Maria's blog: White lies or reality check?

I recently introduced my little one to the daughter of a friend, same age (nearly 9) but let’s say a tad more naïve than mine. I was told this girl still believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and she thinks sex is a swear word or a taboo subject to say the least. So I instructed my daughter not to touch on any of those subjects before we met to avoid accidentally shattering all her parents’ hard work trying to maintain that safe bubble for her!

This inevitably made me think. Is my little girl too grown up for her age? Is my parenting style too open and forward? Just to explain the extent of my openness, I have adapted fairy tales to reflect LGBT themes with same sex parents versions, I have extracted all sorts of themes from kids books to challenge all sort of narrow minded thinking (trying to instigate critical thinking) and have told her that the happily ever after endings are sadly rare and many relationships break up. Why? Because I personally think it’s confusing to portray an external reality that doesn’t match what kids experience. Mini me lost her daddy just before turning 4 so she is a tough cookie having been thrown into a very harsh reality at such a young age. Some of her close friends have fathers they never see, single parents, divorced parents, widowed parents alongside the traditional set up families that of course still exist. So I have always been inclined to be as truthful as possible, being considerate of age of course in regards to how many details I share.

Frankly I would rather she learns the truth from me than kids in the playground who can provide inaccurate and scary versions!

Despite my original attempts of keeping the magic, Santa disappeared when she was 5 I think and mainly because she was absolutely terrified of the thought of a big strange man in the house during the night, she even refused to go to grottos! So when she asked me straight ‘is he real?!’ I just could not lie, if what I consider magic causes fears and stress, well that’s no longer magic. The look of relief on her face when I told her Santa doesn’t exist confirmed I had done the right thing being truthful. I asked her not to share the news with friends as some parents want to keep that magic as long as possible; no idea if she accidentally shattered another child’s dream in the process with her track record of keeping a secret, but I had to do what I thought was right for my child. The natural next question was ‘how about the tooth fairy?’ well of course that’s a cute one to keep but at that point I felt being honest about one and not the other would have been confusing so nop, that’s a lie too, sorry! She wasn’t that bothered either as long as she still got money for her tooth! (I decided to read that as commercial acumen!)

Sex questions followed a few months later and they occasionally come up more. Again, why confuse them with crazy cabbage stories! I read up about it from experts and keep details to a minimum but without lies. TV programmes and songs tell our kids so much and some questions can be answered economically without lying, depending on age of course. Also in light of my daughter’s stubborn and challenging nature, anything kept as taboo she will want to know more about so satisfying her curiosity with a little info without too much fuss seems to do the trick.

Terrorism was the next big thing. The world is going crazy, acts of terror sadly seem to be almost a daily occurrence recently. Of course this is something I would like to protect my child from. I don’t want her to see that horrid side of humans yet, I don’t want her to be fearful when in big crowds. But friends at school might tell her their version and not the in most educational way so after the Westminster Bridge attack I asked her if anyone had mentioned anything at school. She told me yes, her friends told her about a crazy man who drove into people. So I explained about terrorism, but as neutral a view as possible, to minimise any discriminatory interpretation of terrorism linked to specific cultures and religions. I reassured her that it is rare in the grand scheme of things and I also put a strong emphasis on the great sense of community such acts seem to trigger and encourage. I told her about all the wonderful people that stepped in to help the victims, all the ambulance crews, doctors, police, etc who showed the beautiful side of human nature. She wasn’t scared nor worried. Kids are very practical and factual in my experience.

I am not trying to be controversial, it’s great to protect kids for as long as possible from certain topics, themes and truths and hope their innocent childhood lasts for as long as possible, but we live in an era where our kids are bombarded by music, social media, TV, smart phones and shielding them from reality is now becoming close to impossible so as parents we might need to step out of our comfort zone and give our kids credit for being able to digest a different reality from the one we experienced as kids, their new reality and just ensure they are equipped to deal with it when confronted with tough news and topics.

Maria works for a City law firm as Diversity & Inclusion Advisor. Following the sudden death of her husband four years ago, she is single parent to a young daughter.