My mother had an interesting conversation with my four year old the other day. For some reason, he’s become fascinated by nursing, and often pretends he’s a baby puppy or kitty and some other grown up woman is the mama mammal, and he pretends to nurse. Now, there’s no contact, he’s not actually trying to latch on or anything, but we’re in that grey area between what parts of his body belong to him, what parts of my body belong to me, and what parts do we still sort of hold in common? He’s not an exhibitionist, but he has no body shame, and I’m walking a fine line between teaching him to protect his own personal parts and respect the parts of others, without singling out a particular zone to be vilified, revered, considered strange, dirty or other…  It’s a difficult dance.

So my mother, when the nursing mammals game came up, gently explained to her grandson that well, Grammy’s breasts belong to her, and are not toys to be played with. The kid got that. He was less clear on who owned his mama’s breasts, however. So she took him through the chronology of weaning, that push and pull to let the strings that bind a dyad together grow longer, without ever snapping. When he was a baby, who did mama’s breasts belong to? “ME!” he announced with supreme confidence. But when we stopped nursing (21 months, for anyone who’s counting), then slowly, mama’s breasts belonged to her again, didn’t they? which brought a solemn nod. From there, it was a gentle, easy conversation about what kind of touch is appropriate, what parts of the body belong to him and him alone, and should only be examained by doctors, nurses, and mamas–and only then, with permission.

But it’s interesting to see how my open, honest, easy-going attitudes towards body parts, sexuality, and skin in general goes against the norm. I read a story about a little girl who finally noticed how well-endowed her Barbie doll is, pointed at the outrageous members and asked, “What are those?” She was outraged that she, at three years old, would have to wait another ten years to have breasts! But  what struck me strange was that she didn’t know what breasts were, in the first place. I’m hoping it’s just because Barbie’s unnatural proportions made it hard for the little girl to recognize them. And another woman made a passing, wistful remark about her toddler who had to stop nursing because he ‘has too many teeth’, but she wishes they still could.

Huh? Breasts are not rubber chew toys. Neither are they things to be hidden away and whispered about at the back of the playground when kids are older. If that woman wants to nurse her son past canines, so be it. My son got his first two teeth at five months, and his final molars two months before his second  birthday. He learned quickly that biting meant no sustenance, and ditto to pulling, tugging, and otherwise severely abusing the mamaflesh.

We had a perfect snowfall two weeks ago, fluffy, fat, not too cold, and just right for rolling big snowmen. We build one with the neighbor’s daughter, an adorable little five year old whose imagination fueled my son’s like a matched set. Until he decided that we were building a snow lady, not a snow man. “She needs breasts, mama,” he declared, and began to pack snowballs. The little girl looked appalled. I finally said to her, “My son never took a bottle. I nursed him, instead. He thinks of breasts differently than other folks. He’s just pretty matter of fact.” They are just breasts, with all the magic, comfort, silliness and nourishment that such strange, wonderous things provide.

But we’ll see if her parents let her play with us anymore.

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All of our children are in varying stages of development. My friend’s daughter, only a month younger than my son (who will be four this spring), has discovered the joys of self-exploration and will explore herself anywhere. Mom is understandably verklempt at the situation, stuck between a desire to allow her child the freedom to discover her body and a need to put some limits on behavior that should be a private activity. By contrast, my son hasn’t figured out that his zizi is for anything other than peeing, and the occasional rubber band imitations. If your kid is circumcised, this won’t make much sense to you. If your kid is intact, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Mothers of older children are wrestling with more difficult conversations, about sex before marriage, even though they did it… trying to convince their own children to wait. We’re all navigating a perilous path.

In an era where sexuality is a cheap commodity, where children are giving each other blowjobs or being charged with having sex with a minor and becoming both victim and criminal in the same court, we walk a fine line, as parents. Sex happens. How it happens, and how soon, is largely a matter of instilling a certain set of values and self-esteem in our children that is iron-clad and not subject to the negotiations of peer pressure. And prayer. I worry about my son’s future: will he find himself in trouble with the law if a consenting peer suddenly decides he or she would rather get out of trouble than tell the truth about sex? I’m not even going to get into the nightmare of STD’s and AIDs here. It’s heartbreaking. Sex kills.

So I ask you, mothers. How do you teach your children about sex without making it some terrifying act, some death-defying feat, but rather a sacred act that deserves reverence and respect? How do you appeal to the rational mind in the face of overwhelming hormones?

Photo Credits: Rubber Bands, by Yamilka Rosa on Flickr

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“Mama, I won’t let you die. Not until you’re Big Old like great grammie is,” my son told me about a month ago. He’s at an age where he’s trying to wrap his head around such big thoughts as ‘next week’ and ‘dead’. with equal devotion to the seriousness and bigness of the subjects. He can’t quite understand why dead = gone, but he knows he doesn’t get to see his great grandfather any more, not since he got dead (a year and a half ago, now). I’ve tried to soften the blow without sweeping this very basic fact of life under the rug, or turning it into some sort of fairy tale ending. I’m having a hard enough time explaining angels, fairies, Santa Claus, God and marriage.

“I have a diamond in my heart, mama, and when it sparkles it talks to God, and when I die I get to sparkle,” he told me at the bus stop one afternoon.

“When you’re dead, you’re gone and you don’t get to come back anymore but we can talk to dead people with our hearts,” was another of his pearls of wisdom.

Death can be mercifully quick, or painfully slow. My son is getting a good look at the slow death of cancer: my aunt is dying, and has been alternately fighting this disease and dying from it for well over a year, now. My mother and my cousin have alternated time spent taking care of this creative, solitary woman, and after a year, it has taken a toll on the family fabric in ways I don’t know we’ll ever be able to mend. But their extraordinary efforts have allowed this woman to remain in the comfort of her own home, and have probably kept her alive longer than the impersonal care of nursing home or hospital would have been able to do. My aunt is leaving us, and I have begun to think that she will not leave behind a withered body, but will simply wear thinner and thinner against this life until one day, we’ll discover that she has become transparent and disappeared.

My son loves his grand aunts, and this one most of all, because we see her so often. He has never commented on her wasting body, or her luminous eyes, or her frail hands. He laughs with delight when he sees her, clambers up on her bed to play a game of Go Fish and tell her all about his latest adventures. He’s not even four yet. He doesn’t see the world through anyone’s eyes but his own, and everything is so new and bright, he takes things like death and dying in stride.

My mother was on her way down to visit this past Monday, before she jets off for a desperately needed vacation. The boy and I had had a rough night; we needed our Grammie mom. I called my mother to ask her if we could join her on her trip to see her sister. She hemmed. She thought perhaps I could come and we’d leave Nico in school. I gently reminded her that the boy loves his aunt and would like to see her, too, and would definitely like to see his grammie before she goes away for a few weeks. “But she’s so…” my mother began, helpless to finish the sentence. I know what she is. She’s frail, she’s skin and bones, she’s luminous eyes in a parchment face. “I’ll leave it up to you,” my mother said with a sigh.

I brought my son to see his aunt, perhaps for the last time. He wasn’t allowed to climb up onto her bed anymore (”remember, buddy, she’s a fragile pedestrian now”), and the games of Old Maid are long gone–she can’t follow the cards well enough anymore. The tumor in her brain is pressing on things, now, making her fade in and out of reality. But he still told her about what he was up to, his dreams of being an engineer astronaut so he can build rockets in space, how Christian was his friend now, “And I’ll never give up on him!” he declared. When he went into the living room to play, she asked to keep her door open, so she could hear him laughing and catch a glimpse of him as he moved about her home, a boy on a mission of delight.

He doesn’t see what cancer has done to his grand-aunt. He loves her, and when he looks at her, he sees her with love. He’s not frightened, because there’s nothing to be scared of. If anything, seeing his aunt endure with beauty and dignity such an ugly, undignified end, will only serve to give him peace and comfort when death next comes to our lives. She cannot be disturbing to him, because all he sees is the lady who loves him. I won’t protect him from this, I won’t shelter and shield him from this. Death is the tails side of the coin of life. He knows she is Big Sick like great grandpa was Big Old. He knows it’s the cigarettes she smoked that are going to make her die. He knows she will be with great grandpa someday, and that we won’t be able to see her or talk to her anymore.

But he knows she will always be there, alive in his heart, and that he’ll always be able to talk to her there.

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