Maturity

Sometimes it amazes me how naive and immature, in certain ways, all my children seem to be. They are not wise in the ways of the world. They seem to all lag behind their peers to different extents. This morning I was marveling that Biggle, at age 9, still likes to watch Nick Jr. with the little ones and will sit and watch Sunny Patch or Little Bear. I would think that most kids by his age have grown out of these "younger shows" and moved on to more mature shows. I mean he has to watch them to an extent because his little sibs still love them, but he doesn't even ask to change them and he will sit and watch quietly.

It got me thinking about the older kids and that they are all a bit behind their peers as well. They don't date. All of them have confided in me at one point or another that they haven't experienced their first kiss yet (not surprising for the 13 y/o but a little surprising for the 15 and 17 y/o's). G-man has a basic knowledge and he gets sexual kinds of jokes and innuendo at this point that his sisters do not get yet. He's starting to get there more and more and he always knows that if he doesn't get something he can ask me and while I may be a little red faced about it I will ALWAYS tell him the absolute truth. I like that he knows he can ask me these things knowing he'll get the facts.

Then, in turn, it got me thinking about my own childhood... and my lack of naivete and quick maturity in sexual things. I was abused as a child by my father, in about every way imaginable; sexual, physical, emotional. It made me grow up VERY fast, sadly I guess. I mean it's all I've known so it didn't seem sad at the time, it was just life and the way it all went. I was a bit sheltered as a very very little one while I lived with my Grandparents but that ended and my fast paced maturation and understanding began early on. I've often thought that it's odd that I have two "questioning" teens at the ages they are because I knew from a ridiculously early age that I was definitely very heterosexual. I have no issue with them questioning, it just surprises me they don't KNOW for sure at this point in their lives. I started having crushes on male celebrities by the time I was 8 or so, give or take. I started being drawn to strong men (and I don't mean physically strong, I mean strong of character), as a girl in a "I wish he could my Daddy" kind of a way and later in a sexual way. I found myself attracted to older men from an early age and while I never acted on that as a child I felt that pull. Like I say all the time, I have Daddy issues and it presents with pull toward older, caring, kind men... the kind of man I always wished I had for a dad.

When I was young... quite young... I'm thinking it was the July that I was 13 about to be 14 I had the father of a boy I liked come on to me. I was in Miami visiting with my Grandparents like always. I'd had a night with Brendan of making out and wandering hands and I liked Brendan... he was a little older than I was (but not a lot... 2 years tops) and he was really cute (blond haired, blue eyed) and I liked him. He came from a bad home environment, 4 boys in the family and their mom just left one day because she declared she'd "had enough" and just walked out. He was rough around the edges. He probably just used me that one night on the roof of the condo clubhouse but I liked him. I really liked him. So that 4th of July night out on the golf course with tons of family and friends as we set off fireworks and sparklers and someone actually came out with a gun and fired it into the air (scaring the shit out of me!) it was a good night. Brendan's father was lighting my fireworks and sparklers and at one point I ended up sitting in the low branches of a tree just watching it all from a distance. I just needed some quiet for a minute so I went and sat and watched the spectacle and the slightly tipsy adults and the kids laughing and playing. That's where Brendan's father found me. He touched my leg and asked me if, and this is a direct quote as I can still hear it in his voice in my mind, "have you ever been with a man?" I can remember the panic that bubbled up instantly and that feeling of bile shooting half way up my throat. I knew exactly what he meant, like I said I was wise beyond my years, but I had no idea how to react. He repeated himself and I finally decided to play "young stupid girl" and told him "What do you mean? That's silly. Of course I've been with men. I've been with men lots of places. My Opa takes me places all the time" and batted my eyelashes and giggled like a little girl. He let his eyes rake over me in a way that I should have left me feeling violated and told me "Well, if you don't know what I mean then I guess the answer is no" as he ran a hand up my leg and wandered off. I knew he was drunk and that it could have gone MUCH worse and that I had dodged a bullet. I never went over to Brendan's house again and truthfully after that only felt sorry for Brendan and his younger brothers. Brendan was killed in a drive-by shooting when I was 16 and it broke my heart just a little bit.

I tell this story only because the truth is that I learned about men at a very young age. Much too young an age. By the time I got to HS I was very adept at "handling" men... overly adept... or at least I thought so. I wasn't having sex, but I had an awareness and knowledge that most girls do not. I knew how to play men to my advantage. I knew how to thwart unwanted advances for the most part, I admit that I got myself into really bad situations more than once in my youth that lead to results that were less than ideal. The thing is that I knew how to play men, I knew how to play the game. I knew that while I wasn't the most beautiful girl in all the world that I had a nice body and I knew how easy men were and how easily appeased most of them were. I didn't fail Algebra 2 because of my keen ability with men... and with a particular male math teacher that very obviously had a thing for me and seemed to just sense that I was NOT a "sweet young innocent" thing... and I played that situation for what I could and at least passed. He kissed me once... just a chaste peck, on the lips, but wholly inappropriate for a teacher and student. A year later some girls asked me to press charges against him because apparently one of them had seen that chaste peck. I refused. It was probably the wrong thing of me to do, but at that point I had to look out for number one. In hindsight I always regretted that but I had to get through MY life and it wasn't easy. In truth Mr. T never made ME all that uncomfortable because I knew how to play the game and I had already dealt with much more predatory men in my life by that time. The thing is that I'm SURE he made a lot of the other HS girls very uncomfortable and uneasy... and I didn't help them when I could have. The thing is that at that age I thought that I was adult enough and old enough to deal with those kinds of situations on my own. I did date a much older guy once or twice in HS... but single dates consisting of making out and nothing else. All my "relationships" were always with guys roughly my own age. Oddly enough the funniest part is that the only real relationship I had with an older guy in HS was with The Man, who was 4 years older than I was. Still that one turned out to be a keeper... despite people telling me he was too old for me and I shouldn't be dating him (with the notable exception of my parents who never had any issue of our age difference, even when we were first dating when I was 17 and he was 21). Then again... I would guess it would be very hard for my father to say a word about the age difference all things considered. Aaaaah, irony.

Now I look at MY 15 y/o daughter and I think that if a man ever did ANY of the things Mr T. did to me or made the suggestive comments and remarks or flirted shamelessly the way he did with MY little girl I would rip his balls off with my bare hands. Looking back I wasn't nearly so grown up as I thought I was back then, as is evidenced by the few times I made big mistakes and put myself into really bad situations and payed the price for them. I worry about my girls that if they are put into difficult situations the way I was all too often that they will not know enough to deflect and protect themselves. I worry that they could easily be taken advantage of because they simply don't KNOW. They are naive and sheltered and babied. All of them. That's my doing. I do shelter them and protect them and try to keep them from the harsh realities of the world we live in to the extent that I am able to. It scares me in some ways that perhaps I am not preparing them the way I should. Then again I certainly do NOT want them to be like I was. I do NOT want to steal their childhoods away and force them to deal with... with... all of THAT stuff. That stuff that I was forced to learn about young. Those scary truths that I was forced to face at much too young of an age. I don't want that for them. I am torn to be honest. I don't want to scare them and yet I want them to be able to handle themselves in bad situations. I want them to NOT learn the hard way like I did. I want them to NOT put themselves in bad situations because they know better and not have to learn on the road of hard knocks the way I did. Yet, I have no idea how to inform them without scaring them. I want them to have healthy views on sex and sexuality and that it's GOOD and it feels great and that it's normal and healthy and wonderful. I want to warn them of predators while still not scarring them for life and fostering a healthy attitude about sex. I'm not really sure how to do all that.

I have to admit that it has occurred to me that perhaps I sent out some kind of vibe... or a beacon that let men know that I was not your average young and innocent child. Maybe certain types of people can just SEE that and know. Whatever it may be if that is it I know my children wouldn't exude that the way I may have. However does that make them more or less of a target? How would I even know. I look at my children and see my "babies" but I know that the rest of the world certainly doesn't. I feel conflicted. I mean I've talked to them about safe sex ad infinitum to the point that they all join in the chorus of "Yes, Mom. We KNOW!" now when I continue to bring it up (and I will still continue to bring up regularly). In the past two weeks I've had conversations with my kids about erections and french kissing and why it is occasionally referred to as "tonsil hockey" by friends. We've talked about menstrual cycles and ovulation and how exactly and when exactly you are most likely to get pregnant (with the understanding it can happen at virtually any time so the only "safe" way to have sex and not get pregnant is to use protection every single time). We've talked about sexual attraction and that it's NORMAL. We've talked about the fact that once you start having sex it's hard to go back. We've discussed that of course it feels REALLY good, it's supposed to but that they are valuable human beings and it's not just something you "give away" for no good reason. Since we've been watching Glee we've talked about sex A LOT more and the fact that there are the so called "good girls" who vow celibacy and the "sluts" that sleep with anything that has a pulse. We've talked about the fact that the reality of day to day life is somewhere in the middle. That boys want sex, yes we see that on almost all the shows we watch every day, but that girls want sex too and that's NORMAL. It doesn't make a girl a slut because she has sexual urges, ALL girls do. I had those too and I still had to parse in my head that just because this feels really good and I wanted to do more didn't mean that I DID more with every boy I dated or met or even made out with. I was more gentle in this explanation with them. LOL! I actually told G-man yesterday that his Dad has only ever had sex with ONE person in his entire life and that was by choice, because he had plenty of opportunity, because he wanted to wait until he was in love... not just sex for the sake of sex alone. I didn't feel the need to mention that for me there was someone else before his Dad and I honestly don't think at 17 he'd want to hear that anyway. Maybe some day when he's older we can discuss that... maybe not. Who knows.

This parenting gig is hard work. No doubt.