Carrie Bickmore: How to explain death to your three-year-old
THEY were the questions Carrie Bickmore wasn’t expecting from her three-year-old daughter. But the Stellar columnist found the answers in an unexpected place.
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I’VE had to answer a lot of life’s big questions lately.
Questions that are always swirling around us, but rarely require an actual answer.
The first one came from Anh Do as I sat opposite him while he painted me for his series Anh’s Brush With Fame. “What is life all about, Carrie?”
Geez, Anh. What a cracker of a question to end our interview on.
I told the truth: “I am someone who is always on the move, hurtling from one thing to the next, never stopping to ponder what it all means.”
It was a terrible dodge. And his question has stuck with me ever since.
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Then my three-year-old, Evie, upped the ante.
Standing in the bathroom rubbing oil onto my oversized belly (who knows if that stuff actually prevents stretch marks?), Evie cocked her head.
“Mama, how did the baby get in there?”
What the hell! I thought this question was years away.
My 11-year-old boy still hasn’t asked me that.
“Well …” I said slowly. “I can tell you how the baby comes out.”
I went on to explain how babies are born, which led to more awkward questions about the size of the hole it comes out of.
“Phew,” I thought, “dodged that one.”
“Thanks, Mama. So how does it get in there?” she said even more curiously.
“Hmmm, ask your father,” I said.
Three days later, she was back with the same question.
I toyed with using the idea of a stork (or taxi, as my friend told her kids) dropping the babies off fully formed, but fortunately I was rushing out the door, so I cowardly washed my hands of that parental responsibility.
Evie’s dad, Chris, rose to the occasion and went full biological on her, having read somewhere that honesty is the best policy with these questions.
“Daddy’s p**** and mummy’s v***** make the babies.”
Evie paused, only for a moment, “What about Mummy’s butt?” she asked.
“Not as helpful,” replied Chris.
Two weeks later, with birth now conquered, we were forced to explain the other end of life. We were sadly attending the funeral of a friend’s mother and Evie asked, “Where does the grandma go now she is dead?”
There’s no stopping this inquisitive child.
I tried to remember what I had been told as a child: all my dead relatives went to heaven and were protectively looking down on me. Interestingly that idea brought me a strange level of comfort as a child, but Chris, who lost his brother growing up, wished people hadn’t told him that.
So we opted for the biological answer again.
We said the grandma had died now and her time on Earth was done, and sadly she won’t come back and her body would be buried in the ground.
“Won’t she get dirty?” Evie asked.
Fair question.
“She can’t feel dirty, sweetie. She doesn’t hurt anymore. She doesn’t feel love anymore. She doesn’t feel anything anymore.”
I am still wondering if we told little Evie the right thing.
There is clearly no right or wrong and I am fully aware the tough questions will keep on coming.
However, Evie’s incessant probing did help me get closer to my answer for Anh.
Maybe life is simply about working out life’s imponderables with the people you love.
It’s about feeling deeply, hurting deeply, loving deeply and getting dirty until you no longer can.
Carrie co-hosts The Project, 6.30pm weeknights on Network Ten, and Carrie & Tommy, 3pm weekdays on the Hit Network.