The sex scene that wasn't……

We were always told to close our eyes.  “Don’t look!” some random adult would yell during scenes of sexual intimacy.   I always wondered what they were doing, and I must confess my brown fingers divided more than usual on occasions.  Sex was such a mystery–the one truth no one would explain.

My husband, whose father was a minister, required the covering of the eyes over even kissing scenes in movies; my hubby bathed alone at 2 to avoid his sisters (10 years his senior) “looking” at his body parts.  American parents are so scared of their kids making catastrophic sexual decisions that they prefer to completely remove sex from the situation.  But study after study proves NOT talking to kids about sex is the surest way to have kids make poor sexual decisions as teens and in adulthood.

I am a parent who values truth and honesty.  Since my girls were little, they’ve known what a penis is, where it is located, and what its basic functions are.  Diddo for the big V.  Sex has never been scary or taboo in our home.  We have however chosen to avoid sexually explicit images and situations on TV and in movies.   But lately, I’ve found myself wanting to challenge this notion.

Enter one of my favorite movies, Love and Basketball.  It’s a movie that our whole family can watch and enjoy–but it has a sex scene: no parts are visible, but the act is definitely captured.

My typical rule is if it makes me aroused, then my girls probably don’t need to watch it.  I don’t want my girls growing up ignorant of sex, but I also don’t want to spoon feed it to them as babies.  Usually, we just skipped over that part when  the girls were watching and moved on with the show–we did the same thing for X-Men III, another family watch.

This time however, I asked my husband what he thought about allowing the girls to watch the sex scene–I didn’t want to sensor the movie anymore.

“Well,” he said, “they don’t show anything.  And, they have learned about sex, we’ve read books with pictures of penis’ and vaginas; I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they see  sex.”

I countered: “should we be there?  Should we sit and watch the movie through the sex scene to see how they respond?  Studies have proven that a child’s first sexual encounter (visual or physical) has lasting effects.”

“No–well, you can.  I’m not.  What kid wants to sit next to their dad while people are kissing and touching?  GROSS!!

“And,” he continued, “would you want YOUR parents sitting next to you watching something like that?  The scene happens around two young people who trust one another, and who are committed to one another (well, you have to watch the whole movie).  It’s completely natural for parents to be uncomfortable watching sex with their kids–why try to fight it?” He added, “if they have questions, they know we’re here.”

As I walked away from the TV after starting the movie, the girls immediately stopped me.  “Isn’t there a skip part in here?”  They knew EXACTLY where it was–

“Yes.  You two are older now; we’re not skipping that scene anymore.  Yes, it is a sex scene.  No, there are no body parts shown.  No, you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to, buy you guys can handle the scene.”

Of course since it was one of my favorite movies, and because I was honestly conflicted about whether or not my eight and nine year-0ld girls should see such a sex scene, I hung around.  As the scene got closer and closer, I became more agitated.  I worried that I would set them up for sexual promiscuity; I worried it would change their viewpoint of sex and intimacy; I worried so much that I went downstairs to talk to my  husband again about it.

“They aren’t going to become porn stars because they see two people kissing and holding each other with music in the background.  This is a kid friendly movie, it’s a realistic movie, and they can handle it.”

So I trudged back upstairs and waited for the fallout.

What happened?  The girls got up as the scene was happening, got a drink of water and a quick snack.  They saw the beginning kiss, and the ending stare–apparently, they didn’t want to see anything more.

I didn’t ask questions, but I got to thinking.  My girls are good at choosing what they want to be exposed to: they routinely leave the room when we watch shows with gore (like my beloved House), and anything scary they completely shun.  I suppose if they don’t care for overtly sexual images,  they’ll just do the same thing–they’ll leave.

We have a rule in our house that says whenever we allow you to watch a movie, you can have total access to it: when we are asleep, or otherwise busy, you don’t have to ask to watch the movie.  Now that Love and Basketball has been added to the list, they still don’t care for the sex scene.

Sex is a continual conversation; it shouldn’t happen just once.  We know that trying to control a teen’s sex habits typically results in failure.  My goal as a parent is to start a conversation about sex early; a real conversation.  Not one that ends in hell, but one that ends in a person who feels good about who they are and the choices they’ve made.  Otherwise, they learn about sex from TV, ignorant friends, and bad experiences.

The sex scene that wasn’t……

We were always told to close our eyes.  “Don’t look!” some random adult would yell during scenes of sexual intimacy.   I always wondered what they were doing, and I must confess my brown fingers divided more than usual on occasions.  Sex was such a mystery–the one truth no one would explain.

My husband, whose father was a minister, required the covering of the eyes over even kissing scenes in movies; my hubby bathed alone at 2 to avoid his sisters (10 years his senior) “looking” at his body parts.  American parents are so scared of their kids making catastrophic sexual decisions that they prefer to completely remove sex from the situation.  But study after study proves NOT talking to kids about sex is the surest way to have kids make poor sexual decisions as teens and in adulthood.

I am a parent who values truth and honesty.  Since my girls were little, they’ve known what a penis is, where it is located, and what its basic functions are.  Diddo for the big V.  Sex has never been scary or taboo in our home.  We have however chosen to avoid sexually explicit images and situations on TV and in movies.   But lately, I’ve found myself wanting to challenge this notion.

Enter one of my favorite movies, Love and Basketball.  It’s a movie that our whole family can watch and enjoy–but it has a sex scene: no parts are visible, but the act is definitely captured.

My typical rule is if it makes me aroused, then my girls probably don’t need to watch it.  I don’t want my girls growing up ignorant of sex, but I also don’t want to spoon feed it to them as babies.  Usually, we just skipped over that part when  the girls were watching and moved on with the show–we did the same thing for X-Men III, another family watch.

This time however, I asked my husband what he thought about allowing the girls to watch the sex scene–I didn’t want to sensor the movie anymore.

“Well,” he said, “they don’t show anything.  And, they have learned about sex, we’ve read books with pictures of penis’ and vaginas; I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they see  sex.”

I countered: “should we be there?  Should we sit and watch the movie through the sex scene to see how they respond?  Studies have proven that a child’s first sexual encounter (visual or physical) has lasting effects.”

“No–well, you can.  I’m not.  What kid wants to sit next to their dad while people are kissing and touching?  GROSS!!

“And,” he continued, “would you want YOUR parents sitting next to you watching something like that?  The scene happens around two young people who trust one another, and who are committed to one another (well, you have to watch the whole movie).  It’s completely natural for parents to be uncomfortable watching sex with their kids–why try to fight it?” He added, “if they have questions, they know we’re here.”

As I walked away from the TV after starting the movie, the girls immediately stopped me.  “Isn’t there a skip part in here?”  They knew EXACTLY where it was–

“Yes.  You two are older now; we’re not skipping that scene anymore.  Yes, it is a sex scene.  No, there are no body parts shown.  No, you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to, buy you guys can handle the scene.”

Of course since it was one of my favorite movies, and because I was honestly conflicted about whether or not my eight and nine year-0ld girls should see such a sex scene, I hung around.  As the scene got closer and closer, I became more agitated.  I worried that I would set them up for sexual promiscuity; I worried it would change their viewpoint of sex and intimacy; I worried so much that I went downstairs to talk to my  husband again about it.

“They aren’t going to become porn stars because they see two people kissing and holding each other with music in the background.  This is a kid friendly movie, it’s a realistic movie, and they can handle it.”

So I trudged back upstairs and waited for the fallout.

What happened?  The girls got up as the scene was happening, got a drink of water and a quick snack.  They saw the beginning kiss, and the ending stare–apparently, they didn’t want to see anything more.

I didn’t ask questions, but I got to thinking.  My girls are good at choosing what they want to be exposed to: they routinely leave the room when we watch shows with gore (like my beloved House), and anything scary they completely shun.  I suppose if they don’t care for overtly sexual images,  they’ll just do the same thing–they’ll leave.

We have a rule in our house that says whenever we allow you to watch a movie, you can have total access to it: when we are asleep, or otherwise busy, you don’t have to ask to watch the movie.  Now that Love and Basketball has been added to the list, they still don’t care for the sex scene.

Sex is a continual conversation; it shouldn’t happen just once.  We know that trying to control a teen’s sex habits typically results in failure.  My goal as a parent is to start a conversation about sex early; a real conversation.  Not one that ends in hell, but one that ends in a person who feels good about who they are and the choices they’ve made.  Otherwise, they learn about sex from TV, ignorant friends, and bad experiences.

Abraham revisted–

Cogs, trolleys and jellybeans: a 21st-century board game for ages 7 and up

You know, sometimes it’s important for parents to realize that times are a changing.

Take games for example.  When you and I were young–for those of us born before 1985–we played games on cardboard, with paper and pencil, with little pieces.

Those games still exist–thank goodness!–but most kids prefer the click of a mouse to a pencil.  In elementary classrooms, computer games are used to teach basic facts, and computer games offer a fun way to enhance reading skills, and basic scientific and geographic knowledge.

And of course, computer games are also for good of fashioned “lax time.”

_______________________________________________________________________

It started by word of mouth.

“Mom, the next time we go online, can we go to Toontown.com so that we could play Toontown?”

“What’s Toontown?”

“Sharon plays it at her house and we got to play when we went over there.  It was so fun!  You got to be an animal (Sharon was a rabbit), and you got a house, and you could make friends…”

Her description of the cartoon world would never end; the hubby and I heard about Toontown for two more weeks.  The girls already had their favorite websites: nickjr.com, noggin.com (which has now been taken over by the latter), disney fairies, and agame.com (this one requires monitoring/scanning of games).  From there you have the learning sites: starfall.com (for reading), funbrain.com (math, reading, and everything else), and spaceplace (NASA).  But every time the girls wanted to sit down at the computer, it was only Toontown they wanted to play.

But we simply didn’t have the time to check out the site, create profiles, set parental controls, etc; we were in the middle of buying a house!

But the children were relentless–not once did they let me forget that it had been 2 days, 5 days, a week and more since I agreed to go online and check it out with them.

When the time came, I could see no red flags: it was essentially a role-player game online, made by Disney.  The main goal of the game is to protect Toontown from the Cogs, the “evil robot businesspeople types that have invaded Toontown.”  To get rid of the Cogs, you have to make them happier.  You do this, oddly enough, by using gags, which you buy with jelly beans, the only currency used in Toontown.  You get jelly beans by riding the trolley, fishing, or playing other games in Toontown).

So I helped each kid set up their own (free) account, game time was monitored, and addicts they became!  They love Toontown—–

And for those of you RPG players, you know the addiction is real.  I’m in the middle of Dragon Age of Origins, and playing it is quite the ecstasy 🙂

To Pay or not to pay? (Membership in Toontown)

Of course Disney isn’t going to offer a full-fledged online multiplayer game for free without a few carrots to draw in a few bucks; enter the household debate: Can we have a membership to Toontown?

Membership in Toontown costs $4.95 for the first month, and $9.95 for each additional month.

I said no outright.  “You’ve been playing for six months without a membership, you’ve had a great time, and you’ve never been upset before.”

This was a condescending and disrespectful thing to say to them–in addition to being a logical fallacy.  Just because they were happy before playing the game without membership did not mean that their current unhappiness was invalid.

What I should have said to the girls was how can you come up with a way to get the money needed every month for the subscription?  This encourages critical thinking and forces them to realize the power of even a few dollars.

Now I know that  games such as these are designed to let you only go so high, only interact superficially with the online world–until you pay for full access.  I’ve had those same feelings of disappointment when I realized how the scope of my play was limited without membership.  But I chose to NOT get an online subscription because I didn’t think they’re  worth “my allowance”.

But the children did have this as an option.  My girls get an allowance: $10 every two weeks, $1 of which must be put into a savings account.  That leaves $18 left for them to spend anyway they want.  So, I presented the option to the girls.

They accepted instantly.

Since each subscription will be $9.95 (of course there are no family packages that I’ve been able to find), I told their girls that each allowance I will take $5 bucks from their net amount (after they put their savings in).  They can keep the subscription until they don’t want to spend THEIR money on it anymore.

Today is the first day they’ve been able to play the full game.  Since Kansas City is snowed in (and has been for the last week), this is a welcome addition to the cabin fever of the present.

At the hubby’s request, they’ve been given extra game time (a significant amount).  He says that since they’ve paid for a game, they should at least be able to make themselves  intoxicated with it the first day–then they can go back to their normal routine.

I agreed.

If you haven’t heard of Toontown, there’s a good chance your kid has.  I think its a good, safe interactive game for young minds, and kids think its fun!  No book learning, but making friends, collecting things for their home, buying pets–it’s a wonderful life on Toontown!  Every now and then, I’ll notice a toon named “Ben’s mommy” or something like that–even parents gravitate……

monitor, monitor, monitor—and let your kid have a little fun!

You can learn more about the game at the toontown FAQ website.

SIDENOTE:  Yes, I have my gripes with Disney.  I could do with less pretty, perfect, white princesses who hate their life.  And even though I adore the Mulan Series, and I certainly have my favorite Disney movies ( I can’t STAND Pocahontas!), this game I can tolerate because it has nothing to do with movies!

Does it really matter if Obama goes to church on Christmas? (Here’s a hint: no)

As I sloshed through the internet last night, I came across an article on CNSnews.com  The headline, “White House Doesn’t Know If Obama Will Attend Church on Christmas”, had me shrugging my shoulders.

Who the hell cares if Obama will go to church on Christmas?

This man is responsible for running our country–which I might add is on the brink of utter collapse–and his Christmas habits are of issue?

He’s a bit busy–> We shouldn’t hold missing “Sunday services” against him.

I confused about how going to church on Sunday will positively contribute to the president accomplishing his goals for America.  Is it a surprise that an intelligent black man is running to God because that’s what everybody else is doing?

President Obama’s chief role model, Abraham Lincoln didn’t go to church on a regular basis.  It’s no secret that Lincoln abhorred attending church–though he did desire a relationship with God.  In fact, when he was running for election, he was often referred to as an atheist for refusing to have a church home and attend regularly.  Is top political adviser told Lincoln that he risked losing the election as a result of his lack of religious zeal.  And yet Lincoln invoked God and his divine plan repeatedly during his life; you can want a relationship with God that doesn’t include organized religion.

Obama is like Lincoln in many respects, including his religious “devotion.”

And yet, my lovely little find of an article made no qualms about their true goal, which was to throw another layer of hate toward those listeners whose mind is already convinced of Mr. Obama’s “evilness.”  Fred Lucas’ article invoked the toxic Rev. Wright, President Obama’s former pastor, spending more than half the article recanting Rev. Wrights stupidity(and of course, they also did NOT discuss the presidents rebuttal of Wright’s tragic lingo).

Lucas also gave the article a nice taste of Carey Cash, the chaplain at Camp David.  But jow EITHER of these two gentlemen fit into President Obama’s decision to go to church on Christmas is completely irrelevant.  Apparently, Lucas thinks that his audience isn’t smart enough to spot a red herring when they see one.

I could care less whether President Obama and his family attends church on Christmas, any more than I care if he fasts during Ramadan; none of this is a determining factor of whether or not he will be a productive, efficient and smart leader.

We know that there are people who go to church on a regular basis, but are not affected by the beauty found in congregating with like-minded people.  There are individuals as well who rarely attend church, yet they have a devotion for Christ that basks in a warm glow.  We see God (the good, kind one, that is) in all their actions and motivations–yet church they disdain.

Going to church doesn’t make you a “good Christian.”  Christianity, like all faiths, is supposed to help you create a relationship with the maker, if that’s your belief.   But really that’s it.  It doesn’t “mean” anything other than our president has a relationship with God that doesn’t require a church to validate.

Isn’t that a good thing?