My daughter, who is 6 and in first grade, got in trouble this week because she thought it would be funny to pretend to have a penis. And really, it’s all John McCain’s fault.
About a week ago, ST was preparing for the mock election that was going to be taking place at her elementary school on Tuesday. She was asking me and TK who we were going to vote for. Being parents who listen, we asked her who she wanted to vote for before we told her that we’d already Baracked the vote. “I think I want to vote for that man with the white hair,” she said, much to our surprise.
“Why?” I quizzed, puzzled.
“Because he looks like Santa Claus! A little. Well, maybe. Maybe he’s Santa’s brother,” she shrugged by way of explanation. OK, at 6, that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. At that point, I could have just let it go. But no, that’s not the way things wound up happening.
“Well, Mommy’s voting for Obama,” I said, “Not McCain. Although sure, I guess he looks a little like Santa.”
“Why?” she asked me.
“Well, pumpkin, I just believe women are smart enough to decide what should happen with their own body,” my inner feminist quipped before I could stop her.
“HE WANTS TO CONTROL WOMEN?” she gaped, horrified. “I’D HAVE TO WALK AROUND LIKE THIS??” And with that, she did a fabulous imitation of a robot walking. Then she stopped. Looking right at me, she started bawling.
“Oh, pumpkin, it’s not like – no – he doesn’t… it’s just… oh, here,” I clucked soothingly taking her into my arms while trying to figure out how to carry on what I thought was an important conversation about democracy. “It’s like this, ST. Our country was founded on the belief in freedom. The very foundation of freedom is that no one can be free unless everyone is free. When you put rules based on people because they look different or have different abilities, that’s not freedom. And I’m not going to vote for anyone who isn’t going to give me the freedom to make my own decisions.”
She’d stopped crying enough to be interested in something else. She went over to play with her toys, and I thought the matter was solved. Well, kind of.
Nope.
“But why would you say that the white-hair man wants to control women?” she continued. Clearly my answer hadn’t satisfied her.
“Because, pumpkin,” I said, “John McCain doesn’t want to let women choose whether or not to start a family.”
“Huh?” she added, confused.
“He wants women to have babies,” added TK, watching this whole interchange with a strange mix of amusement and concern.
“I HAVE TO HAVE BABIES!?” ST started wailing anew, “BUT I’M ONLY SIX!!”
This of course led to a high-level of the sex talk, complete with the terms penis and vagina… both words, by the way, which made her giggle to no end. She then walked around the room pretending to have a penis and pretending to pee on things. “WOW!” she said, enlightened, “I wish I had a penis!”
“Yeah, but then you couldn’t have boobies,” pointed out TK. Yet another body part my daughter finds fascinating at the moment. “Ah,” ST agreed, and stopped pretending to pee with her imaginary penis.
And I thought the moment had passed. Until TK, on Monday night, sits me down. “Tell Mommy what happened at school,” he says sternly. She comes and walks over to me. “On the playground I pretended to pee,” she said sadly.
“What?” I looked from one to the other, not understanding, “Did you pull down your pants and pee on the playground?”
“UGH! NO! Mommy! YUCK!” she squealed, disgusted with me for even suggesting it.
“She was pretending to be a BOY and PEE,” TK added, helping me to understand.
Oh, man. This led to a whole talk about appropriate behavior. Stupid John McCain.
