Of Consent and Love

She's already been married three times to the same boy. Received a wedding ring from him. Kissed him at school. Had his baby whose name keeps changing.

And she's only seven years old.

Of course, it's fairly innocent and all in due course of growing up. Not all kids are interested in marriage and kids as a kid; Beatrice certainly isn't. But Bryce, our youngest, she's got that maternal kid thing going on. Has always been interested in babies. Which may or may not be a good or bad thing. At least, not until she's a teenager.

Ugh.

However, we keep it real with the girls no matter what. Having age-appropriate conversations with them about life and love is very important.

One night at dinner, babies came up again during family discussion time. My niece is having her first baby soon, and we had just gone to her baby shower. The girls were very curious about babies again and how girls get pregnant, how the baby grows in the belly, all the baby things.

"Do you know how babies are made?" the Mama said (what I lovingly call my wife).

"You have to kiss a boy," Beatrice said.

"Well, there's more to it than that. Boys and girls have parts that fit together. Do you know what they are?"

The Mama has already had these discussions with them, and we both use the actual words for what the parts are when we need to reference them, not cutesy made-up words that are easier for nervous adults to handle than their kids.

"The penis and vagina," Bea said.

Both girls frowned. The conversation continued and I started to sweat. Not because I was uncomfortable with the content, but because I always remember the context of my early education when my mom kept it real with me.

I was six or seven. He was seven or eight, a neighborhood kid, a friend of sorts, one who led and I followed. There was a little girl in the neighborhood, around four and still in diapers, or some early iteration of pull-ups.

I was extremely uncomfortable because he wanted the little girl to pull her pull-ups down. I knew it was wrong, felt it was wrong, and yet and I didn't do anything. She looked scared. I looked away. She pulled it down and he laughed. We didn't touch her or hurt her.

My mom had watched the whole thing from our dining room window and immediately came outside to make us apologize to the little girl. She sent the boy away and told the little girl to go home (she lived next door), who ran away crying (I don't remember if she talked with the parents of the girl or not, but nothing ever came of it).

She then took me inside and began to explain to me the differences between boys and girls, what a vagina was and what a penis was and what happens with sex and why it was so wrong to do what we did. Why I needed to respect women and never force anything upon them that they didn't want to do, to never hurt them or belittle them in any way. I was mortified, but she made me look her in the eyes and promise.

Now that the Mama and I have children, and since we've been involved in Kidpower, we've reiterated more than once with the girls a key Kidpower safety tenet, that people shouldn't touch your private areas or ask to touch them, or to show you pictures, movies or videos of their private areas. That sometimes adults have to touch for health and safety, and in those situations, it's never a secret.

Keeping it real can also be very poignant and sweet, and watching the girls touch my niece's belly with her growing baby inside reminded me of when our girls were growing inside the Mama. Our children need to understand the how and why of sex and babies, and the long-term context and commitment of consent and love.