One of the most dreaded conversations parents have with their kids as they grow up is explaining to them the facts of life. And while those talks usually involve the birds and the bees, for actress Elizabeth Banks and her sons, Cape Cod’s beloved whales ended up as part of the chat.
The Pittsfield native stopped by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday night to promote her new show “The Miniature Wife,” and the conversation quickly turned to awkward parenting moments, as Banks revealed that one of her teenage sons was in the audience.
“I’m like their worst nightmare mom,” Banks said. “I’m the mom that’s like, ‘So you know about sex, right? And you know about the tampons and you know you have to buy tampons if you get a girlfriend.’”
After Kimmel shared his own awkward story about buying tampons for his wife, he asked Banks if she’s had the sex talk yet with her sons, with the actress admitting that it happened “pretty early on” for them.
“I find that you have to go in stages,” Banks said. “Like they don’t want to know really about sex. They want to know where they’re from.”
She added that most kids are just curious about where babies and kittens come from, not necessarily all the details that go into making them, noting that animals are a great way to talk about these topics in a less awkward way.
“I like to remind people that you can talk about where babies come from with animals, because mammals all do it the same,” Banks said.
She went on to share that one of her sons asked a very technical question about sex during a trip to Cape Cod, with Banks forced to answer the question solo as they sat in their car while her husband was getting coffee at a shop.
“We were on Cape Cod, on vacation, and I was like, ‘Oh wow, it’s happening right now. This is it,’” Banks said. “And my little one sort of sat up, like, ‘I know what’s going on. I didn’t ask that question, but I’d like to know the answer too.’”
“And I remember, we were talking about going on a whale watch,” she added, explaining that she decided to use the animal to help explain how mammals mate. “There’s a screen saver on the TV of whales like just dancing in the water and I was like, ‘You know that screen saver? That’s the whales, they’re doing [it].’”
While her sons seemed to take the explanation in stride, Kimmel was curious if it ruined the movie “Free Willy” for them.
“I think they felt really good about how free Willy was,” Banks joked.
See the full interview below.
Matt Juul can be reached at matthew.juul@globe.com.