Too Much, Too Soon

I tell Katie way too much. When she asks me tough questions, I have a hard time filtering it down to a little girl's level. It started when I had my first miscarriage and the difficult questions followed. She knows more about some of life's hard lessons than I wish she did and she's not afraid to share it. Fortunately, she knows nothing about the birds and the bees, but unfortunately, she knows what the F word is - and not the F word at my house (which is Fat), but the real one that some dumb a-- kid mispelled when painting graffiti on a school playground wall. I don't think I was exposed to that word until 6th or 7th grade!

In first grade, I was taking her and her friend home from school for a playdate. The cute girl has a completely different background than Katie; she's been exposed to a lot more and is pretty mature for her age. The friend surprises me and says, "Are you going to put Katie on birth control?" I almost swerved off the road. I didn't know what to say and of course Katie says, "What's birth control?" Before I could interceed, she started telling us about how her cousin just had a baby when she was a teenager and that's too young, so you're supposed to take birth control. And then, when you WANT to have a baby, you stop taking it. "So," she continues, "I'm going to take birth control because I don't want to have a baby too young." I was floored! I couldn't believe I was hearing this from a 6 year-old. After my initial shock (and admittedly, a bit of anger), I calmed down and put myself in their family's shoes. Like in my case with the pregancy losses, you don't want to have to tell your little ones these adult things. You want to keep them sheltered. But when life throws you a curve ball, sometimes there's no way around it. I'm sure Katie's friend's family was faced with some tough questions after the cousin got pregnant. It seems that the parents did their best to talk about it and I was grateful she had her story straight. Not that I wanted to hear Sex Ed 101 from a first grader, but at least her mom/cousin/whoever told her what was what. Katie completely lost interest in the topic even during the conversation, so thank heaven we haven't had to discuss it again.

Since then, I've tried to be a bit more discreet and shelter Katie more. Just because she's been exposed to things doesn't mean she needs to know everything. I'm proud I've been able to keep her sheltered from a lot. This is the first year she's really getting into the "crush" thing (she kissed a boy on the cheek the other day!). I was boy crazy at age 3, so it's been nice to have a reprieve. She has plenty of time for all that. She's just barely getting into the whole Disney Channel tween thing and watching a couple of PG shows when I know there's a lot of kids her age who have seen EVERYTHING. And my proudest achievement, she didn't even know what a diet was until she turned 7! Love that! Diet would be the D word in our house; we just try to be "healthy" and not focus on the D word; although I'm constantly ON the D word - I just never talk about it with Katie. I know there are 2nd graders out there obsessed with their little figures even now. So sad!

Wouldn't it be great if you could just keep your kids in a bubble and let them out when they are 18 -- or 21 -- or maybe even 25?