It was a stellar parenting morning. Usually when I say that, I’m being sarcastic, but this morning I was on a roll. While driving to work (Calvin’s, not mine — though my work is driving him to work so I guess we’re both on the job), he and Carter were telling me how Caleb had been looking up the actors from Pitch Perfect and seeing what other movies they were in. He was trying to point out how that was a stupid and useless waste of time, but I zeroed in on a different part of his story.
“How is he getting online? Isn’t the computer broken?” (I think it has a virus and my solution to viruses is to start over with a new computer so it will remain broken until Daddy gets home and can figure it out.) In general we don’t allow the kids free access to the internet. The web browser is disabled on their iPods, they aren’t ever on my computer, the virus-stricken computer has a blocking thing that requires me to input in a password practically every 10 minutes (which thoroughly annoys me) . . . I was puzzled how he was getting online until we figured out that the iPad must still have Safari on it. It used to be Josh’s and now it’s mostly Camille’s so I guess we didn’t ever secure it.
I took this as a teachable moment and said some wise, parental thing like, “You know it’s not that we don’t trust you with the internet, but you know how so many of your friends at school look at porn? (They do. The boys have told me — I’m not just maligning a random group of people to make a point.) We don’t want it to be a temptation that interferes with your enjoyment of other things. And besides, porn doesn’t just hurt you, it exploits all those women and girls who are involved. Every one of them is someone’s daughter, sister or mother. Can you imagine how you would feel if people looked at Camille in that way?” And then I had a flash of brilliance and said to Calvin, “Hey! If you want to look at naked people on the internet you can always watch birth videos on YouTube with me! That is a way to really appreciate God’s amazing design for the human body.”
I don’t often do this, but I was looking at something related to babies the other night and in the sidebar were several homebirth videos so I clicked on one and started watching and then Camille came and joined me and before long Carter and Caleb were piled up around me watching twins (and then triplets) be born. I was willing to have them watch my births so it wasn’t a huge stretch to have them watch someone else giving birth. Carter piped in, “Yeah, Calvin! It’s really cool! The lady’s stomach was huuuuuge before the (triplets) came out!” Calvin was all, “No thanks.” But I might wear him down eventually. I think everyone should see a baby be born at least once. It is seeing the impossible happen right before your eyes.
We were then approaching base so I only had a few more minutes to hit them, machine gun style, with reminders to “say no to drugs,” including inhaling anything like glue, paint or markers since that stuff can kill just easily and unpredictably as any of the standard ones. And that they could drink alcohol with me if they want to drink and to never get in a car with someone who has been drinking, and that marijuana is a really bad idea if you are anxiety prone, and it was good to be talking and open and they nodded and laughed and headed off to life. Nailed it.