Gross Mom! I Didn’t Want To Know That!
Where do babies come from?
That question is one that parents dread from the day their children are born.
Opinion varies as to what the correct answer is. When I first got married, the “experts” seemed to think that honesty was the best policy. We were told to give the child the facts, using the correct names for everything, and they would absorb what they were capable of understanding.
I suppose the most frequent answer is probably, “Ask your mother/father”. Second to that might be “You’re too young to understand”. In most families the policy is probably “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. The parents don’t bring it up and the children are too embarrassed to ask.
But suppose the subject did come up. How far should you go in answering it? Who’s business is it how you handle it? Should you be arrested for giving an answer that some in the community might not agree with?
That is exactly what happened to Amy J. Smalley, 36, of Pardeeville, Wisconsin.
According to an article in the Portage Daily Register, Smalley had a rather frank discussion of sex with her two sons aged 12 and 16. The article described the discussion this way, “According to the charges filed against her, Smalley last year told her sons about several sexual experiences she had. She also allegedly described performing oral sex and also showed the two a sex toy.”
“Smalley’s attorneys unsuccessfully argued in court in July that the charges should be dismissed as the discussions should be protected as free speech between a parent and her children in the vein of sexual education.”
So Smalley accepted a plea agreement to keep from going to court. She did this, she said, to save her sons from being required to testify in court.
“In the agreement, Smalley pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of exposing a child to harmful material in exchange for the dismissal of a felony charge of exposing a child to harmful descriptions.”
You might be wondering how the authorities became involved in the first place. “Smalley said the charges were filed after she brought her sons to counseling in an attempt to help them from getting into trouble. One of her sons told authorities he did not think the discussion was appropriate.”
So apparently there were some behavioral problems going on that Smalley felt required counseling. To me, this might indicate that the boys had reason to want to get mom in trouble. Mentioning the sex talk certainly did the trick.
Did Smalley go too far? We really don’t know, but most of us might think the sex toy was a little much. But still, isn’t that a judgment call on the part of a parent? Do we have to constantly look over our shoulder wondering when the police are going to come get us for something our children told? Don’t we run the risk of offending someone whenever we talk to our kids about subjects like sex, drugs, alcohol or even politics?