My daughter is still in the phase of her life where I'm actually pretty cool (well, except when she's at school), so I try to share as much about myself with her as I can. So when my copy of Ms. came in the mail yesterday I showed her that mommy was in the magazine. *dumb, dumb dumb*
"Mommy, read me what you wrote!" She asked with a huge smile.
"Umm...sometimes mommy writes things that are for grown-ups."
"Well just read me a part of it."
*Mommy scans her book review for one sentence without rape or sexuality.*
"Umm...You know how mommy always tells you that your body is yours. That no one has permission to touch you? (She nods) Well two women asked other people to write stories about how we can keep others from touching their bodies."
"So, what do they do?" She asks with concern.
"Well, a lot of things, sometimes it is saying "NO!" and sometimes they hit them."
"Oh, well, you should always say, "NO!" but you shouldn't hit them."
"Yes, yes..." I respond. Just getting to this point was tough for me, tougher than I thought, so I let that go. One day soon I'll revisit the issue - probably after she has her "Bad touch, good touch" presentation at school and talk to her about justified hitting, especially if some jerk is trying to touch her and won't respond to her NO.
Me thinks I need to start working on my children's book idea so I can just let her read what mommy writes without too much of a lecture.
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Don't forget that VLF is participating in the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. We already have one class funded, let's get that second one funded! The teacher is requesting funding to buy books by women authors. Also don't forget that I'm giving out goodies to a few select peeps who donate!
22 October 2008
Explaining my freelance work to the kid
2 comments:
Um. Yeah. Oy. Oh boy. Yup.
:-)
And WHOO HOO again on Ms. (But no mentioning to the little ones for a while!!)
Hi - I found my way here from the NWSA blog page. (There aren't many of us on it, so I went exploring.)
I *loved* this post. I teach women's studies and have two sons, 8 and 5. The 8-year-old is always asking what I'm writing or reading about, and there's just no good way to explain the college hookup scene (for instance!) to a kid that age.
I agree that a children's book might be a diversion, for awhile - but my kids would probably assume that everything that came thereafter would also be equally fun and appropriate. And I *really* don't want to be explaining sexual assault to them before them even have a clear notion of sex ...
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