How do I tell my 6 year old son?
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 10:00PM I've been carefully avoiding any talk about grandpa with my 6 year old son. Not that he asks much - he has seen him only once in his life, when we traveled to Russia to "show him off". He was 2. But the question will inevitably come up - and I don't know how to approach it, where to begin, how to tell just enough and not too much, and how to tell the truth, without covering it up.
My 15 year old daughter has figured everything out by the time I was ready to tell her (smarty pants - she read my clues, like getting very tense when my son took a present from grandpa, a giant beer mug, to drink juice out of - I grabbed it, ran outside and smashed it on the pavement). But my son? What is he making of me being quiet when we both look at photographs and he says - here is grandpa - and I say nothing? When will he be ready to hear the truth, and will he ever be? Can I protect him from this and not talk about this at all, or will I be doing a disservice to him by remaining silent? This is my daily torture now - to tell or not to tell.
On another level, I understand that kids know much more about sex than we think, and they need to be educated about sexual abuse and especially incest - so that they know they have a right to their own body, and nobody else does - not even their parents - nobody can do things to their body against their wish. If kids are educates about this in the same manner as they are about crossing the street, they will know what to do if something like this happens to them. In Tacoma, one of the local rape centers (I forgot the name) has been doing educational programs on sexual abuse and incest in a couple of elementary schools - here is a shocking result. After the presentation (which was largely a theater/puppet demonstration and enactment of abuse scenarios) - usually 1 out of 6 kids come up to the presenters and say they they had been molested or sexually abused. The presentation gives them a way to come out with their story, they understand that they can be heard, that it's not their fault. But I, just like any other parent, am terrified at the idea of my son being in a presentation like this. Why? Why am I? Because it is so hard to break the social stigma around incest and sexual abuse, that even I, being the victim myself, find it hard to break off the perceived normal parental behavior of protection (in my case, uber-protection) and admit to myself that if I had this knowledge when I was a little girl, it would have given me power - power to seek out help and speak up then.
I have this silly hope that I can always protect my kids, that my kids will never have to face anything like this, and so my kids don't need to be exposed to even the knowledge around this issue. But I know I'm wrong. I have to overcome this fear and to talk to my son. How I will do this, I don't know yet, but I do remember facing a similar problem once in the past - with my daughter. When she was 6 or 7, she cornered both me and my husband - her step-father - with the question "How are babies made?". We agonized over it in the course of several days, researching everything we could online, talked to all our friends, until she asked again, demanding the answer. It was in the evening. We both came into her room like two school children, feeling guilty as if we were about to be punished by the school director. We told her exactly what she asked for, and nothing else - that's how everyone suggested to approach it. We said - daddy puts his penis into mom's vagina, and that's how the babies are made. She crossed her arms and looked at us sternly.
- Do you guys still do that?
- Yes.
- Eww, gross! Get out of my room!
We both got red from the tips of our noses to the top of our heads, and headed out. But this was an easy one, the talk with my son will not be easy. I have to do it, just have to master the courage to sit down with him and be straight and honest. I will try.
Reader Comments (3)
This is a very courageous post for a number of reasons. Putting your own tragic experience into such a public forum being a good example. Ksenia, we know each other and I am not surprised either by your anguish at struggling with what "the right thing to do" might be, and your strength. Though I have no irrefutable proof, I maintain high confidence my mother and possibly her twin siblings were victims of incestuous sexual abuse. It's tough to know. Mom passed away when I was only seven (I'm approaching fifty now), so it's a conversation we never had the opportunity to have. I've lost touch with my uncle and aunt who live abroad and are both closer in age to me than their sister. My parents divorced when I was only a few months old, so my father can't illuminate anything for me either. However, my mother committed suicide; this at a time in the late 1960s when resources for abuse victims were non-existent in this country.
When she died, my father went from being weekend to full time dad. In doing so, he suddenly had to help us confront some very difficult issues as a single parent. As an artist and gallery owner in Los Angeles, his was a pretty liberal crowd and we were exposed to the human form and notion of sexuality at young ages. I remember when he took us to see a nude model class at this gallery in order to demistify our ideas of nakedness. I was only seven. Kids are resilliant and, though inquisitive, are far less likely to want to know as much about sex (in all it permutatoins) than you think they do, even if they're asking.
In terms of delving into the deeper issues here, your son will let you know intuitively when he is ready to absorb the information. I was twelve when my father disclosed to me finally the full details of my mother's death. I thought she had simply fallen, struck her head and died. By the time I was ready to deal with reality of her suicide, I had the emotional and developmental skills necessary to cope with the news. This isn't to say it didn't affect me, but I was able to process it in a manner through years which helped me ultimately to both understand hers was not my pain and that she simply was ill. Were my grandfather alive today, though, I'd probably kick his ass up and down the street.
Your experience, for god or bad, is part of you now; informing the person you've become today. Knowing you as well as I do, and being a father of my own daughter, I would wish that such horrible things had never befallen you. However, equally, you are clearly strong, perhaps the product of having to grow from such hurtful beginnings. Clearly, you are processing your own pain in far healthier ways than my mother did for example. I am certain your children know you love them and they you equally. Trust your instinct and bonds with them and the time to deal with this will reveal itself. Perhaps that's today, maybe in a few years to come. Either way, it'll be okay.
Dear Tyler,
thank you for sharing your own expereince and for your insight - I will go by my gut and his readiness - right now I think he is at a place where he doesn't need to know more. I will answer him if he asks.
Ksenia
I think that's a good plan. I wish you well on this parenting journey.