JAX WORLD: BLOG 217: Lies all Lies!!!

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." Nelson Mandela

I have just got off the phone with an old friend who told me that last night she had an interesting conversation with her young son. With secondary school looming she wished to ensure that he was up to speed on how human beings reproduced. This wasn't the mechanical side of things she was approaching - she'd left that to his schooling (in the UK kids from 5-7 years of age learn this in the classroom), it was more the physical and emotional side of things that she had rather ducked out of talking through with him and time had more than certainly run out! Faced with zero choice, she called her son into the living room for the big chat.

On viewing the information books that my friend had laid out on the coffee table, the little boy froze.

"Are you alright?" she enquired

"NO!" screamed the boy and he ran upstairs and slammed his bedroom door

Confused my friend followed and tapped on the child's door. Finally after much coaxing the little boy, tear stained and blotchy faced opened the door to his room.

"What's up honey?" she asked

"I don't want you to tell me it isn't so" hiccupped the distressed child

My friend was totally befuddled, and sat and consoled the boy until he was able to speak rationally about his fears. She knew she'd stalled on having this chat due her own embarrassment and realised that by having it late, the child may have heard versions of how humans reproduce from other sources. She started to feel bad about letting her own feelings get in the way of giving her son the information he needed when he needed it and prepared herself to sort out myth from fact.

But she was not prepared for what the child said next

"Mummie, I don't want you to tell me it isn't so"

"What isn't so baby?" she asked

"When I was 6 we were shopping in Sainsbury's and you bought chocolate eggs and when I asked why you did and not the Easter Bunny you told me that there isn't an Easter Bunny, then when I was 8 and you didn't have change that time I lost my big tooth you said there was no Tooth Fairy, then last year you called me in and told me Santa wasn't real, so now I DON'T want you to tell me that The Sexy isn't real either...please Mummie, please!"

Yep! The child had found out about human reproductive intercourse through another avenue and quite liked the idea of "The Sexy"! Based on his other one to one chats with his mum he has assumed that like the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa, "The Sexy" was just yet another myth waiting to be quashed as a right of passage!

Oh how we laughed!!! (Well I did... I thought it hilarious!) Poor kid, chocolate eggs, money for teeth, presents from a jolly beardy man in the artic, all proven to be big fat hairy lies and now he thought the only interesting thing he'd ever do with his nether regions was heading the same way!

On a more sober note though... parents everywhere... DO NOT assume it will always be YOUR choice when and how your kids will learn how to put what they learn into social perspective, if you won't step up there are more than a zillion ways for some other source to take your place.

But more than this... PLEASE... try to have chats with your kids that don't always involve killing their fantasies!