Dear Care and Feeding: Awkward Questions from Toddlers

[fairestcat]

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’ve got a toddler, and while we’re not into potty-training territory yet, it’s imminent within the next year or so. I’m perfectly OK with her being in the bathroom with me, explaining what’s going on, using proper body part names, etc. So what’s the problem?

I have a piercing. Downstairs. How on Earth do I avoid having that conversation with my kid?? Or, have it in such a way that doesn’t result in her informing her preschool teachers or all of our extended family or street randos about it? (Which, if you’ve ever spent five minutes around a 3-year-old, is a totally valid fear!)

The jewelry isn’t sparkly or anything, which is a good thing because toddlers are magpies. But, it’s still a noticeable piece of metal. I don’t want to act weird about her seeing my body, whether it’s while using the toilet, bathing, dressing, whatever. But, I also don’t want to have to explain to my kid why she can’t have her own piercing, or for her to tell other people about mine. I really don’t want to take the piercing out, but I also think I might die of embarrassment if she announced it at family Christmas or something. Help!

—Magpie Mom

Dear MM,

Ah, the joys of parenting. I wish I had a solution more magical than “You are going to have to decide whether you would rather take out your piercing or hear a running commentary about this piercing from your child and likely a selection of other random people.”

I do not. That’s the answer. She’s 100 percent going to talk about it. I would probably pop it out during the naked-around-the-kids years and then put it back once you’ve moved into the next phase. It doesn’t mean you have anything to be ashamed of, it’s just to avoid the hassle.

—Nicole

Comments

[fairestcat]

I feel for this LW SO MUCH.

[cereta]

Oh, yeah. My house has only one bathroom, and the questions I've answered over the last eleven years even without a piercing have left me saying, "Well...." more than once.

[delight]

The only issue here is that taking a piercing out for actual years often means you can't put it back in again. LW probably needs to look into invisible plugs.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

I assumed the response meant "during the day on days when that's likely"?

Also, depending on the... more exact location, A- don't they make less noticeable flesh tone jewelry for other piercings and why wouldn't they for this one, and B- if the problem is actually it being seen, wouldn't letting one's pubic hair grow out cover a lot of... ground? I imagine getting the hair tangled in the jewellery would be wildly unpleasant, but unless you're really very blonde indeed, it should help?

[kaberett]

... I... had completely forgotten that "shaved pubic hair" might be compounding this issue.

[ayebydan]

Depends where is pierced I guess? Can't some piercings be hidden if LW grew out their public hair for a couple of hours or something?

Or maybe they should try to come to terms with people knowing. It is not something to be ashamed of. It is just another piercing on another part of their body.

[rosefox]

There is a middle ground of privacy between shame and flaunting. I expect that's where the LW would like to keep this.

[ayebydan]

Sure but that isn't what I am looking at here at all. It is not flaunting it that if their child does notice it and brings it up they can say 'I do have a piercing but it is not something I Talk about' and shut a conversation down. She isn't making a facebook post about it and she is not pretending it doesn't exist either.

[rosefox]

I'm just saying that the immediate leap to "ashamed" is probably missing the mark.

[conuly]

It can take a while to get small children to understand that when we don't talk about things, we also don't tell people we're not talking about those things, nor do we suddenly forget and casually mention them.

[cereta]

Toddlers don't really quite work that way yet. Telephone, tell a friend, tell a toddler.

[ayebydan]

I mean if the child told someone, the adult could say 'well yes but it isn't something I talk about obviously'

[minoanmiss]

This may require a bit of planning, but ... toddlers are easily distractible. Plan out a couple topics to use to redirect the conversation as soon as the kid starts talking about the piercing (it'll take a little while for most people who don't have the context to figure out what the kid is on about), such as mentioning their favorite dinosaur.

(Also, the kid may not even notice at all. Children are unpredictable, hee.)

[xenacryst]

To me it's pretty straightforward. This kind of conversation has worked plenty of times for me - tell the truth, don't make a big deal about it, gloss over the stuff that's not age appropriate, and move on to the currently important topics.

"Everyone's middle parts are different, and what you do with them is your choice, but a private choice. Yes, I look different there partly because I wear a piece of jewelry, and that's more of a thing for adults. Right now we're going to talk about pee and how it works."

Having a Big Discussion about the clitoral hood piercing (or whatever) is going to guarantee that the kid will want to talk about it with their daycare teacher and yell on the playground about mommy's clitoris. Acknowledging it and then firmly putting it into the category of Unimportant Things That We're Not Interested In Right Now is more likely to turn it into an everyday fact of life that the kid won't bother thinking about for another 12 years. If they do bring it up in inappropriate circumstances, just say, "remember what we talked about with privacy and our middle parts?"

BTW, the wording of "middle parts" comes from the book Sex Is A Funny Word, which is The. Best. book about bodies for the under-puberty crowd (and, frankly, a boatload of adults would benefit from reading it). It talks about all of this in very age-appropriate ways.

[laurajv]

I second this book! I just got it recently, for my older kid, and I’m so envious — didn’t have anything like it myself as a kid, and wish I had.