If I could raise my kids in a protective bubble, I would. I would protect them from injury, sickness, mean kids, and from all of the scary things in this world. Recently, we have tried to protect Faith and Wilson from learning, what we deem as, “bad” words. Two of the neighborhood boys that Faith and Wilson love to play with have become “off limits”. Both kids had started telling each other to “shut up” and saying other words that are not particularly bad, but ones that we don’t let them say in our house. The final straw was when Ella, across the street, came home and asked her mom what the middle finger meant (which she had learned from these two boys). Tom and I decided that it was time for our children to take a break from playing with these two boys. We knew from the beginning that there may come a time when we would have to end their friendship, but it came sooner than expected. We didn’t want them to learn these things too early and wanted to protect them from learning more than we felt that they were ready for at the age of 4 and 6. So, we told Faith and Wilson that they couldn’t play with the boys anymore. Our kids were upset about it and so were the neighborhood boys. It was a difficult decision, but one that we felt was right at the time.
The other night I had an eye opening experience while I was reading with Faith on the couch. She looked at me, pointed to her middle finger, and said, “Mommy, what does it mean when you stick up this finger?”. Of course my first response was, “Where did you learn about that?”. I named a few children and she said that she didn’t learn it from any of them. Then she said, “Does it mean that you are telling the person that they are going to hell?”. I told her that she was sort-of right and explained it in very general terms. I told her to never, ever do that to someone. She said that she wouldn’t and then she confessed that one of her friends told her about it in the bathroom at school…in her Christian school. I had to almost chuckle at the irony. I have been trying to protect Faith from learning bad words/the finger from the neighborhood kids that I decided were bad influences, yet she ended up learning it anyway in the bathroom at her Christian school. I couldn’t believe it! (But in a way I could.) There is no sure-fire way to protect my children from the influences of this world. There is no “bubble” that I can put them in so that they will never know cuss words, hurt, or pain.
I can say that I don’t regret making the decision to limit the children’s interaction with the kids down the street. There were other circumstances that played into our decision beyond just the bad words. I do, however, have a clearer understanding about how I cannot control what my children will learn and from whom they may learn it. What I can control is what goes on in our house: the movies that they are exposed to, the language that I use, and teaching them to do the right thing, even when others aren’t. Being a parent takes practice, and some things happen that just aren’t expected. I was proud that Faith felt comfortable enough to ask me a difficult question and I was proud of myself because I answered her calmly and without accusation. I am still going to protect my kids as much as I possibly can, knowing full-well that they will learn these things eventually. They have the rest of their lives to know bad words and middle fingers – I want them young and innocent for as long as I can get it. Hopefully, this will be all for a while….