What’s a good time to give your kids their first hint at a topic that will fascinate them forever after? At 14 or 10 or 6 ?
Some snippets from discussion with friends :
Mom 1 : Whose lil daughter thought that women grew boobs when their babies blew air into them.
Mom 2 : When asked about what a condom was said it was a small balloon, and had her son yell in a birthday party that he wanted a condom NOW.
Dad 3 : Whose 3 year old son asked him whether he’d found his fucking car keys yet.
Me : My son at 5, is still happily innocent. He thinks women have 3 ‘belly buttons’.
In our house, in our attempt to bring them up naturally and healthily etc… we let them get their sex education from National Geographic and Animal Planet.
So Neel sees the wilderbeast “pottying” out a baby, and I’ve caught him once or twice sitting on the pot, and sneaking a peek to see if he was producing anything living himself.
He has no clue of course where the baby comes from, and still threatens to send his little brother back to the hospital gift shop that supplied him.
Mom 4 is mightily worried when she read about a 13-year-old boy fathering a kid, since her own son is that age himself, and she is struggling enough with being a mom, forget being a GRANDMOM !
The last time I was inspired to tell Neel about the birds and the bees, I chickened out, and just told him the difference between eagles and hawks. But the world is changing quick. And kids are getting smarter than their old pops and moms.
So one day pretty soon, Neel’s gonna sit me down and tell me : Now Ma, I think you’re grown up enough to understand this. I hate to tell you this but Niks did not come from a hospital gift shop. He came from a dinosaur egg.
JANE KIDDING. my life as a pretty (bad) mom, worse manager and good survivor, and how to find everything hysterical (strictly in hindsight).
Well this is my favorite topic. Kids of this generation have definely more input and output of knowledge. Well, I do believe that kids are never too young to learn anything, they have to be just worded right with age appropriate words. Yea, do you agree? You are doing great Jane, so hang in there :)
ReplyDeleteThree Belly Buttons! Oh - That's Rich ! Out of the mouth of Babes, Jandy, Out of the mouth of Babes !
ReplyDeleteIn splits!! I feel the same way... but seriously, already started in a lil way with Mansher. He was and still is, very curious about me. So we told him about private places and all that. Infact just this morning he asked- " Did I also have milk from your chest when I was a baby?"
ReplyDeleteyikes - i have so much to look forward to as kee grows ;p - thanks for the preview Jane! Weren't u one of those people who kept telling me I must have children harrumph ha ha ha
ReplyDeleteHa Ha Ha. As usual, you've managed to paraphrase hilariously the perplexities of parenting. I am going to keep this post for when Neel grows up, to show him just how his parents were conning him.
ReplyDeletehahaha..jane...just what i needed to read while getting thoroughly bored at work!! hilarious! lovely! true!
ReplyDeleteand like all good indians this is a push under the carpet topic with a hope that they'll learn it all from somewhere! ( and learn it right!). meanwhile, the tables are turned at home, with my 13 year old, sighing and saying he has to explain to his illerate mother how pups are born( coz as usual for most kids that age, we parents are living in the dark ages!!).
here's one for you. two of my friend's are very careful not to use the F word and the like when their kid is around. They spell it. Well... the kid is now all ready for spellbee. F U C K I N G M O R O N etc etc
ReplyDeletearchana - intrigued to know what the age-appropriate words are. at what age does the 'pee pee' turn into a more adult word, for example - of course, there being about 300 adult words for that too :)
ReplyDeleteI just feel like pasting out chat conversation. It ended like this. Send them to a Finishing School in France to polish language and behaviour (LOLOLOL)
ReplyDeleteA footnote about the 13 year old father. He is now 'gutted' to find out he's not the father. It appears a number of probables came forward and confessed when news of the pregnancy hit the media. A paternity test was conducted, and given the number of candidates, probably took a long time and the baby was out before the results. It now turns out the real dad is 16 or some such totally acceptable age. I have this on good authority as I read this in The Sun while waiting for my large Kofte kebab at Mr. Uncle's Kebab Shop (with buy 1 pizza get 1 free, free home delivery within 2 mile radius). Mr Uncle, meanwhile, was giving me that weird smile with the upturned corner of the lip, as he thought I was looking at page 3, which carried a fetching picture of Chloe, a graduate student from Hounslow, and how she would like to be a world famous economist once she graduates, so that she can solve the world's poverty problem. Let's hope for our sakes that Chloe's success in securing a photo shoot of her 3 belly buttons is closely followed by becoming world famous, and she then graduates in her economics. Now there's a case for letting your kids hang out at the Kebab shop. A full tummy, current affairs (sic), a birds and bees education and career inspiration, all at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the day is not far when our daughter will beckon us in the living room, make us sit down, and then, in a slow tone, break it to us, "mom, dad. this won't be easy. but the birds & bees story is all bull-feces. Just thought I should let you know. And yes, there's no Santa either."
ReplyDeleteWell! Well! Well!
ReplyDeleteI could go on and on about stories about my son. Now sometimes I don't know where to draw the line.
STORY 1:-
I was a 1st time mom. very naive. We are 2 sisters, so never really been around or seen too many boys growing up. So when I started potty training, I taught my son you need to hold the pe#$s into the pot while peeing. This went on for a month or so and my sister came and visited us in Austin,TX. She heard me talk to my son while potty training him.
And she goes,"What do you think you are doing. Can you please use a different word for his private part."
I ask, "What could be a different word to use?"
I never thought not to use pe#$#!
She says most people in India use, "Nu Nu" So we started the new word for his private parts.
STORY 2:-
My son asks my husband, "Papa how was I born"
My Husband, "Buddy! You were born from MAMA'S TUMMY."
And then he tells my son, "You know! I had to plead with mama to have a baby. She was paranoid about having a baby."
Some days later I have a friend's baby shower at home and I tell my son that a friend is pregnant and this is in her and he coming babies honor.
10 days later my son sees an ad on T.V. about some birth control pill. And low and behold, he asks me, " Mama did you use this to stop your pregnancy." I did not know what to say.
I was amazed that he put all this together to come up with the correct conclusion. Anyways now I am dreading the days when he knows more and more and starts asking more questions.
Story 3:-
We go for a movie. I take my son and a friend of his to the restroom. As soon as we reach there, they both run to the same rest room. I think they are racing or something. They go into the same restroom. I tell them there are lots of bathrooms there and run behind them. To my horror they are both standing and peeing in the same pot! Yikes. We girls would never do that! It is later I realize that it a boy thing at school and boys do this all the time!
haha, revathi - and no guesses for who the second boy sharing the loo was !
ReplyDeletehahaha, so funny revathi. No guesses for that :)
ReplyDeletehahhahahah That's too funny
ReplyDelete