No Day at the Beach with my Daughter

Why is the universe so intent on sexualizing girls before they even enter school? I realize this is one of my “themes” but how can it not be when it is EVERYWHERE I take my daughter, even when we are exploring Nature, where there is NO mass media.

For example, this evening Anna insisted we go to the waterfront to collect shells and rocks. This seemed like a fairly innocuous, non-sexualized, educational activity to do with my quizzical little girl, but the weather wasn’t great (because it never is), it was after the dinner hour, and I was not exactly vibrating with energy.

Anna, sensing my hesitation, suggested that maybe I’d slip on some seaweed and fall into the ocean again, as if that would sweeten the deal. I guess she’d heard enough people laughing at the story (read here) of me slipping on a rock and tumbling into the sea that she figured humiliation and nearly drowning was something I actually enjoyed.

It is not something I enjoy.

And while I have always been enthralled with the ebb and flow of the tides, beachcombing on a cold and windy evening at the end of a long day definitely did not sound appealing to me. Nevertheless, I cannot say no to my children, especially when they want to spend time with me, no matter how tired I am. So off we went.

On the way to the beach Anna wanted to listen to some music and as usual I complied with her request.

Unfortunately, the first song I put on entailed a lot of female moaning, and Anna wanted to know why this female was moaning. I said because she (the moaning female) was stupid and changed the song.

Anna gasped, “YOU said a bad word!”

“Stupid isn’t a bad word,” I corrected, “It’s just not a nice thing to call someone. BUT if the person really IS stupid then it’s fine because you’re telling the truth. You should never lie.”

This was terrible, terrible advice to give to a 5-year-old, which I see now that it’s after midnight, the moment has long passed, and it is far too late to take it back. Maybe these “quality times” with mommy are not such a good idea after all.

The next song DID have a “bad word" - the F-word in fact - so I quickly clicked to song number three which chorused: “All I ever wanted was a one night stand..."

Naturally, because the universe enjoys torturing with me, Anna wanted to know what a one night stand was. How the hell does a mother answer that?

I secretly cursed Jen for creating this top-100 play list for me. I could not recall her EVER asking  such questions when she was little so I didn't have any past experience to go by. I had to give Anna some answer, though, because she is relentless when you don't answer her. So finally I said:

“One night stands are stupid things stupid girls do.” I hoped the fact that I really didn’t answer the question would be overlooked.

“But it’s a boy singing the song, not a girl,” Anna pointed out.

“Okay, well, boys are stupid too, except your brother, he’s not stupid.”

In reality the only stupid person in the car was me, CLEARLY.

I thought I’d better move on to the next song before I did ANY MORE damage to Anna's developing worldview.

But song number four only got worse: “It’s 5 o’clock in the morning, and I know you be getting so horny…” Good Lord – NEXT!

Too late.

Anna wanted to know what “horny” meant.

I didn’t know what to say so I said this dumb thing: “Uh…when someone is horny it means they have a lot of horns.”

“WHAT!? People can have horns?!” Anna was utterly sickened by the prospect of growing horns.

Her disgust was soon transformed, however, into renewed confusion with song number five: “So what we get drunk, so what we smoke weed…”

Anna could not for the life of her understand why people would smoke weeds. She was also interested in learning more about this drunk business.

I felt panicky.

Why? Why was this happening right now?

But I had to answer her didn’t I – didn’t I??!

Oh my god…

I took a deep breath and said that weed was another word for “drugs” and that drugs and being drunk were very, very bad and she should NEVER EVER in her whole entire life do those things or she would grow horns all over her body.

That’s what I told her.

I don’t know how I can defend myself, other than to say she didn’t come with a manual, there are no effective parenting classes, and I`m not sure the babysitting course I took when I was ten counts.

It did eventually occur to me that I should CHANGE THE MUSIC.

I put on some children’s Christian tunes, thinking surely the uncomfortable questions would cease with the changed subject matter. But of course biblical stories, even when put to music, are not without their own set of difficult-for-Lala to answer questions. For instance: Who did swallow Jonah?

A whale swallowed Jonah, I explained to Anna. And Jonah had to live in the whale’s stomach for three days and three nights as punishment for not obeying God.

And I feel like a weirdo-liar telling her that horns will grow all over her body if she dabbles in drugs? I mean, really, what’s the difference? They are both nonsensical stories with a message.

Anyway, I was just happy we had moved from sex and drugs to something less threatening (at least in any immediate sense), albeit no more less perplexing.

Then we got to the beach, which I assumed would be devoid of people considering the weather and relatively late hour. I was wrong. There were three teens, two boys and a girl, fooling around near to where we started looking for shells. We could hear everything they were saying and it soon became apparent they were in the early “foreplay” stage of some sort of ill-conceived threesome.

The girl was sitting on a boulder with her legs dangling around one of the boys who stood in front of her. The other boy was behind her and we could hear them giggling and saying provocative things. They kept glancing over at us and snickering as if they were involved in something worldly and we, or at least me, was too out of touch to “get it”.

But I did get it and Anna was not oblivious either, which was unfortunate for me considering what I had just gone through on the drive there.

I said to Anna that we should move to another part of the beach away from the teenagers, but Anna did not want to move anywhere. We had found the perfect spot, she told me, but I suspect she was a little too curious about what was so funny a few yards away.

Then the boy who was standing behind the girl reached inside her shirt and obviously undid her bra to which she exclaimed in mock modesty, “I feel so violated.”

The three of them all tee-heed and looked over at my unimpressed expression, as if they were enticing me with their little show.

There was nothing enticing about them or what they were doing. I don’t know what that girl could have found so thrilling about it, either. The idea of two pudgy, pimply-faced, inexperienced, overly excited adolescent galoots mauling and groping at body parts does not a sexual fantasy make. Call me cynical…or maybe just old.

 

As expected, Anna wanted to know what the teenagers were doing, even though it was plain by her impish grin that she had at least some idea. And considering the music she had been intently listening to earlier in the car, she might even have had a better idea than me of what exactly the teens were doing.

But perhaps this was a teaching opportunity.

So, I gestured in the direction of the teens and whispered to Anna, “Remember how I told you about stupid girls before?”

Anna slowly nodded her head, appearing slightly perturbed and also quite serious as if I had just revealed a piece of momentous information.

Then with a look of revulsion it dawned on her.

I could almost see the light bulb of recognition ignite in her head, as she lowered her voice and with disgust asked, “Will she grow horns?”