dolls, cookies and childhood innocence 265/366
I've avoided writing this post. Partly because it is uncomfortable. Partly because I didn't know how to approach it. Partly because I wasn't sure if I should. But when a particular memory from my childhood started hounding me this morning before I was a hundred steps into daily my 7,000+ and I could feel myself "angry walking", I knew today was the day. I could have written early this afternoon. But I put it off. Got busy doing little things that needed done, but could have waited. Hoping something else would come up to write about. It hasn't, so here we go.
I was 6 or 7. My mom and dad had friends over and their little girl and I were playing house, complete with dolls and make believe husbands. She looked at me and very confidently, excitedly and matter of factly told me that an older man, I think she said uncle, had told her how she could have a real live baby doll of her own. I was shocked. Because though I was young, I knew real live baby dolls were not possible. She insisted they were. He had told her that if she would just let him put his thing in her that she might get her own real live doll to play with and love. We kept playing, but something felt off. I don't know if I told my mom about it, but I have a sense that I never got to play with her again.
That memory led to thinking about a story I've read several times about a little girl who went to her teacher and told her an older male family member (brother? uncle?) licked her cookie. Kids will be kids and the teacher listened kindly and told her that if he did it again to ask him not to do it. The little girl began to regularly come to her teacher about the cookie licking and how she didn't want him to do it. Later the teacher discovered that the cookie was not actually a cookie. It was the little girls vagina.
Why am I writing about this tonight? Because it makes me angry. And my stomach has been rolling all day because those two things keep coming to mind. The second might be only a story, I've never checked the source, but the first one is a personal experience. I often wonder what happened to that little girl. I wish I had been old enough to understand what she was telling me, that I had been old enough to do something to stop the abuse.
Adults, we have to teach our children the proper names for ALL of their body parts. We need to listen when they talk, not only to their words, but to their body language and behavior. We need to respect their personal boundaries. Don't force them to sit on anyone's lap or hug everyone. Don't teach them that just because "so and so" is family, a close friend or an adult that they have to give them a kiss or any other kind of physical affection. We cannot protect our kids from everyone or everything. But we can arm them with the knowledge that we will listen to them and stand up for them if someone makes them uncomfortable. And if they know that their private parts are either a vagina or a penis (not a cookie or a weiner or any other name), that breasts are not "buttons" or any other name (one of my aunts used to tell us when we were swimming in the lake we could only go out to our "buttons") and if they are taught to call those body parts by their correct names, then we have them armed with tools that cannot be mistaken for harmless pranks if someone is touching or licking or inserting anything where they have no business being.
dolls should be dolls
cookies should be cookies
if you are uncomfortable calling body parts by their proper names,
I encourage you to consider the possible consequences of not doing so
rant over
I was 6 or 7. My mom and dad had friends over and their little girl and I were playing house, complete with dolls and make believe husbands. She looked at me and very confidently, excitedly and matter of factly told me that an older man, I think she said uncle, had told her how she could have a real live baby doll of her own. I was shocked. Because though I was young, I knew real live baby dolls were not possible. She insisted they were. He had told her that if she would just let him put his thing in her that she might get her own real live doll to play with and love. We kept playing, but something felt off. I don't know if I told my mom about it, but I have a sense that I never got to play with her again.
That memory led to thinking about a story I've read several times about a little girl who went to her teacher and told her an older male family member (brother? uncle?) licked her cookie. Kids will be kids and the teacher listened kindly and told her that if he did it again to ask him not to do it. The little girl began to regularly come to her teacher about the cookie licking and how she didn't want him to do it. Later the teacher discovered that the cookie was not actually a cookie. It was the little girls vagina.
Why am I writing about this tonight? Because it makes me angry. And my stomach has been rolling all day because those two things keep coming to mind. The second might be only a story, I've never checked the source, but the first one is a personal experience. I often wonder what happened to that little girl. I wish I had been old enough to understand what she was telling me, that I had been old enough to do something to stop the abuse.
Adults, we have to teach our children the proper names for ALL of their body parts. We need to listen when they talk, not only to their words, but to their body language and behavior. We need to respect their personal boundaries. Don't force them to sit on anyone's lap or hug everyone. Don't teach them that just because "so and so" is family, a close friend or an adult that they have to give them a kiss or any other kind of physical affection. We cannot protect our kids from everyone or everything. But we can arm them with the knowledge that we will listen to them and stand up for them if someone makes them uncomfortable. And if they know that their private parts are either a vagina or a penis (not a cookie or a weiner or any other name), that breasts are not "buttons" or any other name (one of my aunts used to tell us when we were swimming in the lake we could only go out to our "buttons") and if they are taught to call those body parts by their correct names, then we have them armed with tools that cannot be mistaken for harmless pranks if someone is touching or licking or inserting anything where they have no business being.
dolls should be dolls
cookies should be cookies
if you are uncomfortable calling body parts by their proper names,
I encourage you to consider the possible consequences of not doing so
rant over
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