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.

Texting for Babies

The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) has partnered with public and private groups to start a service called text4baby (www.text4baby.org), where parents can register to get free weekly text messages sent to them on their cell phone with advice to help them through their pregnancy and baby's first year. Being the geek loving babe that I am, I think this kind of stuff rocks! In fact, I got my first magazine writing gig doing an article called "My Online Pregnancy," which was about an experiment David and I conducted while trying to have Nicole where we decided to see how much baby preparation we could do online, from conception to delivery. Yeah, I know, muy geeky. Anyway, I love this text4baby thing because here's yet another way technology's being used to reach out and support someone. How helpful to have little tips and info about babies sent to your phone. Because let’s face it, even though when they are born, they do in fact come with an instruction book (at least at our hospital they did), but who has time to read it??? Between feeding, burping and vomiting, and that was me, not the baby, I don't think I had a spare moment to sit down, read a book and see what I was doing wrong. So this idea of texting short little tidbits of baby info is pretty cool.

The way social media is being adapted for everything from saying hi to helping parents to raising cash is a good thing. I was blown away by how it was used for fundraising for the last presidential campaign and how much dough was raked in for Haiti by people texting. Email, texting, skyping - they can all be used in ways to make our lives easier and to help those in need, or for those who just like being connected...all the time.

I know I've ranted about being too connected, too stimulated by all the technology. And yes, I'm of that mind for the most part. But I also think that when tech is used for good - kind of like The Force in Star Wars - then we should embrace it like a cup of cocoa on a cold night.

That being said, I shut off the text function on my iPhone...much to the dismay of David, who can't imagine how anyone could live without texting (I feel the same way about email). But I started getting spam texts. I hate spam in all variations, phone (in the form of telephone marketers) and emails (do I really want and/or need to get a lap band, enlarge a penis or get a master's degree online in as little as three weeks?) I don't even like spam as meat from a can (and no, you can't really make it taste better by frying it with eggs)! So when I started to get spam text messages, I was done! At least for now. Until they figure out a way to de-spam my texts, I will remain the email obsessed Diva that I am.

So text/email for good.