Hello Ma’am,
I could tell how disturbed you were when my little son fell off the swing and loudly proclaimed that he hurt his penis. I’ve been telling children the truth about their bodies long enough to be used to the shock other parents go through when they hear a child use a term they deem “inappropriate” for a child of that age. I don’t even blame you for feeling uncomfortable about it. It is awkward. Some adults laugh, some ignore it, and some are openly disapproving.
I get that maybe when you were a kid, people didn’t use those kinds of words to talk to kids about their bodies. I know you think it’s a shame we have to talk to kids about their body parts, healthy boundaries and sex so young these days. When you’re trying to be gracious with me, you remind yourself that this is a different world and maybe kids need to know these things earlier than when you were little or when you were raising kids. I appreciate that line of reasoning, but I don’t think things are that different. And if they ARE that different, I think we have to examine WHY. Maybe those of us parenting today are dealing with the ramifications of what happens when you don’t empower kids with the truth about their bodies. Maybe we don’t want to let the cycle continue and we’re determined to do better and give our kids the knowledge they need to protect themselves from the dangers that have ALWAYS been present, even when nobody wanted to talk about them.
You can clutch your pearls all day and wonder what this world is coming to, but I’m doing the right thing to protect and arm my child against the world that exists. I can pretend that 1 in 4 children aren’t sexually abused by the time they turn 18, or I can do my best to be sure my child isn’t that 1. We can pretend the world is different or we can arm our kids for the world they live in. Not talking to our kids about sexual abuse doesn’t mean they won’t be sexually abused. It just means they won’t have the language to tell us if it happens.
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