My mother blamed television. She was convinced that all of the mature subjects I broached were because I had seen or heard something on TV. I believed her for awhile, because most of Nate’s questions came after hearing something on television.
About six months ago we cut our cable. We are not anti-TV, I love watching television shows when I have time, and I think that it can even be a valuable parenting tool. If you are discriminating about what you let your kids watch they can learn, and you can get the dishes done at the same time. We cut the cable because it was too expensive and with Hulu and Netflix we just weren’t watching live TV that often.
But I digress…the point is that we got rid of live television and we were fairly picky about what we let the kids watch. Let me tell you, the questions didn’t stop.
My philosophy on these questions is to answer them in a truthful but basic and age-appropriate way. For example, the first time Nate asked what sex was the answer was “How babies are made”, he said “Oh” and that was that. He was four and didn’t need an in-depth discussion about the mechanics involved, the most simple answer was the best.
Yesterday Nate asked what a condom was. I was totally taken aback and answered with words that could have been coming straight out of my own mother’s mouth “I’ll tell you when you’re older”. (Mom, if you’re reading this I’m still waiting to learn what a prostitute is…) I immediately realized that this wasn’t the right way to respond and told him “It’s something that can be used to prevent disease”. He then asked if it “Was a sex thing”, I answered yes and that was that.
Awkward…
Uncomfortable questions aren’t just on the subject of sex either. Kit recently asked why I was fat, and Nate wanted to know about the recent shooting in Arizona and why they took the N-word out of a recent printing of Huckleberry Finn. I try to apply the same “Simple but truthful answers” philosophy regardless of the question. I told Kit I was fat because I needed to be more active. Nate was told that the shooter in Arizona was an angry man who was probably dealing with mental illness, and that the N-word was taken out because it is offensive. He had more questions about that and it lead to a discussion about historical context and whether it should be sanitized for modern readers. We also talked about how, even though the N-word was included, Huckleberry Finn was one of the first works to have a black character that was shown to be a good, loving person and not just a commodity.
What are some of the uncomfortable questions you have dealt with lately? How did you answer? Do you find that television makes it worse or opens up the door for communication? Let me know in the comments.
which is suggested for ages 2-4, and the Tag Reading System is suggested for ages 4-8. With Kit being three months away from her fourth birthday we opted for the more advanced version. The Tag Junior books seemed like they’d be more interesting to Kitty, and they are board books, which would have been more durable, but we decided the bigger age-range of the Tag Reader ultimately made it the better option. We found a purple version of the reader on closeout for $20 (Score! They system usually retails for about $30). It came with The Cat in the Hat and we purchased additional books featuring The Little Mermaid, Tinkerbell and Scooby-Doo. Aunt Karen knew about the purchase and picked up Tangled to round out her collection.
The website also offers a few interactive maps, some activity-only books and some game boards.
