Dethroner Asks You: A Bunch of Random Questions About Fatherhood
7 Comments Published by Joel March 1st, 2007 in Ask Dethroner, Family. Share ThisI could break each of these out into their own posts, but that seemed like a cheap exercise in post count padding. These are my questions to you, fathers.
• Do you sleep nude with your kids? If so, when did you stop doing it? Did you ever stop doing it? Is being nude around your kids weird or healthy?
• What do you do if your kid is just totally a wasteoid? I’m thinking specifically here of the teenage kid who killed a bum and then tried to blame it on videogames; his step-mom wrote a letter to Penny Arcade explaining how he’d basically been given every chance and was—with seemingly no explanation—just an evil kid.
• How early do you start explaining the birds and bees? Do you let them come to you or drop clues as they grow? Do you give your kids birth control, including condoms?
I know this is totally a huge smoosh of questions; don’t feel like you have to answer every one to respond. And I also know there are countless guides, web sites, and professionals who exist only to address these things, but I don’t care. I want to know what you guys think.
Can’t speak to the second question, as the heirs to my vast and ever-increasing empire are in second grade and preschool (too early for wasteoid status). But as for the bookend questions:
– No, I don’t sleep nude with the kids. Not to be a prude, but it just seems a little wierd. We don’t treat nudity as a big deal in our house, but I’m just more comfortable knowing that I’m wearing something if one of the kids has a bad dream and decides to climb into bed with us in the middle of the night (which happens much less frequently over time, thank goodness).
– We’ve always been upfront with the kids about their bodies so they understand what parts they have (we have a girl and a boy) and what they don’t. They haven’t been too curious about why they have different parts yet, but I can see that topic on the horizon with our second-grader. We also use the actual anatomical terms instead of some of the more cartoonish names some parents use for private parts (a friend of mine grew up in a household where the word for vagina was “puchaka”). Which leads to moments like my son seeing an SI swimsuit issue and opining of one very small bikini bottom, “I think that would hurt her vagina!” Good times.
With a nearly six-week-old son, none of these questions are all that pressing for me yet, though I’d probably just echo Joz’s sensible approach.
I wanted to chime in on question #2. The year before my wife got pregnant, I read a novel called “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (a woman named Lionel Shriver) that describes the maturation of a child who is pure evil, narrated by his mother. That book almost put me off permanently from having kids. Having a purely evil child is still a deep fear, though the titular Kevin was bad from birth and my boy has displayed none of Kevin’s early tendencies. So, I think I’m safe for now.
As for what you do about an evil or even just a slothful child? Kevin’s mother was at a loss.
My boy’s 5. I typically sleep nude and have slept that way even if my boy crawls into bed with us. The only time it’s ever odd is when he burrows his freezing feet between my thighs to warm them up. We’ve showered together plenty and I don’t shy away from him asking questions. “Why do you have fur there? Will I have fur there? I don’t want fur there. Why’s your penis bigger than mine? Can I play with yours? Does Mommy pee out of her fur there. Look what I can do with my penis!” etc, etc.
In general, we have plenty of talks with him about whatever he wants to talk about or shows any interest in. I tend to go into far more detail than he’s ever wanting to know but I’ve always been in the camp of knowledge is a good thing. It’s been interesting to watch his progression in understanding the differences between girls and boys. A year or two back a coworker was talking about how her son likes My Little Ponies and I said that just sounded too cute some of the things he was doing with them. Next day she brought me one for my boy. He was excited to open it up, and started combing its hair and thought nothing of it. Now when I ask him about things that are traditionally girl things he thinks I’ve lost my marbles.
I don’t have anything substantial to add here, other than agreeing with Talleyrand that knowledge is a good thing.
My wife and I have an 11 month old girl. I’m still not sure how I’ll handle her inevitable questions. I can’t see her turning all evil though. She’s such a great person now.
I really do like posts like this.
And I’m really digging Dethroner.
Keep up the good work!
Question 1: No nudity. Yeah it’s weird, but beyond that, if I’m nude and say my wife’s nude too…well whadayya think I’m thinking of doing? Yet, oh look…who’s in the middle? Talk about setting yourself up for a let down. The other uncanny thing is my 1 year old daughter has seen us nude and inevitably she looks right down there. It must be human nature to just be interested so I’m not about to spur on her curiosity.
Question 2: This is the toughest question. No answers, but I have some thoughts. The first is, a child’s character and personality begins developing long before birth (even just as a function of physical development). Thus is there something in the pregnancy that might affect how “evil” a child is born and hence should expecting parents be made aware of this? Second, if “good” children can be taught to be evil, there must be some capacity for the reverse. Given it seems to be easier to go from good to bad (why is that?), there are many examples of the reverse as a result of people getting religion, prison rehab, medical help, whatever etc. With this second point, I’m partly saying that over the course of someone’s life, that’s a long time for things to go right and wrong. But what counts is how things end and even those who started out great can end horribly. If my evil daughter turned good on her last day of life, isn’t that still worth something? And so by extension, a parent should never stop trying.
Question 3: Even as a proponent of abstinence, I’m not shy about the topic. On the biological mechanics and the high-level reason for the “birds and bees” (reproduction) I think it’s safe to approach when the questions start to flow. The much harder question is “when”, which is related to the deeper question of “why.” Ultimately this has got to do with an understanding of relationships, and I’m sorry to say sometimes parents themselves are the furthest qualified on the subject.
All the best to you dads out there!
This is by far one of the most honest (=best) series of posts I’ve read in a long time.
I am not a dad yet. Although we do plan to go beta in the next 18 months or so.
As far as sleeping in the nude- I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with it, but it’s not for us. I DO agree it’s absolutely imperative to be open to questions and field them as truthfully as possible within the realms of the wee one’s understanding.
Americans, (of which I am one), are way too uptight about our bodies in general and tend to avoid rather than confront what some would see as difficult questions. Such as what the sex organs are for and when/where/why/how. I’ve known plenty of Europeans and their attitude towards their bodies and sex in general seems much healthier and less constrained.
Let’s face it- we are sexual beings. The more you try to gloss over and avoid nature in a child’s understanding the less they understand and the more propensity for the whole thing to become very very confusing exists- and then bad things happen.
A healthy understanding of a kid’s body and sex is equally important as reading, writing, math and blogs!
Best to all of you,
Chris
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