That’s So Porno: Part 2

The tweenager shock jock talk continues at my daughter’s school. Last week, Nicole came home and asked me for a definition of porn because some friends in her fifth grade class were tossing the word around and mocking her for not knowing what it meant. This week’s word starts with a “c” ends with a “t” and I don’t really have to tell you the letters in between. Why do I feel like I’m on an X-rated version of Sesame Street? Her two friends (both of whom have older siblings) were using the word to describe another girl and when Nicole asked what the word meant, they again laughed at her and walked off. Now, knowing that I’m a fountain of information when it comes to defining four letter words (all those years bantering with Teamsters on set weren’t wasted), Nicole came home and immediately asked me to make things clear.

I gave her a very clinical definition, told her my opinion of the word, and of the use of curse words in general. The next day she came home and said that she’d told the kids that she now knew what the word meant. When they asked who told her, she said to their shock, “my mom.” She went on to tell them, bragging ever so slightly, that she can ask me anything. I told Nicole I was glad that she felt she could ask me/tell me about anything and encouraged her to continue to do so, no matter what my response was.

I both love and hate that my daughter feels like she can talk to me about anything. She should be able to and I want her to feel like there is nothing she can’t say to me. That’s my grown up side talking. Sounds so adult and together, right? But what I really want to say is, “OMG, I don’t want to deal with it! Don’t ask me those things! Don’t make me explain that stuff to you! I want to get mad at you and your little friends for growing up too fast – IMO - and already starting to talk about that stuff! La,la,la,la…I’m not listening!” Whatever happening to picking up this stuff in the street instead of asking your parents about it? Damn this progressive, 21st century, uber communicative childrearing. Can’t we go back to the days were misinformation was passed around in school restrooms and you learned about cursing and sex from your friends gossiping at sleepovers or at boy girl parties where the fast kids couple always disappeared into darkened basement bedrooms and whispered details of it later? Oh, yeah, remember those days and they weren’t all that informative. Most of what was said, rumored and done was incorrect or just plain stupid. I still giggle when I think of my seven year old friend who said in all earnestness that her big sister claimed you could get pregnant touching a doorknob. That must have been a hell of a doorknob.

I have no doubt that Nicole’s friends will test her theory that she can tell me anything by feeding her more salacious words to bring home and ask me about. I will continue to keep informing and correcting Nicole when she comes to me with these questions, even at the risk of being labeled the foul mouth dictionary mom - I’ve been called worse…starts with “c” ends with…you get the idea.