Loyal Reader SAB asked how the parents of (relatively) small children deal with the nastiness that 24/7 cable wallows in...to which I can only say, I don't. I don't watch cable news. I listen to NPR pretty much daily, via radio in the kitchen, on the pc, in the car...and I confess I cringed over Craig, especially when the police tape surfaced, but it turns out that the kids seem to feel the radio is ambient noise and they tune it out. One day a few weeks ago I had a load in the back seat so Offering Boy sat upfront. NPR was on talking about suicide bombers and OB said, "wow, they have those now?!" Geez. Where have you been, kid? In the backseat, where their attention is usually fixed on whacking each other, or on their DS's or other electronic gizmos, and they just don't listen. This week I'm thankful for it.
Friends of ours had school age kids when Monica Lewinsky was being grilled by the GOP back in the day, and it wasn't pretty. One friend, the mother of a 9 year old, had to explain what a blow job was. Ick. And I can't imagine any 9 year old not being totally grossed out by the explanation.
Which reminds me of what happened when UO's niece learned about sex...she was nine and her mother was pregnant, so Emergency Backup Niece (she was the second grandchild and second girl) asked Mommy how the baby in her tummy got in there. Aunt Mommy seized the teachable moment with predictable results.
EBN: "Really?"
AM: "Really."
EBN: "GROSS!!!!!!"
The whole process sounded so implausible to EBN that she went to her father, Pineapple Bruce, for confirmation, and the conversation went something like this:
EBN: "Mommy told me where babies come from."
PB: "Um."
EBN: "Would you like me to tell you?"
PB: <sigh>
EBN: "Well, would you??"
PB: "If you must."
After the recital, they stared at each other.
EBN: "Well?"
PB: "Well what?"
EBN: "IS IT TRUE?"
PB: "Pretty much."
EBN: "EW GROSSS!!!"
Aunt Mommy's view is that you don't shield kids, which is perfectly reasonable. I just don't want to have to explain blow jobs, toe-tapping in public lavs or other arcana of the sexual world. OB runs in the other direction when I've raised the sex subject and The Littlest Offering is 7. When she asks us where babies come from, we'll tell her. When she asks us where Uncle Tony's wife is, we say not everyone gets married. If Uncle Tony were a family member or clearly partnered up, we'd be more clear with her, but he's a family friend that she sees twice a year. I don't feel the need to try to explain the inexplicable, which is what sexual orientation and practice are to kids her age.
