This morning Eldest Child (who is now 12) started off a conversation with “You know how you think gacha videos are a complete waste of time?”

“I don’t think they are a complete waste of time. I think you learn things about youth culture and social interactions and music and video pacing and art technicalities and all kinds of things that I don’t need to learn at this point. So they are very useful for you and not something I want to spend my time on. That’s not the same thing as being a complete waste of time.”

“Uhm, well right now I’m trying to learn come backs for insults. Like if someone calls me ugly I can say ‘At least I don’t have an ugly personality.'”

She continued on with a few other similarly clever responses and I nodded along and smiled a little. Then she got to the humdinger.

“Or like, if the girl saying I am ugly is wearing a crop top I can say ‘At least I don’t look like a stripper!'”

There is this thing I do. If I freeze then slowly rotate my head towards you with a scowl on my face you know you are in trouble. She froze too. She knows. She didn’t know what was coming but she knew it wasn’t good and her whole body tensed up.

“Oh really. So at least you aren’t like my friends. Because you know I have friends who are strippers, right? At least you are better than those people who have jobs. Right? At least you are better than girls who are comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality, right? Those bitches should cover up and be ashamed of having a body and never have sex. RIGHT?” (If anything my volume got a lot lower than usual. This emphasis was all in intensity and not volume.)

She looked like I had slapped her across the face. She was stunned.

“You totally think girls and women should cover up and be modest and ashamed of having bodies, right? That’s your value system?” (For the record she has mini skirts, tube tops, and crop tops. She’s always too hot so she’s had these for years.)

“No… I don’t believe that at all.”

“Then why would you try to shame someone in exactly that way?”

“Oh god. It’s not even 8am and I have stepped in a steaming pile of mom wrath.”

“Well you tell me, what do you believe?”

“I believe that girls and women should be allowed to enjoy their bodies and enjoy sex. I will never say that again. I’m sorry.”

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Recently someone told me that they want to have kids who are comfortable with sex and sexuality so they have open and free conversations about their own sex life. I had a lot of trouble not reacting with repulsion and horror. You don’t have to talk about your own sex life to inculcate sex positivity in children. You don’t have to treat children like a peer in order to show how you live in the world. I am a freakily modest dresser. I cover up. There are a lot of reasons for it, none of them related to morality or shame. My children are not learning that scanty dress is fine by watching me.

But by golly I will go out with a pitch fork and defend someone else’s right to dress that way. I think we normalize and teach our values every single day by what we say and how we say it. I don’t flip out over every stupid thing my kid says (she’s at that age where about half of what she says is gob smackingly stupid) I mostly mildly redirect her or raise an eyebrow or roll my eyes. She will learn.

But in this house it is never ok to shame someone for having a fucking body and wearing whatever clothes they want. In this house it is never fucking ok to shame someone for having a job even and especially if that job involves sex work. Never. You don’t do it. Or yeah, you will step in a steaming pile of mom wrath.

(Note: my kids told me that they wished I was still writing about them in the blog because they want to see what I record someday. Ok lovies.)