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Wednesday, June 15, 2005
ack
Here's a recipe for a minor parenting freak-out:
- a Bible open to Revelation 17
- two children who don't know about the mechanics of sex
- one mother who would like to keep it that way
Of course the first question to come up was, "Mommy, what's a pros-ti-tute?"* I think God gave me special grace, because not only did I not stammer and freak out, I actually managed to give what I thought, considering the circumstances, was a pretty coherent, decent answer. In case you should ever find yourself in the same predicament ;), here's what I said:
There are some things that God says we must ONLY DO with our spouse -- that's a husband or wife. (C: "Like taking showers together?" I: "Yes. That's one thing."). These are very special and private things, and only for married people. But a prostitute is someone who, instead of doing those things with her husband, goes out and does them with other people, if they'll pay her.
This is why, in LT's chapter summary, he notes that "there is a woman who is a simbal for a city and she sells things she is not sopposed to sell." (spelling original, obviously).
*Funnily enough, I asked my mom this question once also, when I was ten or eleven. Except I asked it aloud from my seat in the crowded waiting room of the dental office where she works. (I was reading a joke book, and it had a cartoon depicting a little old lady chasing a minister out of a church, smacking him with her purse, and the wayside pulpit said "ARE WE ALL PROSTITUTES?". The joke book belonged to the other dentist in the practice. It was never there again after that incident. I was bummed.)
And now I'm going to (again) sit back and wait for the really freakish Google hits to pour in. GO AWAY SCARY GOOGLER, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
Comments
I agree that your answer was a good one-- completely truthful, but age-appropriate.
This reminds me of one evening (years ago when I was a child, of course) when we were at my father's office (where my parents did some occasional after-hours cleaning for extra cash). There was a cartoon taped to the fridge. I can't remember the cartoon, but it was my introduction to the term "SOB" (in its extended form, no less). I read it aloud, completely ignorant of the meaning-- but my mother wasted no time informing me that it was a Bad Word.
I guess we all have one or two stories like that-- words that just didn't make sense to us until a few years later. Heh. I just remembered a couple more, favors from one of my more worldly elementary school friends, but I guess there's no need to inflict them on you. ;o) And in my poor friend's defense, I was probably exceptionally naive. I mean, I believed for a *looong* time that babies came from kissing.
Posted by: Michael at June 15, 2005 03:29 PM
I was in kindergarten and there was a pair of twins in my class who were absolute terrors. Their names were Darrell and Donald. One day Darrell was playing with the Unifix cubes and he wouldn't share them; the teacher said he had to share, so he stood over the tub of them and yelled at the other little kids... well, let's just say that when I went home and spelled out that word and asked my mom what it was -- it was really easy to figure out how to spell it; after all, it was just like 'duck' with an 'f' instead -- Mom said that that was such a bad word that we couldn't even spell it. Wow.
(the twin actually got paddled for that incident, the only time I ever heard of that happening at school. It was 1980.)
Michael, you're not alone in the long-term naivete. I had about twenty cousins older than myself, so I was, unfortunately, familiar with terminology and definitions early on, but... well, I had friends who, um, weren't. **cough**Jenn**cough**
Posted by: Rachel at June 15, 2005 03:45 PM
