From the mouths of babes

My cousin thinks I am a bad influence. On her and I think on her children too. Not that I really care much, though the kids are rather nice. Kids usually are, then they grow up and the genes take over. I think my cousin is too uptight to have kids anyway. Or be around them. But, since life is unfair, someone as kid-unfriendly as her has two nice young-uns ,while I, with all the vicarious experience I get in child rearing by reading Mommy blogs, do not have any (life’s unfairness and the fact that I am totally incapable to be responsible for anything that requires more work than a house plant, but like I said, life is unfair).

You know, it is greatly ironic( how else can it be) that those who do not have kids know just how to rear them, because parents are always wrong. Unlike business, in this field, those who cannot do, those who can, preach. Take my cousin for instance. She is constantly hassled by what seems very immaterial things. There is an almost obsessive concern for what her offspring eat, when they do so and what the contents of their food are. Nutrition aside, meal plans for snacks, in allergy-free kids is probably over doing it a little. The same concern goes for their school work and then goes really over the top in screening out “inappropriate” content that they may hear or see or dream of. Indeed, for the last she is so straitlaced that I really wonder if the stork brought them rather than them being conceived in the usual way. Most TV is out for them, unless it is very insipid cartoons- did you know that even Disney can be suggestive? Almost all music after 1950 is banned. While books and magazines, those bugaboos of modern laxness are very suspiciously censored before letting their unsullied eyes view them.

She has always maintained that this is entirely my fault. Had I not enlightened here about the birds and the bees at the tender age of thirteen, she would not have become so uptight about it. It is a reasoning that defies logic. I also taught her algebra- I don’t see a similar “Math is evil” reaction. Personally I think the very Victorian morals of the convent we studied in, influenced her much more than it did me. That and a certain proclivity to Puritanity. Whatever, it is, this obsession I find almost insane. After all there is a world outside and those two are not going to be insulated forever. Something that was borne out rather recently.

Last Sunday, we were at the Mall. It was gorgeous blue and gold day- perhaps camouflaging the thunderbolt to hit. For that is what it is when a lovely little three year old girl, shouts, in a fetching voice (she was always told to speak clearly) across the line for Dippin Dots “Mama, what is incest?”

There was a moment of absolute silence. The world must have gone by outside, but in that instant I understood what perfect silence really means! I don’t meant that all sounds stopped. But they seemed to have. And my cousin was a sight. She turned a bright red, slowly taking on a purple hue. Her mouth opened, then closed silently- it was a goldfish impression par excellence. She sputtered, she choked and then with a “You…you…” flung at me hastily took the little one’s hand and marched us out into the parking lot into the car. “But..” began the elder one to be silenced by a glare. The younger one tucked into her strawberry Dippin’ Dots we had not paid for.

“It’s all your fault” said my cousin “ you and your ideas about letting kids know everything.” But ideas do not usually infect people, unless they are implemented. And I was not depraved enough, despite my modern ways, to talk to a little child about age-inappropriate things. She knew that, so did not carry on that line of thought. “I know you don’t say things like that in front of her, but still.” She turned to her son “What have you been talking about?” The poor oblivious kid, not used to such lividity started a “Sorry, but what have I done.” Now it was the little ones turn “What were you asking”. “What is incest”, the dreaded I –word again. My cousins turned a deeper shade of scarlet and launched into a breathless tirade on how she was way too young to know things like that and what was the world coming to and how could she disappoint her mother so and why it was her that had these problems and why her husband was at the conference and how depraved the American education system was and why I was looking so smug.

By the time the tirade was over, we pulled in to the garage at home. Her ire wound down, I decided to step in “Sweetheart, where did you read the word”. “In my book” this was sex education super early and in a red state too, I wonder what they were teaching tots in the blue states. “Bring it here” and so she did. There beside the picture of an arthropod, was the I-word. INSECT.