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Original poster

Protecting children from "life"

120 replies

TooManyAnimals94 · 01/02/2022 20:35

Another thread got me thinking about the aspects of life that we either expose or protect our children from.
Why, as a society, are we so keen to sanitise birth, death and sex? Is there an argument for exposing children to all three and making it a normal part of life.
For example, I think people who replace dead pets with lookalikes or tell children 'Lucky went to live on a farm ' are so in the wrong. Especially the second one...surely it raises more questions than it answers and offers no opportunity for closure.
Another one that springs to mind is a friend of mine who owns a stud and breeds dogs. All of his kids understand from a very young age what sex is and where babies come from.
I only became a parent recently but I like to think I will try and be as open and honest about the tough subjects when my DD is small in the hope she'll find it easier to talk to me as she grows up.
Am I very naive? Is there a good case for protecting children from unpleasant things?

OP posts:

Iamkmackered1979 · 03/02/2022 10:22

Sadly as much as we can protect and shelter our children from life and bad things that go on things happen where they are exposed anyway and I think if you’ve not been honest with them or you’ve wrapped them in bubble wrap they’ll find it a lot harder to deal with things as they grow up. My children had this happen, by their own dad and he did things I wasn’t even allowed to discuss with my children (or would want to) and he went away. And children being children wanted to know why they couldn’t see their dad anymore and where he was and why they got no Christmas presents from him.

Nasty evil man that he is. Now off playing happy families elsewhere with someone else who had children and married him knowing what he’s done just don’t know what is wrong with the world that thinks that’s ok. Sorry rant over just can’t get over it.

Madwomanuptheroad29 · 03/02/2022 10:25

I think the special cuddles that are only for adults are not bad as a starting point for very young children.
I added that those cuddles are only for adults and are very different from cuddles with children, hugs etc.
Also allowed them to differenciate from sleep overs.
Also in explain that these are special, only for adults and only if both adults want them brought the consent issue in.
As mine got older we just added more info in as and when it became appropriate, kind of matter of fact.
Giving basic info and adding as we got along allowed to then also discuss gay sex, equal marriage etc without confusing them.
As my older kids got older the younger ones just absorbed the more complex issues.
So with periods, the children used to follow me to the toilet anyway so I simply told them that bleeding was normal for all women and it meant there was no baby in my tummy and my body was simply flushing out my womb to have it nice and cosy should I ever have another one and that happens automatically every month.
Same with abortion, we simply discussed that sometimes a woman is pregnant and does not want a baby and at that point the baby is part of the woman's body and if she was forced to have the baby she would not be a happy mummy and that would be really sad.
Most of my children are adults now and all are very pro choice, clear about consent issues and take responsibility for contraception.

Thistledew · 03/02/2022 10:26

Filling small children in on awkward subjects is difficult to navigate and I'm not entirely sure that I got this one right:

MIL and I had a big falling out. I had inadvertently upset her over something and she said some very unpleasant things about me to DH. A short time later there was a family event, and I didn't feel that I could be around MIL. DS, age 5, wanted to know why I wasn't going.

I told him very simply that MIL had said some horrible things about me and that made me sad and that I didn't want to be around her for a while. This clearly did bother him as a few weeks later he asked me about it again, by which time I was able to say that I had had a conversation with MIL and that we had talked about how we could be friends again.

(I obviously did not tell him that I think she is a toxic cow and that I will be limiting my interaction with her to the bare functions necessary for her to maintain a relationship with him and DD).

He later asked MIL about it and she completely fobbed him off, saying that I had misunderstood and that she hadn't said mean things. She phoned DH and I in apparent distress saying that it was inappropriate that I had talked to him about our falling out.

My view, supported by DH, is that it is better to talk about big emotions in an age appropriate way rather than pretending that adults don't have these sorts of problems. DS is having some difficulties with another child at school and I would much rather he sees the adults around him experiencing similar problems and handling them appropriately than pretending they don't exist.

I know that young children view the adults around them as infallible, but I don't think that modelling some problem resolution would damage the sense of security that they get from this.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Families

Monopolyiscrap · 03/02/2022 10:31

@Madwomanuptheroad29 My DD would have been - in what way are the cuddles for adults different? What do you do differently? And on and on and on...
I understand your children were happy with this level of explanation. But not all children are.

Blackopal · 03/02/2022 13:44

RedRobyn2021

Made me laugh too, even more when she stood by her opinion and told me she was surprised and shocked at what I had done! Clearly felt it was damaging to my daughter.

Twattergy · 03/02/2022 14:06

I think the basics of life like sex, birth, death can be honestly discussed from age 3 upwards really. Just keep it simple and factual and answer all their questions. Difficult stuff like rape, terrorism etc take very careful handling and I wouldn't go into it until older but even then I think 8+ ages can manage these and it is better to be open and honest than to try and protect them from it. Only thing that upset me was that my son came home from school aged 6 maybe 7 and they'd covered the holocaust at school. I believe it is essential for kids to be taught this, however considering I (and my son therefore) is Jewish, this was something I wanted to be the first to talk to him about. Because for me it is one of the most disturbing things in the world to explain to any child, let alone a Jewish one.

MedusasBadHairDay · 03/02/2022 14:07

@Blackopal

Yes my daughter was not satisfied with daddy's seed answers. She was very much 'but how does it get there?' I told her at 6 about PIV as she couldn't understand what I was talking about without details. She was fine although my friend thought it was shocking and that it might make my six year old try it

We got the DC a book on bodies that talked about puberty, sex and pregnancy, and it explained about PIV. My 7 year olds reaction was horror then, "that's just silly".

I think that age is a long way off wanting to try it 😂

toppkatz · 03/02/2022 14:08

[quote AllThePogs]@toppkatz telling them months before that a relative will die is too much. But I think telling them beforehand helps prepare them. Also if their parents are upset it makes sense to explain that is because X relative is ill.[/quote]
I was just using that as an example of something that adults in the family would be worried about long-term, but that children could be shielded from the worry for as long as practicable. When I was a small child my father was made redundant and my parents never told me a thing about how worried they'd been about being short of money and whether he would be able to get another job due to health problems. I only learned of it some years afterwards.

JassyRadlett · 03/02/2022 14:17

[quote Monopolyiscrap]@JassyRadlett I agree. I know my elderly mum was raped as a young teenager partly because she didn't really understand what was happening.[/quote]
Oh your poor mum. How absolutely horrific.

ldontWanna · 03/02/2022 17:09

@CloseYourEyesAndSee

Birth, death and sex are quite different topics. I've never protected my DS from the truth about birth or death (age appropriate) but I protected him from seeing or hearing details about sex until he was old enough to understand it more. Small children don't need to be exposed to the reality of sex. It's not healthy for them to be so.

Age appropriate conversations and honesty about sex, is not only healthy but a protective factor. Children, even small ones don't grow up in a vacuum. They might hear things, have things done to them, misconceptions , and be exposed to sex in a scary and inappropriate way by others. Knowing they can talk to their parents, that they can ask questions, having some basics makes things like that easier to navigate.

JassyRadlett · 03/02/2022 18:08

If knowing about sex from a young age is ‘unhealthy’, is someone getting up a campaign to protect all the children who grow up on farms from this damage?

Wreath21 · 04/02/2022 15:14

@CloseYourEyesAndSee

I think you might actually benefit from some sort of counselling as your view of sex seems to be borderline phobic. And that's not something you should pass on to your DC.

CloseYourEyesAndSee · 04/02/2022 15:17

I think you might actually benefit from some sort of counselling as your view of sex seems to be borderline phobic. And that's not something you should pass on to your DC.

That is literally the funniest thing I've ever read given what I know about me

It's also a really stupid comment based on what I said.

Sex == human reproduction only. Sex is orgasms and pleasure and erections and clitorises and weird positions and noises. That's what I was referring to, not the facts of how babies are made.

CloseYourEyesAndSee · 04/02/2022 15:18

@JassyRadlett

If knowing about sex from a young age is ‘unhealthy’, is someone getting up a campaign to protect all the children who grow up on farms from this damage?

Sex. Not reproduction. Is that all that sex means to you? Making babies?

Wreath21 · 04/02/2022 15:19

But there are a lot of things that we need to talk carefully to our DC about. One of my oldest friends developed a very severe mental illness to the point that we are no longer in contact, and my DC, who had known and liked her before the illness got out of control, sometimes asked why we don't see her any more. I explained that she was ill in her mind, didn't want to see us, and we might get to see her again one day if she is better (because that was as much as DC could handle at the time.)

CloseYourEyesAndSee · 04/02/2022 15:21

FFS. I have clearly been misunderstood. My fault I assume.
It's not unhealthy for children to understand about reproduction. It's not unhealthy for them to learn about sexual intercourse in age appropriate ways when they ask.
It was the casual linking of birth death and sex that makes no sense. They are different things. The kind of sex that adults have is not the same as two pigs on a farm and children don't need to know what goes on in an adult sex life until they are considerably older than the age the OP was talking about.

ldontWanna · 04/02/2022 16:16

@CloseYourEyesAndSee

FFS. I have clearly been misunderstood. My fault I assume. It's not unhealthy for children to understand about reproduction. It's not unhealthy for them to learn about sexual intercourse in age appropriate ways when they ask. It was the casual linking of birth death and sex that makes no sense. They are different things. The kind of sex that adults have is not the same as two pigs on a farm and children don't need to know what goes on in an adult sex life until they are considerably older than the age the OP was talking about.

Of course it's not the same. Pigs orgasm for 30 minutes. Lucky bastards.

JassyRadlett · 04/02/2022 16:27

It's not unhealthy for them to learn about sexual intercourse in age appropriate ways when they ask.

Then why is it different from talking about death and birth in age-appropriate ways? You’re the one who drew the distinction.

No one on this thread has suggested telling four year olds about the best positions for orgasm. Just straight, factual answers to kids’ questions.

What ‘realities’ are you ‘protecting’ your kids from that you seem to think the posts preceding yours aren’t?

orio · 05/02/2022 10:44

@AllThePogs

I find the idea that kids shouldn't know about things until they can fully comprehend them, a strange one. I don't think children really comprehend death fully, even older children, but they should still learn about it. And pets are an easy way to learn. And yes once kids can read and talk to other kids with older brothers and sisters, they start learning a lot more anyway.

Completely agree with this. As an adult I fully understand death but I do not fully understand the pain of losing a parent or child as that hasn't happened to me, when it does I will understand it even more.

Monopolyiscrap · 05/02/2022 15:43

@CloseYourEyesAndSee anyone brought up on a farm does realise that people have penetrative sex. You see animals doing it all the time. Humans are animals too. We really aren't that different.

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