"MUM, what's a love machine?" My six-year-old daughter almost caused a car crash as she asked me this question on the way home from school last week.

It slipped from her tongue as easily, and innocently, as "What is the world's highest mountain?" But it was not quite so easy to answer.

My daughters had been listening to the song of that name - from the way they were singing it, it sounded like a remake of the Eighties (was it?) hit I know so well from my clubbing days. (I wanted to check this out but thought that by typing 'Love Machine' into Google I would end up with more than just the name of a singer).

Anyway, I fumbled around with a few choice words: "It's a man who has had a lot of girlfriends." But as every parent knows, children are a lot brighter than we give them credit for. "But why is he a machine?" my daughter asked again.

As I laboured on, help came from an unexpected source.

"It's because he's been with so many ladies he's like a machine, he's done that thing..." Some sort of brief, physical demonstration was then carried out, which, being in the driver's seat, I didn't witness.

I was grateful but at the same time horrified. My elder daughter, at eight, is obviously more familiar with the birds and the bees than I assumed.

It turned out to be a movement not unlike press-ups, which, she had learned at school, was what grown ups did. Not that she had been taught this in class. She had picked up this nugget of information in the playground.

In the same way, my six-year-old came home from a party asking "Mummy, what is sexing?"

I admit to being at a loss as to how to answer these questions, and - though it is probably terribly irresponsible - I am relying on the source of the word (girls at school) to further illuminate her.

Even better would be a few lessons in sex education, and I know that some schools do tackle it early on. I think that under eight is too soon, but when they start asking isn't it better that they are given the right answer?

I don't envy any teacher who has to take such a class. I remember sitting in front of clumsily drawn diagrams of male and female parts, amid a sea of stifled sniggers, giggles and people being sent out - and that was at secondary school.

I didn't learn a thing, but then I didn't glean anything of use from my parents either. While reasonably broad-minded, their lips were sealed on subjects of a sexual nature.

A couple of years ago an Ofsted report concluded that parents had largely abandoned their responsibility for teaching their children about sex, instead leaving them to find out what they could from teen magazines.

I could opt for the same solution, but my children read the Beano and Barbie comics, neither of which I would have thought would include making out in any of its storylines, although I'm sure the Bash Street Kids have discussed it often enough.

My font of knowledge on the subject came from the same place as my daughters' seems to be originating - the schoolyard. I don't think it corrupted me one little bit.

So for now anyway, I'll just leave things alone. If only they would stop asking questions. "What is a love god?" my elder daughter asked, having just read a headline about Englebert Humperdink.

After much thought, I have decided how to reply to such awkward probings in the future, in a way that avoids any embarrassment. "I don't know - ask your father."

Updated: 08:58 Tuesday, October 26, 2004