“Don’t walk up on that ramp, Mom,” my eight year-old son warned me when we arrived at the skatepark.
It was my first time taking him, though he had been to this skatepark a couple of times with his father. While I surveyed the park and pondered what bowls and dips my son might break his limbs on, my son filled me in on the particulars of the skatepark.
From what I gather, it’s usually crawling with foul-mouthed teenagers who sneak in a cigarette behind the large concrete wall at the back of the park, the one my son tried to steer me clear of.
When I asked why I shouldn’t go back there, my son informed me that it was covered in graffiti. But not just any graffiti – “bad word graffiti.”
And he wasn’t kidding. The least obscene phrase, which elicited a giggle from both me and my son?
Ball sack.
But mostly? The wall was covered in a litany of curse words, introducing my son to the correct spelling of just about every explicative known to man.
Looking at the list, I wondered if, when my son saw it for the first time, if it was the First Time he’d heard of these words. Not the tame ones like hell or damn or even ass. But instead, you know, the vulgar ones.
I keep things fairly clean around my kids, though I’m sure they’ve heard me mutter “shit!” when I’ve broken something, or dropped an f-bomb whisper here and there.
But some of those words on that list made ME blush, and I’m 41 years old.
I had a moment where I thought about taking this opportunity to explain all of these words to my son to let him know why they’re offensive. To use Dan Pearce of Single Dad Laughing’s idea about granting a child five minutes in a “bubble” of amnesty for them to say bad words without consequences to get the curiosity and mystery out of their system.
But then I chickened out.
Like I did when my son nonchalantly asked me, from the back seat of our car as we pulled in to the school parking lot, “Mom, what’s Ebola?” My answer was quick and simple – an illness.
I was too frozen with fear to say anything more. I was afraid that I wouldn’t have the right words to explain the disease in a way that wouldn’t make my kids scared. I was afraid of over-explaining. I didn’t want to flood my children’s ears with issues that seemed too adult for them to comprehend.
I never dug deeper, never brought it up later. School let out in the afternoon, my son didn’t mention it again, and I forgot to bring it up. To clarify. To ease any worry.
Later in the week, as we watched a football game one afternoon, a report came on that two kids in our town were being tested for Ebola. Before I could even get a gauge on how much my kids heard, my son launched in to an explanation to his younger sister of what the disease was.
To my surprise, it was mostly accurate. It didn’t go in to much detail, but in true little-boy-gorey fashion, he made sure to divulge that Ebola can make someone’s eyeballs bleed.
So, I asked my son where he had heard that.
On the bus. From an older kid, of course.
Immediately I started thinking about what else this 5th grader was explaining to my son. Drugs? Sex? How to file taxes?
It feels too early to have these conversations with my son, the eight year-old who still fiercely believes in Santa and the Tooth Fairy, who willingly watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when it’s on the television while shopping at Gymboree, and hopes to get footed pajamas for his birthday.
And yet, I fear if I don’t have these discussions with him, he’ll hear them from someone else, and hear them wrong. As much as I enjoy sharing information about the wonderful aspects of living on this planet, I just don’t feel like I’m going my job as a parent if I let a 5th grader, or a graffiti-smeared wall, teach my children about the darker parts of the world.
So, I’ve started sucking it up. When I’m caught off guard, I take the excellent advice of a fantastic parent-friend of mine and say “I’d love to answer your question, but I need some time to think about it. Can we talk about this later?” And then remember to have that conversation later, instead of waiting for my kids to bring it up.
I’m trying hard to not shy away from answering tough questions when my son asks them, as uncomfortable as they make me. I’m asking more questions to his questions to find out why he’s asking and what he’s asking for, offering just enough information to satisfy curiosity, while trying to gauge how much my son can and wants to handle.
Because he probably can handle more than I give him credit for.
I mean, after all, he did snicker at “ball sack.”
How do YOU handle those tricky questions? I’d love to hear your advice and experience!
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