THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - OR HOW TO OVERPOLITICISE YOUR KIDS

A couple of moments have occurred over the passing of the last fortnight that has made me question just what exactly I tell my children. They are still tender young saplings ready to be tied to the vine of life and trained to grow in the desired direction of this keen gardener. Although I understand that they must develop their own ideological viewpoints independent of me, I will use this ever narrowing window of opportunity to impart what I believe are important building blocks in their social understandings and hopefully, just possible steer them in the direction of being kind, tolerant and completely fabulous humans.

Moment 1.
Stranger Danger. All parents have to deal with this one quite early on. The need to impress upon your child that there are 'bad' people out there. But to also impress upon your child that those 'bad' people make up a tiny minority, and on the whole they will hopefully never meet one. This was covered right back a nursery level with both Ginger and Blondie. However, recently, Ginger, the eldest of my two, started to ask some very curious questions like, 'what would a stranger do to me? Would 'he' kill me? Why would he kill me?' This is not a level of detail I was prepared to enter into. I will admit that I glossed a bit. 'Umm yes he might kill you, because 'he' is really bad. Nobody really knows why they do this.'

Fortunately I am married to a far more resourceful wife who was able to expand on the whole arena of inappropriate contact, and was able to divert fear and channel it into respect and looking out for others, privacy, nobody has a right to make you feel scared or uncomfortable. I have to say I felt a little rubbish at this moment. They are still so small, so innocent that I don't want to fill their heads with bad stuff. Only the other week Ginger, as part of her homework, was as to collect two books from home, one fiction and one fact. For her fact she chose a book about the Tooth Fairy, because in her mind the Tooth Fairy very much exists as benign (and seemingly bottomless pit of money) sylph that will visit her when her next teeth fall out.

Moment 2:
International Women's Day. Very important in every way, especially as I am raising two girls who I want to be all the things I said earlier. This, I thought, is where I can make up for my previous failings. There would be too thrusts to my topical debate with Ginger and Blondie. First will be respect and celebration of achievement. This was easy enough; Granny was a Practice Nurse, pioneering in her field of Practice Nursing. Aunty Lucy one of the first women in this country to get a Forensic Science degree (abridged to scientist) these were duly held up for pride and celebration along with teachers, policewomen, the lady at the library, the cats (I don't, they are girl cats - let them have the cats) and so forth. They completely got that it is a day to have pride and limitless aspiration.

The second thrust was the 'there are people (men) and cultures that don't believe that everyone is important, that think that women and girls should not be allowed to do everything that men and boys do' conversation. I am proud to say that the fact that this is the case was completely incomprehensible to them. Blondie just laughed and said 'that is silly'. Ginger just didn't get it at all, more or less 'why?' I tried to answer this with a positive and say that today was all about making sure that everybody knows these people are wrong, the same way that if they and their friends all knew someone in their class was being mean they could stop it happening by all telling their teacher.

Emotion Over Logic
I feel secure in what I have passed on in my lame arsed way. But it is one step up the ladder of awareness towards independent thought and another down the ladder of magical innocence towards being fully grounded. As a Dad who loves the crazy chat about 'cheese-balls, penguins, her from Tangled and all the things they will suddenly be able to do when they are a year older' it is with mixed emotions that these chats happen. Especially as the youngest will generally learn at the same pace as the eldest.


For the next few months, at least, I will revert back to sarcasm as my primary tool for parenting.