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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel sickend that 8/10 year olds knew in fair detal about abortion?

75 replies

quechelle · 23/11/2011 17:07

the other day i was walking my girls round the local park and a group of kids between about age 8/10 mix of girls n boys wer all "mucking about" in the park one of them put a football in her t-shirt while another was punching it out and a couple of the kids (the younger ones) wer all laughing and shouting about how shes having an abortion n the other one was getting rid of the baby for her. me and my partner wer gob smacked and moved my girls along a bit sharpish after seeing that.

i was actually a bit sickend by the thought that kids so young understood the meaning of aborting a baby at a junior school age. my children arnt in school yet, they are both fairly young so i dont know what they get taught in schools but i assume thats probably not a topic that would come into convosation with children until they are in the higher years of senior school(if at all ??).

it kind of worried me to think that either a parent or older siblin had explain somthing like that to these kids and obviously not well enough for them to understand its not somthing to joke about expesh while they are around alot of younger childern. or posably they had seen something on telly. i dont know but surley as a parent you wouldnt be letting your child learn about abortion that young and if you knew they had some sort of knowledge of it then you'd try to explain it lightly to them that its not somthing to go telling other children and certanly not somthing to joke about.

OP posts:

lesley33 · 23/11/2011 17:11

Has there been a character on a show recently watched by this age group (not necessarily aimed at them though) where a woman has lost her baby because of DV - i.e. man shouting at woman I'll give you an abortion and then punching her in the stomach?

TroublesomeEx · 23/11/2011 17:12

Fair detail? I'm not sure I understand the full ins and outs of abortion but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve punching it out.

My DS knew what an abortion was at 10 because he'd heard the word and asked what it was. I agree with you that I'd be explaining it's not something to be joked about, though.

MenopausalHaze · 23/11/2011 17:13

OP - what?

Lesley33 - what?

lljkk · 23/11/2011 17:13

Well... it happens, and they have to be drip fed bits of info from the adult world, they can't wait until the latest possible age to absorb it all (would be too much). So bits will slip thru that aren't right, and will get misinterpretted. Kids have always done that (got the wrong end of the stick about an adult matter).

I am 99% sure that 10yo DD has no idea whatsoever what an abortion is. And she's pretty into the latest fashion & has trendy friends, etc.

YULEingFanjo · 23/11/2011 17:14

not ideal but no reason to feel sickened.

valiumredhead · 23/11/2011 17:14

Kids joke about everything so the fact they were larking about is neither here nor there imo.

The fact they DO know about it is also good imo - knowledge is power. Knowledge does not mean the end of a child hood.

My ds 10 knows about it as there was something on a soap recently - which again I think is good. Emmerdale and Corrie have been the starting blocks for a lot of ds's and my in depth chats

StrandedUnderTheMisltoe · 23/11/2011 17:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MildlyNarkyPuffin · 23/11/2011 17:17

Yes, it sounds like they completely understand what it is

Original poster

quechelle · 23/11/2011 17:17

i did think its probably likly to be what lesley33 said but surly if so many kids wer talking about it freely the topic might have come up in the home, and surly if your young kids watching telly late enough to watch programs with that sort of content it should be monitord by mum/dad

OP posts:

Original poster

quechelle · 23/11/2011 17:19

no im not sayin it shouldnt be brought up im just not sure that it does come up in school teaching, i left school in 2005 or 2006 so not all that long ago and never in sex ed was that topic brought up

OP posts:

mamamoonmim · 23/11/2011 17:19

All they have to do is watch Eastender to learn that.

What I thought was unfair was when I was 14 our class was shown a video of 5 month old fetuses being ripped apart in the womb and their heads piles up in a dustbin and that was our education on abortion.
We thought fully formed babies were just killed when the mother felt like it,
I actually cried in class.

We all thought anyone who has an abortion is a sickening murderer.

Now I know that abortion is usually done ar earlier than that and it was a really bias veiw we were taught.

valiumredhead · 23/11/2011 17:20

Well it was covered in my sex ed classes and I am 41.

valiumredhead · 23/11/2011 17:22

We had a very biased view taught to us too mama

GypsyMoth · 23/11/2011 17:23

It was covered in mine too

CamperFan · 23/11/2011 17:23

mamamoomin I am

Original poster

quechelle · 23/11/2011 17:25

is it taught in schools now does any one know?

OP posts:

mamamoonmim · 23/11/2011 17:26

That 'education' was the main reason I went through with having a baby at 15, as I plainly saw the other option as 'murder'.
I'm pro-choice now

somedayma · 23/11/2011 17:29

It's not really knowing details of abortion is it though? And kids pick up all sortsa things you'd rather they didn't but they do anyway. Shrug. I remember being about 7 and my friends and i saying our pencils were 'sex', the pencil mark on the page was the 'baby' and the rubber was 'an abortion'. I have no idea where we learned such things but we turned out fine!

Original poster

quechelle · 23/11/2011 17:29

im shocked that they showed you that....surley if teaching that subject you should explain the full detal n never be pro-life about it , every one should know its an option for anyone that feels strongly that that cant carry on with a pregnancy

OP posts:

lljkk · 23/11/2011 18:29

On the back of this thread I have violated DD's innocence... first by asking if she knew what an abortion was (she had no idea) & then having to explain what it was, & the difference between that & miscarriage. Then DD wanted to know how an abortion would be done (I only mentioned oral drugs & injections).

DD was pretty upset at the idea so then we discussed a few reasons why someone might feel it reasonable to do such an extreme thing.

Yet another reason why 10yos shouldn't be watching East Enders.

somedayma · 23/11/2011 19:05

If you think that's a reason kids shouldn't watch easties why on earth did you bring up the subject with your daughter? :s

BrigadierRevoltingPeasant · 23/11/2011 19:14

YABU to be shocked, really.

I knew what an abortion was certainly from the age of about 8, because my mum had one. This was in the US and there were people picketing the clinic, and we talked about that. In fact, I know I knew what one was before then, because I'm certain she didn't have to explain abortion to me, just that she was having one.

Personally, I am really really against children's being 'protected' from facts like that. A 10yo is going to be sexually mature in a few short years or even months and a girl has the right to have information like that, IMO, albeit in an age appropriate way.

And as for them joking about it in a tasteless fashion when grown ups aren't around....? Have you ever met a 10yo child??

valiumredhead · 23/11/2011 21:50

Why would you bring it up AND explain lijkk then blame EE?

wannaBe · 23/11/2011 22:02

It's not appropriate.

My mum had an abortion when I was seven and I knew about it at the time.

I went to school and told my best friend that my mummy was having a baby, except she didn't want it so she was going to hospital and they were going to take it away.

She had the abortion because she didn't want another disabled child - like me.

But at seven, although I was certainly capable of understanding the idea of the baby being taken away etc, in truth it is not old enough to understand the reasons behind it.

Consequently when my peers started to gain knowledge of abortion, probably around the age of twelve/thirteen, they were all still fairly immature about it and thought that people who had abortions were all murderers.

So - my mum had murdered a baby in their eyes. And in mine, the reason she'd done it was because of me.

Children just cannot rationalize at that age - maybe seven is a bit young, but even ten is still young - I discussed it with my sister once, and she doesn't remember the reasons behind it - she thought that it had happened because we wanted to move abroad and couldn't afford to with three kids.

They are children. There is plenty of time for them to learn about abortion - at a time when it is necessary. At ten it is not necessary. At all.

valiumredhead · 23/11/2011 22:05

To be fair wannabe I think roughly knowing what abortion is and knowing your mum has had one are two entirely different things.

We want to arm our kids with facts but not to make them personal - that comes later with maturity.

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