"Yeah, yeah."
Each time that exchange occurs with my wife, I shrug it off, confident that it will be a while yet and that I'll stick with the basics, be as honest as possible and give him the age-appropriate information he needs without building up some myths about storks or such. Whenever the talk comes to mind, I recall the children's book on the topic I received, highlighted by a successful sperm dressed in a tuxedo and top hat and a vague cartoonish illustration of man and woman in bed under a blanket the keep me in the dark. I wonder if the top hat takes the questions of speed and motility off the table in favour of fusing the presentability or chivalry of the man with the one in a million odds that the successful sperm overcomes but those are the challenges for a writer of children's non-fiction. (I still might want to track down that book, though.)
There have been regular signs that The Talk is growing nigh. There was an expression of his desire to marry his cousin that needed to be addressed and then there are discoveries that leave my son in wonder at the changes that are already occurring in his body. The reality is that there will probably be a series of smaller talks rather than a Joycean information dump with long meandering thoughts stringing out across my consciousness as I tiptoe through the pubescent minefield and deke around my discomforts and facts with the incompetence and transparent bluster of a press secretary.
Two nights ago, however, my son slipped away from the table and returned with his Star Wars book, one that features long accounts of the original trilogy of movies. He plopped the book on the table and asked us, "Do you know what my favorite part of Star Wars is?"
We shrugged in helplessness at the myriad answers that we could choose from and then he pointed his finger at the book, "Princess Leia's costume."
I never took to Princess Leia. The whole buns on the side of the head thing lost me in 1977 and by the time the slave costume came to be in 1983 I had moved on. For my son, however, after a steady diet of anthropomorphic trucks, OCD animals, empathic sheep, mischievous dinosaurs and talking trains -- to mention a few of the characters he has encountered in film and book -- Leia has been an oasis of femininity. The appeal of the slave outfit to a five-year-old, though, raises a red flag or nine.
"She doesn't want to be wearing that."
"Why?"
"She's Jabba's slave."
"What's a slave?"
(Thankfully, there's no dog collar on her in his book.)
"A slave is forced to do something they don't want to. If she doesn't do what Jabba wants, he would throw her in the pit with the... with the monster."
"The Rancor."
"Yes." (He does know more about Star Wars than me. And he knows that he does.)
I continue, "She's not dressed like that because she wants to be. You have to ask if she wants to be dressed that way."
The questions stopped at that point and there could have been a lot more I could say about how to treat women or regard them but that will have to be for a day that seems to be coming a lot sooner than I had anticipated. I did not go on a long harangue on the treatment of women and the need to look beyond the exposed skin, and hopefully I can keep that one in my back pocket for a lot longer. My realization is that there will not be one talk that will tidy up the topic and let me walking away clapping the chalkdust from my hands. It will be an ongoing dialogue that will never close or end.
There have been regular signs that The Talk is growing nigh. There was an expression of his desire to marry his cousin that needed to be addressed and then there are discoveries that leave my son in wonder at the changes that are already occurring in his body. The reality is that there will probably be a series of smaller talks rather than a Joycean information dump with long meandering thoughts stringing out across my consciousness as I tiptoe through the pubescent minefield and deke around my discomforts and facts with the incompetence and transparent bluster of a press secretary.
Two nights ago, however, my son slipped away from the table and returned with his Star Wars book, one that features long accounts of the original trilogy of movies. He plopped the book on the table and asked us, "Do you know what my favorite part of Star Wars is?"
We shrugged in helplessness at the myriad answers that we could choose from and then he pointed his finger at the book, "Princess Leia's costume."
I never took to Princess Leia. The whole buns on the side of the head thing lost me in 1977 and by the time the slave costume came to be in 1983 I had moved on. For my son, however, after a steady diet of anthropomorphic trucks, OCD animals, empathic sheep, mischievous dinosaurs and talking trains -- to mention a few of the characters he has encountered in film and book -- Leia has been an oasis of femininity. The appeal of the slave outfit to a five-year-old, though, raises a red flag or nine.
"She doesn't want to be wearing that."
"She's Jabba's slave."
"What's a slave?"
(Thankfully, there's no dog collar on her in his book.)
"A slave is forced to do something they don't want to. If she doesn't do what Jabba wants, he would throw her in the pit with the... with the monster."
"The Rancor."
"Yes." (He does know more about Star Wars than me. And he knows that he does.)
I continue, "She's not dressed like that because she wants to be. You have to ask if she wants to be dressed that way."
The questions stopped at that point and there could have been a lot more I could say about how to treat women or regard them but that will have to be for a day that seems to be coming a lot sooner than I had anticipated. I did not go on a long harangue on the treatment of women and the need to look beyond the exposed skin, and hopefully I can keep that one in my back pocket for a lot longer. My realization is that there will not be one talk that will tidy up the topic and let me walking away clapping the chalkdust from my hands. It will be an ongoing dialogue that will never close or end.
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