How to answer your kids’ questions

Anna Vaught - 26 Mar 16

Beta Mummy’s Guide to..

Answering your kids’ questions

My boys are four, eleven and fourteen, so on any given day I may attempt to answer a considerable and dynamically varied range of questions from them. Sometimes, the questions come in such quick succession that I’m pretty sure I get the answers wrong; or rather, give the answer to one question to the wrong kid (which misunderstanding may, perhaps, surface to hilarious and/or deleterious effect at some point).  Anyway, I offer you a selection from the past week and hope I do not startle. I have not given the age of the child by each, but offer each question moreorless in the order in which it was fired at me. How would you answer?

What is a MILF?

Has anyone ever thought you were a MILF?

What is dogging?

Have you ever been dogging?

Do you know anyone else who has been dogging?

Do more people do it here than Wales and is it popular in America (I should qualify here that we live in Wiltshire, I am of a Welsh family and my husband is from the Southern US)?

Isn’t dogging like prostitution?

***** says prostitution isn’t illegal but that you’re not allowed to ask for money for it. That’s not right, is it?

Have you ever owned a gun?

Is pimp a swear word?

Can anyone be a pimp? Is it like running a business?

I’m pretty sure I heard you say to dad that you were pimping up the car a bit. Is that against the law and should you have been saying it?

One of my friends said that he thought he was bisexual. When someone tells you they think they are bisexual, do you say “That’s great!” or, like, “Oh no!”?

How many more than two does it take to make an orgy? (This was my favourite question, partly because of the way in which the maths was expressed.)

Have you and dad ever been to an orgy?

One of my mates said they would support Donald Trump. What should I do?

One of my mates said they didn’t believe in foreigners coming into our country and I didn’t know what to do. What should I have said? Should I have said, ‘Well, my dad’s a foreigner and my mum’s sort of one because her family are all Welsh?’

Do you think Grandma ever saw a woolly mammoth?

I overheard you saying that your dad’s relatives were mostly locked up or mad as turnips. What did you mean? What did they do and what has any of it got to do with turnips?

Aren’t you supposed to be SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE?

We would get in SO MUCH TROUBLE if you heard us swearing, but we heard dad telling a man who hooted at him to **** off and so why is that okay? And I overheard YOU saying so and so had been a right ***** and I don’t see why that’s okay. Why is it okay?

What does it meant to ‘contribute meaningful to the economy’?

Why can’t you and dad be MORE CONVENTIONAL AND MORE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE’S PARENTS?

Did you take that ten pounds I had hidden under my Beanos?

My teacher said that Monaco was definitely not a country and I put up my hand and said it was and they said, ‘No, you’ve got it confused with somewhere else’ and should I have argued and risked a detention because they were wrong?

Is it rude (connected with the above) to argue with adults because they are supposed to know more than kids and sometimes kids know more than adults, like that Maths teacher last year who couldn’t do square roots?

How come grandma has got two husbands? Does she sometimes live with one and sometimes with the other one? How does she decide which one she likes best?

Do you have to give girls presents when you go on dates? Do they expect that sort of thing all the time?

Why didn’t Jesus get his friends to help him get off the cross?

If girls are in love with me, what am I supposed to do about it?

******

Well, I did my best with this lot. I was going to write my answers, but thought it might be more entertaining for you to imagine your own. I do enjoy the fast and furious way that the age spread of my boys gives rise to such dialogue and I think it’s important to have no question off limits. That’s partly because I never felt I could ask anyone anything when I was growing up, which itself was because no-one in my family told anyone anything of a sensitive or tricky nature – and definitely kept it away from kids. Or rather, kept talking about it away from kids, as if the language were more shaming than the deed or event. Classic examples of not-knowing from my childhood include not knowing that sex took place WHEN YOU WERE AWAKE (again, apologies if this has startled anyone) until an embarrassingly late age, and talking to my paternal grandmother without anyone telling me she was actually dead and not having a nap (because no-one wanted to tackle that question).

Ours is a lively household. I think I am glad about that. It is also an open one, because I am definitely making enough mistakes without adding obfuscation and a colossal dose of misunderstanding into the mix.

******

Soooo, Beta Mummy’s had a think about The School Run and Mother’s Day. Every Day and Answering your Kids’ Questions. Next up: Beta Mummy’s Guide to The Drawer of Sexy featuring Russell Crowe and Alan Titchmarsh. OH YEAH.

Anna Vaught

I am a mum of three boys, 6,13 and 15, a sceondary English teacher, tutor, campaigner, freelance writer, poet, editor and novelist. My first novel, Killing Hapless Ally, came out last year. It's a semi autobiographical black comedy about mental illness. My second, The Life of Almost, a novella, is out in October 2018, with my third novel out on submission at the moment. I'm writing my fourth, editing a couple of anthologies, reviewing books, and drafting an irreverent non-fiction book on parenting. I have much to say on (mental) health and happiness and lowering your standards. Anna x

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