I am way too young for this conversation with my daughter.

[rivka]

Alex and I were talking about growing up. She plans to grow as big as Sarah who dyed her hair blue (this is the teen we chaperoned at SUUSI), and then stop growing. She was asking how big I am, and how big her father is. Then I asked,

Me: Do you think you'll have a baby grow inside you someday, when you grow up?
Alex: No, I don't want a baby.
Me: You know, that's totally up to you. You don't need to have a baby if you don't really want one.
Alex: But someone might give me a baby. A boy might send some sperm into my uterus.
Me: (utterly dying): Only if you say it's okay. If you don't want a baby, you can say no.
Alex: What if someone wants to, and I don't?
Me: Then you say, 'No. I don't want to.'
Alex: Oh. Okay.

Oh. My. God. I know she doesn't... she doesn't know what she's implying. She really doesn't. But oh my God.

Comments

[eeyorerin]

Oh my God, indeed.

When I was a teenager I used to sit for a family who had a little girl about Alex's age who had learned "My body, my choice" from her mom and who used to attempt to use it to win any argument, which led to me saying things like, "Yes, Ginna, it is your body and your choice and I respect your autonomy, but you still have to move your bike out of the driveway so it won't get run over when your mom comes home."

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Kind of reminds me of a conversation I overheard with a two-year-old and her mom in the store a couple of months back. She was trying to climb out of the cart and her mom kept re-seating her. Kiddo took to shrieking every time Mom touched her. Finally exasperated Mom says to her "look, I am allowed to touch you. I am your mother. I gave birth to you and therefore I own you - I have the papers to prove it!"

Not exactly a bodily autonomy moment, but a humorous rather than angry way of dealing with her daughter's somewhat, um, precocious boundary-setting. :)