out that he wasn’t asking me how to pronounce the word. That put me in a bind. Do I tell him the God-awful truth or do I give him some convoluted version that is so far out of this world that his head would spin and do a back flip with a twist?

I felt as if a fragmentation grenade had just gone off right next to my head. I’m a Dad, for crying out loud; I’m not supposed to handle complex issues. Getting me to pick out three ice cream flavours is a half-day event and he wants to know about sex!

My ears were ringing and everything became a muffled blur.

“Well Hafiz, I’m glad you asked me that question because to be honest with you, Daddy was getting just a wee bit bored munching on Koko Krunch. By the way, would you like some? Grab a bowl and the milk in the fridge. Would you like some extra sugar to go with it?”

I could hear myself trailing off. I was in trouble and gasping for air. I was running out of options faster than you could say “Uh-oh” and I knew it. Felt like Jessie ‘The Body’ Ventura in Predator when his Minigun ran out of slugs. The barrels are still spinning, smoke is still spewing out of the muzzle and you could hear the metal crackling due to the heat from pumping out white-hot rounds. But no joy. Click.

I knew this day would come. But I figured I’d have at least 12 years from the day he was born to work on my PowerPoint presentation, so the fact that he didn’t stick to the timeline threw things way, way off.

I was still struggling to work around the problem when an image flashed in my brain. It was a standard, government-issued form where they ask for your details to be written in big block letters. One word in particular stood out. Jantina.

Sex!

I was saved! I managed to beat the Mongol horde that had been encircling my wagons. And my salvation had come in the form of a National Registration Department form. Go figure.

“Okay, Hafiz. I’ll give it to you straight. No beating around the proverbial bush. Are you ready? Here it comes. Sex means gender. Boy or girl. That’s it. End of story. You’re not getting anything else from me even if you pull out all my nails!”

There was a long silence. He gives me this look of disappointment a father would give a child who had just committed a grave misdemeanour, shakes his head, gathers his Pokemon cards and slowly gets up and leaves me without saying a single word.

I savoured my small victory but realised that I had merely bought myself some time. That’s all.

He’ll be back soon and maybe this time around, I won’t be so lucky.