When I was seven, Mom and Dad sat my brother and I down with Where Did I Come From? and told us exactly how babies were made, that our bodies were wonderful, and that when we were married adults, we, too, would be able to make babies if we wanted to (yes, we were made to understand that pregnancy was possible without the benefit if marriage while also strongly encouraged to view baby-making only within the context of marriage; we were seven and five, and that was reasonable—that said, mostly, my brother just laughed, but the "babies" lesson was repeated and expanded upon appropriately as we grew older).

My parents did this because one of my friends was running around telling everyone that the Stork, an actual entity endorsed by God, brought her to her parents. That story alarmed my parents, who did everything they could to disabuse us of its truth (a tad too well, in my case, as I proceeded to read my new book to all my friends, something that didn't sit well with Stork Girl's parents. :P).

In any case, this sort of storkian BS continues; not only is there some new movie about storks and babies, but this morning at the coffee house, I overheard a mother telling her daughter, who looked about nine- or ten-years-old, "Well, we won't know if the baby's a boy or a girl until the Stork brings it. The blanket's color will be our clue."

*sighs*