Conversations with children can rapidly descend to unanticipated and often unwelcome depths and other times result in raucous laughter and a new family vernacular. I have had two such conversations in the past three days.
The first was with Lulu (age five) while we were staying at the beach house. I was trying to read the Sunday Mail between glances toward the beach to make a quick head count of the kids. Lulu was pacing around in front of me and trying to formulate a question about looks. After several attempts she finally stopped dead in her tracks, looked me in the eye and said, 'Why does God get to choose the way we look? Why can't WE choose how we look?' I was stunned as I grappled with the question, being so accustomed to most of her questions relating to food and when the next ice cream would be coming her way. I didn't have time to think too deeply and came up with the stock standard 'cop-out' response of 'That's a very good question Lulu, and I don't know why God gets to choose how we look.' But by then Lulu had had time to come up with her next question, so she continued 'Do you like the way you look?' I contemplated the question, reeling by the depth of the conversation at this point. I managed to pull myself together in time to reply, 'Yes I do. Do you like the way you look?' To which she replied 'NO'. I was shocked and a little concerned at this point, as my husband and I regard Lulu as one of the best looking members of the family. (just between you and I) So I said, 'What don't you like about yourself?' To my great relief, she replied 'I don't like my hair... it makes me look like a three year old'.
I realised then that Lulu had only been contemplating the wisdom of her recent decision to cut her hair to bob length, having had it past her shoulders for some time. I gathered my thoughts immediately, relieved that I wasn't dealing with some kind of body dismorphic disorder in my five year old, and said 'Well God doesn't choose your hair cuts Lulu, you do! Besides, it will grow back and then you will like the way you look again, won't you.' She replied that she would, and that was that - back to catching crabs and asking about ice creams.
The second conversation was this evening with Charlotte during dinner, after most of the other children had left the table. For some reason Abby and I had been talking about the fact that despite Tubs no longer having much hair on the top of his head, he has quite a decent crop growing on his ear lobes. (It is common to have a laugh at Tubs's expense at dinner, it tends to distract the children into unwittingly eating their vegetables.) Charlotte then piped up with, 'How come daddy has hair all over his body?' I laughed and gave a typically derogatory and dismissive, yet age appropriate, reply of 'because he is part gorilla'. Tubs however thought it wise to provide a more accurate, and somewhat defensive reply of, 'Well Charlotte, you see you have oestrogen...which does...' at this point he became confused and handballed it to me, '...what...Snoop' (his nickname for me - long story). So I looked at him in wide eyed horror, then noticed Charlotte looking at me waiting for an answer, so I played the game and told it how it is. 'It will make you grow boobs and get a hairy fanny one day'. Charlotte errupted in laughter and proclaimed, 'NOT ME!!!' At this point Tubs was covering his face with his hands, and Charlotte realized that some sort of dark secret was being revealed, and said 'Does Miss S have hair on her fanny?' (in reference to her teacher) I then burst out laughing, Charlotte started saying 'What... what.. does she.. well, does she?' Tubs then mumbled something about needing to go out and check the chickens or water the vegies.
Charlotte wouldn't let it go, and I couldn't pull myself together enough to respond properly, so I said 'Probably Charlotte', she then said 'But she's ONLY 25!!' and realizing the innocence of the poor child and the nightmare inducing direction the conversation has headed, I got up from the table and said 'Charlotte, I was 25 when Abby was born'. But Charlotte wouldn't let up, she followed me and said 'Then why isn't Miss S having a baby?' So I did the only thing a parent can in this situation, I looked her in the eye and with a very serious tone.........offered her chocolate.
There is a time and a place for these topics to discussed, and we are often totally unprepared for the questions that come at us. I don't think a book can truly teach us how to answer. We must deal with it in the spur of the moment, working on our knowledge of our child's emotional and intellectual maturity. We base our answers upon an educated guess as to what our children are really wanting to know, balanced with what we know they can deal with in terms of new information.
Conversations with Abby (age ten) and Josie (age 2) frequently result in new vernacular.
We now all refer to Josie's dummy as 'nanny' because that is what she calls it, and her slippers are called 'gaggles', which we think is her attempt to make a duck noise (her slippers have Jemima puddleduck heads on them).
Abby overheard us refer to a chicken carcas after a roast chicken dinner once, and when the next roast chicken dinner was presented she said 'Are we having chicken farcarcus tonight?'. Roast chicken will forever be known as 'farcarcus night' in our house. Abby also recently announced that the chickens must be happy as they were doing a lot of 'ger-gerk'n', her description of the language they use. The chickens are now affectionately referred to as 'the ger-gerk'ns'.
Our conversations with the kids give us so much joy and we hope we can recall many of them in years to come. We also hope to keep the laughter coming, but not doubt in a few more years it will be mostly directed at us as a result of not understanding the children rather than the other way around!
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