As of December 28th I have become the proud mom to a mind bogglingly awesome 5-year-old. One of the things I’ve noticed lately is that it’s easier to discuss difficult topics with her. I listen to a lot of CBC (Canada’s public radio) and as a result I find myself often trying to answer the question, “What are they talking about?” Sometimes it’s easier than others.
Recently various CBC shows and news reports have lead to discussions about gender stereotypes. I believe it started when she heard me muttering expletives under my breath at a show dedicated to the “hardwired” differences between how men and women shop. Not having been exposed to much TV or mass media Mae had so far been blissfully unaware of prevailing attitudes about boys and girls. So when she asked me why I changed the station I decided to buckle down and explain it before she got it from somewhere else.
The conversation went something like this:
Me: Well some people think that men and women or girls and boys are different from each other, like they like different things and they’re good at different things but that’s just silly because boys can like anything and girls can like anything.
Mae: That is silly.
Me: For example, some people think that only boys like to build with blocks.
Mae: (jaw drops) But I like to build with blocks, that’s just silly.
Me: I know, and some people think that boys don’t like to do crafts!
Mae: Whaaat?! That’s silly, everyone likes crafts.
And so on and so on.
Well now Mae is fascinated. She keeps asking to talk about “the man woman thing” and is constantly amazed by how silly it is that people think they know about a person just because of their gender.
More recently there has been a high profile trial of a father who, along with his son and his wife, was just convicted of deliberately murdering his daughters and his first wife for bringing dishonour to the family. After watching me turn down the volume or change the channel a dozen times Mae started asking why, so once again I sat down to have a talk with her. I told her that some men think that they should be able to control the women and girls in their life and that in this case a father did a very bad thing and killed his wife and daughters because they wouldn’t do what he wanted. I told her that a long time ago there were a lot of things that women weren’t allowed to do, like vote or go to medical school and that in some places this was still true. She listened and responded with the usual incredulity and with every word I said felt like I was being punched in the gut. I don’t want her know about violence against women, I don’t want to bring this darkness into her world. But I also know that these are realities that she’s going to have understand and that part of my job is to prepare her for the scary stuff before she gets blindsided by it. So when she asks me a question I try to find the best way to answer her honestly in a setting where we have the time to sit together and really talk. And if it gets too intense or confusing for her she just says, “let’s talk about feathers.” Why feathers you ask? Because they’re light of course.
Dan talks to DJ around 10:20
So what about you, how do you broach the tough stuff with your kids?
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