And here we are. Mom and Dad don’t always lick (eek, meant LOCK) the bedroom door or it’s impulsive on the sofa or kitchen island. Kids see things but they may not necessarily think it’s odd.
I think I may have seen my parents making out. They must have I have 3 younger siblings. I probably thought they were playing or something. I remember a specific occasion when my Daddy was tickling her and she was laughing and squealing for him to stop. All us kids jumped in for the tussle. That’s a good memory.
Don’t think I saw much animal stuff. If I did it wasn’t memorable enough to stay in my head.
I thought it was a bit strange my own kids noticed everything animals were doing.
The pet mice situation we had was a big moment. My kids still talk about how we had 2 apparently females. And then end up with about 50 in relatively short order. Big, big teaching moments during that. They were age 12 and down. ( One boy, 3 girls) So explanations were tricky.
I don’t know why not. Except for the rabbits I mentioned, in order to see animal sex I have to be outside and looking in the right direction when it’s happening. Oh, and I have to be able to tell what’s going on and recognize it, which I might not in the case of insects or birds. The raccoons and possums that walk through my yard do just that, they walk through. Whereever and whenever they have sex, it isn’t while they are walking through my yard. No stray cats or dogs around, and even if a couple of dogs being walked on leases want to have sex the people on the other end of the leashes aren’t likely to let them get close enough. It’s possible that I could have seen squirrels - but either I never have or it’s very rare , rare enough that osmeone might not have.
Your answer is going to be the same; and your answer is going to be about sex. But a lot of parents are going to tell the child the dogs are just playing. Both human children and canines play by wrestling, including getting on top of each other. The specific humping behavior isn’t going to say ‘sex’ to a child who doesn’t already know that, no matter how obvious it is to an adult or to a child who does know about it.
And I don’t think I ever saw dogs or cats or cows dry humping when I was a child; though I certainly saw plenty of dogs and cats and cows. It’s not unusual behavior; but it’s not as ubiquitious as you seem to think – though I’ll grant that it is with some specific individuals. – if I did see it, which is possible, I don’t remember it; and if so that’s probably because it didn’t mean anything to me. It certainly didn’t influence my ignorance.
I have squirrels all over the place and I’ve never seen them having sex. Running around. Eating. Fighting. Chasing each other. Teasing the dog. Fleeing the dog. Fleeing the cats. Scolding me from the side of the barn. Climbing up the side of the house, looking for a way in. (They don’t have to look for a way into the barn, they already know how to get in there.) But not having sex.
ETA: And I never walked in on my parents having sex, either; or saw my father naked. (My mother let me in the john while she was using it, when I was small; but that obviously wasn’t going to tell me about penises.) Some parents are more careful than others. – that’s not a judgement; I don’t think it does children any harm to see their parents naked, and doubt it usually does them any harm if they happen to see their parents having sex, either. But some parents are very careful about it, and for people living in multi-room houses with doors that lock it’s certainly preventable.
It’s definitely time for a talk, but this shouldn’t be a talk about sex so much as a talk about anatomy & puberty. I’m a little shocked that children don’t get this information earlier – how do they know if their body is working properly if they don’t even know the parts & how they’re supposed to function! And ignorance makes it easier for them to be the victims of sexual abuse. The idea that children are oblivious to their bodies & sex is very wrong – even small children often masturbate. Once the child has a vocabulary & a grasp of basic body functions, the discussions about sex-related topics sort of follow naturally. And should be answered clearly & correctly (no odd euphemisms for body parts). Relax, your son will be relieved & grateful to have you as a source of trustworthy information.