Parent-Children Communication on Human Conception and Genitalia: Using Metaphors and Euphemism as Communicative Covers

Abstract Despite mounting evidence showing the benefit of parents communicating about human conception and genitalia to their children, several studies show challenges for these have been culturally thought of as taboo subjects that parents find difficult to talk about. This exploratory two-case study investigates how two families from separate municipalities in Quezon Province communicate about these topics with their children. Families were purposively selected based on capability to respond openly on the topic of sexuality with practical consideration for proximity during the pandemic. Family A has two children – an 8-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, while family B has a 5-year-old female child. With the consent of parents, 92-minute-long recorded conversation sessions with the families, including retrospective participants commentaries on recorded conversations constituted the data for this research. The cases indicate that both families seldom talk about human conception and genitalia. Both families also tend to talk less directly about human conception because parents think that the topic is inappropriate for their children’s age. Moreover, parents from both families used representations and metaphors, such as trees bearing fruits and vaccine injection, in explaining the process of human conception, with mothers typically leading the conversation. Family A focused on communicating the subject to their daughter because they think she needs more protection than their son. On the topic of human genitalia, Family A used euphemisms while Family B did not. Drawing on the Family Communications Pattern Theory, these findings suggest that both families use what we call “communicative covers” as aids for communicating human conception and genitalia to their children to soften the stigmatizing effect of communicating such topics they deem taboo and age-inappropriate.