"The Suitcase" - What do you guys think?

[Koala]

This is a guest post made by the crazy lady from "Treasures From a Shoe box". I was pretty surprised at the comments. A few of them shredded her.

thebettermom.com/2012/02/its-a-suitcase-thing/

[Witsec7]

Yea it was totally shred worthy. This woman was pregnant for 9 friggin months, nine teachable months. And if it was an 8 year old girl soon to approach menarche, would it still be a suitcase moment?

[debrand]

I grew up a fearful child. I was terrified of Nuclear War and was sure someone in Russia had their finger on a warhead that was pointed straight at my house.

During part of the twentieth century, Nuclear War was a possibility. There was really no way to hide the threat from kids. I think that many generations have something that terrify them. Living during the time of the Black Plague must have been frightening.

During a high school Child Development class, I was educated about all forms of birth control and how to use them. I had no need of this information at that time in my life, but it did open my mind to ideas and possibilities…

Better to know this information and not need it than to be caught unaware. Lots of people have sex. That has always been true. In the past, keeping girls ignorant did not prevent sexual activity but it did leave the girls open to being abused.

Moments after our homebirth in August 2009, the younger children came in to meet their brother. As eight-year-old Isaac stood gazing at the new baby, a question formed in his young mind. He had seen me pregnant a half-hour before and suddenly wondered, “Mommy, how did he get out?â€

I am probably way more open with my kids than other parents. We also used to watch Animal Planet, documentaries on the Discovery Channel and all types of nature shows. They saw animals giving birth on tv so it didn't upset them when I explained how babies were born.

I simply answered, “That’s a ‘suitcase thing’ and we’ll open that ‘suitcase’ when you’re a bit older.†He was totally satisfied with this answer.

What?

She quotes Carrie Ten Bloom. I've never read that book but I've come to despise it because I've heard some Christians use it to justify all sorts of nutty things. Her quotation just made me happy that we live in a time when most parents don't feel embarrased to answer their children's questions. I

Yes,†he said, “And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.â€

To me, that just made the answer to Corrie's question sound as if it was something frightening that she would be loaded down with once she was old enough.

[Guest Anonymous]

LOL...now this is just plain funny! I've heard all kind of things from the stork to more accurate baby is growing in mommy's tummy & the doctor takes it out. But suitcase? That's just way too funny! :lol:

[kb2]

Wait, her kid is eight and he doesn't know a vagina is also a birth canal?

ETA: I remember that part being explained to me in the original birds and bees talk when I was five.

[tingeofginge]

Wait, her kid is eight and he doesn't know a vagina is also a birth canal?

ETA: I remember that part being explained to me in the original birds and bees talk when I was five.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I just can't with people who won't give their kids accurate and appropriate information.

Ohhh wait, I just figured it out. All that talk about causing fear and worry. She must think telling him the baby comes through the vagina is going to make him scared of vaginas and then he'll turn gay. Oh noes! :roll:

[ItISjustme]

The fundies are so fucking twee, it makes my teeth hurt. :x

[SpeakNow]

When i was 3 my mom told me how babies were made. I asked, and she answered honestly. I wasn't scarred for life.

[Guest Anonymous]

I remember that because I was young when I read "The Hiding Place" and was as clueless as Corrie. :lol:

In the book Corrie asks her father, "What is sexsin?". I assume that there must be an equivalent German word that doesn't translate well, because I have still never heard the word "sexsin" used since that book. In that context, and at that time when fathers especially wouldn't have talked to daughters about the facts of life, it makes a bit more sense that the father fudged the issue.... but crazy shoebox lady is plain crazy.

It must be far less frightening for a child to be told that the baby came out of a ready-made natural opening in the body, than be left to imagine whatever he might have imagined: a major stomach rupture, perhaps?

[FlorenceHamilton]

So, when my daughter was three years old, she asked her dad a question. she said, "Daddy, why did the doctor have to cut mommy open to get me out? Why didn't I come out her vagina?"

(At that point, her dad called for me to come into the room)

I told her that since I am on the small side, that she would not fit. The doctor did an operation to get her (and her twin sister out) so that none of us would get hurt.

She was satified with that answer. (I suspect the question came because she figured out the only logical opening for child birth)

A few days later, she was sitting on the potty. She looked down at her little girl parts and said, "Mommy, I don't think I want to have a baby for a really long time." I told her that was a good idea.

She's 24 now and we still talk about anything and everything.

[JesusFightClub]

WTF, why would it even be a "suitcase thing"? What is secret or private about how babies are born?

I am amazed that an eight year old doesn't know how babies come out. It's not heavy knowledge like explaining in detail about paedophilia would be. It is a lovely fact of life that women can conceive and give birth to babies if they want to. Even if you don't feel a child is ready for the mechanics of how the baby gets there, how it comes out should not be a taboo topic.

[figuring it out]

After my homebirth and the kids joined me in the room, it was my five year old who asked the question. My eight year old anwered it. It isn't gross or inappropriate, it isn't a heavy burden and it sure as hell isn't a suitcase stored in the back of some closet, its normal birth and its amazing.

[Maude]

I don't understand the concept of 'protecting a child's innocence' when it comes to most things. The fact is, children are often smarter and more resourceful than we give them credit for, and if they don't get their answers from us, they'll look elsewhere. I knew about sex, menstruation, etc., in kindergarten thanks to my mother. Ever curious, if she hadn't been honest with me and gave me some bullshit answer about suitcases, I would have likely gotten most of my information from my peers at school. I also don't understand people who aren't naturally curious and are accepting of easy non-answers. To be honest, I would be extremely sad and disappointed if my child were like that.

Check out this comment from Lisa:

"OH! This is EXACTLY what i tell my 11yo!"

A child on the brink of puberty and s/he still doesn't know how their body functions. Frightening. :shock:

[Sydney Fox]

I don't understand the concept of 'protecting a child's innocence' when it comes to most things. The fact is, children are often smarter and more resourceful than we give them credit for, and if they don't get their answers from us, they'll look elsewhere. I knew about sex, menstruation, etc., in kindergarten thanks to my mother. Ever curious, if she hadn't been honest with me and gave me some bullshit answer about suitcases, I would have likely gotten most of my information from my peers at school. I also don't understand people who aren't naturally curious and are accepting of easy non-answers. To be honest, I would be extremely sad and disappointed if my child were like that.

Check out this comment from Lisa:

"OH! This is EXACTLY what i tell my 11yo!"

A child on the brink of puberty and s/he still doesn't know how their body functions. Frightening. :shock:

A fundy woman I know told me the "suitcase story" when she was pregnant with her seventh child. Her older kids were asking how the baby got in there, and her pastor advised her to tell them the story instead of giving them some actually useful information. :roll:

I am extremely open with my kids and they know they can ask me anything. My mom was always good about answering questions as well. Mr. Fox was not raised fundy, but his parents are extremely uptight about sex. They never told him or his siblings the facts of life. When he was given "the talk" at school in grade six, he was horrified. He and his best friend agreed that they were never going to do THAT. Thankfully, he changed his mind or we wouldn't have three kids. ;) Needless to say, given his upbringing, he's not as comfortable with talking to our kids about sex. He is adamant that our girls learn about body changes and menstruation, though. His poor sister thought she was dying when she got her first period. Yup, my In-laws are pretty fucked up. It's not just fundies that are sexually repressed.

[Caxpax]

My 2 year old and I have been looking at stories about babies being born, including drawing of babies coming out of a woman's vagina, for weeks in preparation for my homebirth. We aren't planning on having him here at the house but I want him to know what is going on when the baby is born. No reason for it to be scary or confusing. A good parent introduces these things in a framework that a kid can understand- they don't shy away from it until, like one commenter noted- they find out on their own from friends in less than ideal circumstances. 9 months of pregnancy and she never thought to tell an 8 YEAR OLD where babies come from? I thought babies were "Fearfully and wonderfully made" blah blah blah.

What a freaking moron.

[MonkeyMomma]

In addition to all the great points here, I am trying to figure out why she would have her children present at a home birth if she wasn't prepared to explain the very simple concept of babies coming out of vaginas to her children.

Futhermore:

Innocence is such a precious thing and too much knowledge can destroy this.

Implying, of course, that there is something decidedly NOT innocent about the birth of a child. More hangups there than I have closet space for ...

[freejoytoo]

I don't understand the whole need to 'protect' children from knowledge. Fundies seem to have this weird belief that if you're honest about the facts of life they're going to want to jump into bed with someone or something. It's crazy. What on earth is wrong with giving your children the facts? They don't have to be graphic, for god's sake. Better to educate your children then to leave them ignorant and scared.

[thoughtful]

As ever, extremism wipes out any sense of what is developmentally appropriate for children. Give 'em guilt, chore packs, child-rearing duties, and whipping, but explaining the true beauty of real life is going to destroy their "innocence." :roll:

And I agree that the implication that knowledge is a terrible burden that must be delayed could frighten a child. It would have terrified me.

Not to mention that the answer to the "suitcase" story might have been something truly ugly. I don't know what the German "sexsin" means. A google search didn't help.

If it just is a judgmental term for not being a virgin, Corrie's parents were making the same mistake that these people are. But if it implies destroying one's health (having syphilis, for example), that might have been harder to explain to a young girl at the time.

Not that I agree with the "suitcase" solution, even for Corrie's father. I think that children should have even scary, ugly things explained, if it can be done at a level they can understand, and without scaring them further.

And it's not as if someone living at that time, in that place, wasn't going to be exposed to things much more horrible than "sexsin," whatever it is.

But, even if fudging the explanation of something ugly, in 1940-something, is a bit more forgivable, it doesn't makes the suitcase solution appropriate for putting off explaining the source of babies in 2012. Sex and birth are not ugliness -- they are joyful things to explain.

Oh, and in the suitcase story, the poem was read in school -- if the teacher wasn't prepared to explain the text, why did she have them hear the damned poem? :?

[AudreyE]

I can't read "sexsin" as "sex sin." I keep reading it like a verb. "What are you going to do?" "I'm goin' sexin'. Wanna come?" "Totally, but let's smoke this joint first and then steal money out of Mom's purse."

I needed the birth control information in high school, and most of my peers did, too. Just sayin' I'm sure we were the first and the last of sexually promiscuous teenagers, though.

[Koala]

I wonder what age the kids are when she finally opens the suitcase? That must make for a hell of a day...

[Rosa]

The two things on that list - germ warfare (scary! Not immediately relevant! Opens up all sorts of avenues for fears and nightmares) and childbirth (not scary to most kids, not going to happen to your kid, immediately relevant to your family) don't go together at ALL.

I mean, I try not to listen to the news with kiddo too much, because I don't want to explain IEDs or government massacres in Syria to my kid while driving or over breakfast. But kids are surrounded by pregnancies and babies.

[Koala]

Check out this comment:

OH! This is EXACTLY what i tell my 11yo! I just love Corrie ten Boom and her father - this is one of my favorite stories of them! Totally agree on protecting their innocence before it is time. My son understands the "suitcase" thing...and the trust he has in us is humbling. We've had some really good talks, but only what is needed at the time, until he is strong enough to carry the load on his own. =)

:shock: 11??? For god's sake when does she plan to tell her?? Wonder how old the son is. I get the impression that he's older :?

[Terrie]

Fundies say "innocence," I hear "ignorant" and "immature."

[formergothardite]

It has been a long time since I read the Hiding Place, but wasn't there a part where the sister was getting married and already knew about sex, but the older family members didn't think she did so they sent up a great aunt to have a very awkward sex talk with her the day of the wedding?

[Hane]

When i first read that anecdote, I interpreted the term "sex sin" as something that would probably be scary for a child to hear about, like rape or adultery, and not an implication that all sex is sinful. (Of course, I had read it out of its context.)

This "let's keep children ignorant about sex to preserve their innocence and purity" crap isn't limited to fundies. When I was a kid in the '60s, my otherwise-modern Italian-Catholic mother was big on this. When I told my 8-year-old sister, after she asked, that babies came out the mother's vagina, Mom damn near had a fit. (Mom had led me to believe that the birth canal was a special opening that let the baby out, then closed up again. WTF?)

When I was a teenager, Mom used to think it was adorable when I had misconceptions about intercourse, and laughed at me. She also thought that virginity was a magic shield against all emotional trauma.