“What does ‘whacking-off’ mean?” was the first question. Grabbing the book from my daughter...assuming it was a miss-read...I read the word myself--
WHACKING OFF
Wonderful. Taking a deep breath and thinking---well I guess an explanation is better coming from me than from some precocious pre-teen girl while they are in the school’s bathroom. I started off on my explanation on the joys of the male self-induced ejaculation and several minutes later after some clarification such as “okay—the penis does not ‘explode’ it really ‘erupts’...like a volcano” (You have to be SO careful with your words to get the right image) we were back to reading.
It SEEMED like a good idea when The Beast and I decided to join the public library’s Mother-Daughter Book Club. They were reading an award winning young adult book call “How I Live Now” and would be discussing it the first Thursday of the month over pizza and soda in the library’s community room. We checked out the book and later that weekend started to read.
The book was truly transformative for us because no sooner than I elucidated male masturbation to my tween daughter then I had to turn around and TRY to explain incest...followed by war...and war crimes...
I was SO tired by the time we arrived at this said “book club” I could barely think straight. Wondering what bizarre characters must be involved in this book club and bracing for the next book to be something by Hunter S. Thompson or William Burroughs I was completely surprised when we walked into a room full of....wonderful women—both moms and daughters.
Apparently no one reads the books before they are picked for the book club so the incest and war crimes were a big surprise to everyone and the consensus was the book was “truly disturbing,” but very discussion provoking....
I have mentioned the joys of the book club to many of my mom friends, but for some reason they don’t seem to see the benefits.
I view the book club as a way to talk about subjects that are uncomfortable or just very difficult to comprehend for both child and mother. I love our fearless librarian who tries to guide the discussions of this loud, opinionated group of women. And I love the moms who have a wonderful sense of humor about themselves, their daughters and parenting in general. Because REALLY if you have to discuss whacking-off, incest and war crimes—I feel there is safety and comfort in numbers.
7 comments:
I probably should join this book group.
S
pOMG! That was hilarious. How did the author weave all those topics together?
Hey Party Mom,
"How I Live Now" is by Meg Rosoff. It was actually a really good read, but for a slightly older crowd...maybe high school. It also touches on anorexia, yet is surprisingly funny too.
SJC--definitely join the book club.
Oh my. Have they invented a way to freeze dry and preserve our children yet? Cause I can't handle the day I have to talk about male masturbation with my daughter. Although at 2 1/2 she already will tell you that when she gets big, she is going to have a "baby in her belly and push (insert grunting here) really hard to push it out of her bagina."
Yeah, I am so screwed.
Great post. It reminds me of an old joke (and ordinarily I wouldn't write something like this when introducing myself to another blogger, but hey, you started it):
A soldier walked up to his chaplain with pen and paper in hand. "Father, could you give me some help with this letter I'm writing to my folks?"
"Certainly, my boy," answered the middle-aged priest.
"Is there a hyphen in the term 'hard-on?' "
The priest blushed. "My boy! Whatever are you writing in that letter?!?"
" 'We finally finished digging that irrigation ditch, the one we all worked so hard on.' "
Cute.
You may have done your daughter a dis-service by not also teaching her about female masturbation.
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