“Natalie asked me what ‘bootie’ means today”
Just because they’ve got really small ears, doesn’t mean they’re not listening.
“Where did she hear that word?” Was it at school? A friend’s house? I knew it wasn’t from a rap video on MTV – they don’t play videos anymore.
“She said it was in the movie you took her to yesterday”
Let the guilt and the perplexity begin. Have I scarred my daughter? What else have I exposed her to? First the fort thing and now this?!?
Now this movie was about a rich, Beverly Hills Chihuahua getting lost in Mexico and trying to find her way home. I thought back to the movie. I didn’t specifically recall that word being used, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d been a good parent and checked the parent reviews before going to the movie – some liked it, some thought it was boring – but no one mentioned anything about language.
(Brief Interlude – you may not realize this, but movie studios do not make G movies anymore – even the cartoons are PG. There might be 5 G movies released in a year, but neither the kid nor the parent want to see them.)
So now it was time for
the conversation.
“Natalie, sometimes people use that word for a girl’s bottom. But it’s not a nice word and little girls shouldn’t use it.”
“But I’m not a little girl. I’m a big girl”
“That’s right you’re a big (little) girl. But you still shouldn’t use that word.”
“OK”
And believe it or not - that’s it. She asked a question and got an answer. She shouldn’t use the word, so she won’t. In fact, if another kid uses the word around her, she might even tell them they shouldn’t use the word. She’s that good a kid.
Problem solved. Another crisis of child-rearing averted. Just another day in the life of super-dad.
It was at that moment of self-satisfaction that I remembered that the Beverly Hills Chihuahua was wearing booties on her feet during the movie.
Last weekend, before the election, we booted up the computer and surfed to the latest political news. Natalie looked at the computer and said “Look. It’s Barack Obama and John McCain.”
