Sex, mosquitoes, and death
We’re back from Georgetown and the beach, and over the July 4th weekend, William suddenly started asking all those fascinating questions. Do you have a penis? Do I have a vagina? Why don’t I have a vagina? Why do I have a penis? Why does my penis get big? Will I have big breasts like Mommy and Grandma when I grow up? Lord. All kids ask these questions, and some a lot earlier than this, which is too bad because then they’re much harder to censor in public. At Will’s age you can introduce the idea that some of these concepts are private, not to mention the body parts. Although William had an interesting conversation with his penis about whether he (his penis) likes Batman or not while we were in a restaurant bathroom the other day, all the time I’m praying nobody will come in. My brother-in-law reports that my niece has been wandering around her house periodically exclaiming that she’s broken because she doesn’t have a penis like her three brothers. All this is cute, but can make for awkward dinner conversation.
Generally Chris and I solve this kind of parenting dilemma with simple answers and a book. We both have great faith in books, and between the two of us we’ve spent plenty of time in the bookstore prescreening titles like How Was I Born? and What’s the Big Secret? It might be a little tougher when Laura starts asking these questions again—our last round with her was when Will was born, when she was only seven. For Will this time it’s still fairly uncomplicated. You have a penis because all boys have one. Boys use them to pee pee, and when they grow up, they can help make babies. Mommies have breasts to feed their babies milk. I have students in my women’s studies classes who tell me they found out about their periods when they got them, who are amazed at the idea that parents might not only discuss these kinds of questions with children, but do it at a young age. Every time I teach the intro to women’s studies class we have a conversation about sex education which ends up with students asking me if I really tell my children stuff like that? The more I think about it, maybe it’s time to talk to Laura again before she asks about it.
While swimming in the boat ramp, Will and I also had some discussion about “what is dead?,” occurring directly in response to a big round of mosquito swatting. Mosquito bites are a problem for us, since Laura and Will and I are evidently very tasty, and because really most mosquito repellants aren’t recommended for kids (and if they can’t use any, I’m sure not going to). I do have a friend trying to convince me that it’s ok to use repellants with small concentrations of DEET, but generally I have a hard time with the idea that I should spray poison on my sweet children. (Instead, of course, I drug them up with Benadryl to counteract the inevitable bites, so I imagine it’s probably six of one, half dozen of the other.) At any rate, William seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of interest at the boat ramp this time in how the mosquitoes were dead, how they were really dead, how we killed them, how we could swat them good, how that mosquito would never bite him again, etcetera.
Dead is a fairly abstract notion for him at this point, mostly informed by the disappearing bodies of Disney villains falling off cliffs, which in contemporary Disney is almost always their own fault, almost never instigated directly by the hero, who defends him/herself but would never resort to brute violence. Or at least if so, it’s off camera. I think Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid is the last Disney hero I can remember who outright kills the villain on stage. Somehow equating a swatted mosquito with a dead cartoon bad guy doesn’t lend a whole lot of relevance to the less abstract question of what happens with real people in the world. Fortunately this isn’t a problem William’s had to deal with yet—the last death in our family was before he was born, and it looks like against all the prognoses Chris’s father is beating his cancer. When he was diagnosed a year ago, many of us believed this Christmas would be his last—if he made it that far. I hope it’ll be a long time yet before William has to deal with dead in the real world. On the whole, though, it was a weekend of very interesting conversations.
Generally Chris and I solve this kind of parenting dilemma with simple answers and a book. We both have great faith in books, and between the two of us we’ve spent plenty of time in the bookstore prescreening titles like How Was I Born? and What’s the Big Secret? It might be a little tougher when Laura starts asking these questions again—our last round with her was when Will was born, when she was only seven. For Will this time it’s still fairly uncomplicated. You have a penis because all boys have one. Boys use them to pee pee, and when they grow up, they can help make babies. Mommies have breasts to feed their babies milk. I have students in my women’s studies classes who tell me they found out about their periods when they got them, who are amazed at the idea that parents might not only discuss these kinds of questions with children, but do it at a young age. Every time I teach the intro to women’s studies class we have a conversation about sex education which ends up with students asking me if I really tell my children stuff like that? The more I think about it, maybe it’s time to talk to Laura again before she asks about it.
While swimming in the boat ramp, Will and I also had some discussion about “what is dead?,” occurring directly in response to a big round of mosquito swatting. Mosquito bites are a problem for us, since Laura and Will and I are evidently very tasty, and because really most mosquito repellants aren’t recommended for kids (and if they can’t use any, I’m sure not going to). I do have a friend trying to convince me that it’s ok to use repellants with small concentrations of DEET, but generally I have a hard time with the idea that I should spray poison on my sweet children. (Instead, of course, I drug them up with Benadryl to counteract the inevitable bites, so I imagine it’s probably six of one, half dozen of the other.) At any rate, William seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of interest at the boat ramp this time in how the mosquitoes were dead, how they were really dead, how we killed them, how we could swat them good, how that mosquito would never bite him again, etcetera.
Dead is a fairly abstract notion for him at this point, mostly informed by the disappearing bodies of Disney villains falling off cliffs, which in contemporary Disney is almost always their own fault, almost never instigated directly by the hero, who defends him/herself but would never resort to brute violence. Or at least if so, it’s off camera. I think Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid is the last Disney hero I can remember who outright kills the villain on stage. Somehow equating a swatted mosquito with a dead cartoon bad guy doesn’t lend a whole lot of relevance to the less abstract question of what happens with real people in the world. Fortunately this isn’t a problem William’s had to deal with yet—the last death in our family was before he was born, and it looks like against all the prognoses Chris’s father is beating his cancer. When he was diagnosed a year ago, many of us believed this Christmas would be his last—if he made it that far. I hope it’ll be a long time yet before William has to deal with dead in the real world. On the whole, though, it was a weekend of very interesting conversations.
And some additional commentary:
Since this posting had some sensitive information, for which possibly William may kill me one day, I emailed this to my husband to have him run the “is this too personal to post?” censor. Mailer-Daemon paid me a little return visit.
The attached file had the following undeliverable recipient(s):
Chris@hisworkemail.com
Transcript of session follows:
Command: DATA Response: 552
Error: content rejected
I forgot that if the self censor doesn’t get you, the email one will. Guess I should’ve known better than to send something like that to work. Chris suggests that further email of this sort might employ hacker language: p3nl5 and 53x. Who’d have thought?
posted by Lisa at 7/05/2005 09:28:00 AM
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