- submitted by Sarah Matthews on 03/21/2008
Child-Rearing 101: Birds and the Bees or Just Talking Dirty?
By Sarah Matthews
My two youngest daughters have never been particularly interested in their own anatomy. But my eldest first displayed what would become a never-ending fascination with her own body at age three, when she announced loudly in the bathtub that she was the proud owner of a "little willy" [translation: wiener]. I was bemused.
"That's not a willy, sweetie," I told her.
"Then what is it?" she demanded.
"Um, it's called a clitoris," I replied.
Big mistake. Little did I know that eventually all the girls in the nursery playground - and all the boys, for that matter - would also soon learn whether or not they too had a clitoris, thanks to my daughter's informal sex education lessons. Or that one day, forever imprinted in my memory, she would confuse "clitoris" with "uvula", another enthralling body part, prompting her to scream in delight in our local supermarket that she had a "great big clitoris" hanging down the middle of her throat.
I have always maintained that if a child is old enough to ask a question, they are old enough to get an answer. But what kind of answer should a small child get? And if the answer isn't a popular one (as defined by whether or not the majority of the people in your immediate environs share your opinion on the subject), who will be left to face the consequences?
Answer: me. On my Mummy Circuit here in London, it has transpired, my views are shared by a tiny minority of mums - well, almost no mums whatsoever. And I have learned, much to my dismay, that unless I learn to keep my mouth shut about my daughter's antics - and tell her to shut hers as well - I will be as popular as a big, fragrant pool of baby vom on my wealthy neighbor's brand new cream carpet.
Not long ago I was talking to a group of mums at Starbucks after I had dropped my middle daughter off at Reception [translation: kindergarten]. Some were upset - actually, seething - because Milo, a five-year-old not known for his quiet and respectful behavior, had pulled down his pants during a wee break and showed a female classmate his - horror of horrors - penis.
"C'mon guys, gimme a break," I said. "That's normal kiddie stuff. My brothers were always showing me theirs when I was little, and sometimes I even flashed them back. Big deal."
Shocked silence, until my friend Sharon, a dyed-in the-wool Londoner who grew up near Hyde Park before having two sets of twins and buying a big house out here, said, "Actually, we've spoken to the headteacher about Milo's behavior. She's speaking to his mum, and if he does it again he'll be excluded [translation: suspended] from school."
I beg to differ. Kids are interested in their bodies, and they should be - within reason, of course. Children should be taught that some body parts are private, and that nobody should be allowed to touch them without their permission. But going overboard because a five-year-old showed another five-year-old his willy is just No Big Fucking Deal. That's right, NBFD. Unless, of course, you want to give the kid a complex about his body that will haunt him for the rest of his life, giving him something to ruminate over in £850-an-hour therapy session when he's 35 and can't sustain a relationship - or an erection - for longer than a nanosecond.
Luckily, most of my friends outside The Mummy Circuit agree with me. Last month my friend Cindy started taking her three-year-old daughter Chloe to interviews for private nurseries - the ones attached to unbelievably expensive poncy [translation: snobbish] schools where they groom upper-class wannabes for Oxbridge. The one she had in mind, about a ten-minute walk from my house, had a waiting list longer than my arm (and both legs), but Lisa wanted to give it a shot.
In particular, she liked its relaxed attitude to early child-rearing - or so she thought.
"You should have been there, it was hysterical," she told me. "We walk in and there's this great big rocking horse in the interview room. You know, wooden, painted bright red, thick brown mane. Absolutely gorgeous. Just the type of thing to attract Chloe's attention."
That it did. While psychotherapist Cindy and investment banker husband Brad chatted about the relative merits of the school's curriculum and faculty with the head teacher, an uptight woman in a matching twin-set and pearls, Chloe mounted the horse and began to rock. And rock. And rock. And rock...
"For the past six months Chloe's been really into self-gratification, and she just went to town, rocking away," Cindy laughed. "You know what some little girls are like. After about five minutes her face had turned bright red and sweaty and she actually began grunting and panting. We politely asked her if she wanted to do some coloring or reading instead, but she ignored us. She rocked non-stop until the interview ended."
Needless to say, despite both parents' impressive credentials - and their potential for making future massive donations to the school's coffers - Chloe's application was rejected.
My friend Lucy is in her thirties and cannot bear to refer to her own vagina as anything but a "lulu." Another friend has instructed her daughter to call her vagina a "minnie" because her husband gets nauseous if anyone refers to it as anything else.
It's obvious that if you want to keep your fellow yummy mummies happy and/or get your kids into an uptight school, you need to keep your liberal parenting ideas to yourself.
Sarah Matthews is an American journalist who has lived in a north London suburb for more than a decade. She is married with three young daughters and has chosen a pseudonym - and fake names - to protect the guilty (and avoid lawsuits). But everything she writes is real....read more rants
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