Michelle Jackson
NO SHAME
IN THE
MOMMY GAME
S
everal years ago, while driving through Acadia in Kingston,
I had an interesting (and telling) experience with a few little
girls who were no more than 4 or 5 years old at the time. It
happened at a section near to Roseberry Drive, where there’s a significant
dip in the road – noteworthy enough to require drivers to reduce their speed
somewhat. I didn’t slow down and this is the conversation that ensued.
Girl 1: Ooooh Aunty, can you do that again?
Me: Do what dear?
Girl 1: Drive there again.
Me: Where sweetie?
Girl 2: By the roller coaster in the road.
Me: Hmmm, why hon?
Girl 2: Because it tickles my vagina.
Wow. Not exactly the conversation I expected on our quick run to Tutti Frutti! I
know little girls because I have one and I used to be one. I know what it means to be
a girl, but it was at that moment I first realized that my daughter was a sexual being.
You see, I know that feeling very well; it’s a sensation that many parents never con-
sider their children could experience because they think that they’re just too young.
I knew that day, the relationship I would develop with my daughter could not be
patterned off the one that I, like many in my generation, had shared with my mother.
Sex was never a comfortable subject. Don’t get me wrong…we had the mother/
daughter talk – once I recall, over some requisite book, which had a few boring
pictures and lots of text. I like pictures.
Page: - 28 - The Beyond Woman Magazine
Our children don’t suddenly wake up one day and develop
sexual energies. We may not care to admit it, but they’re there
all along. And as astute parents, it’s important that we recog-
nize when those feelings kick in. It’s important that we know
how to help them to process what they feel – all part and par-
cel of raising tomorrow’s generation of young men and wom-
en with a healthy view on sex, relationships and dare I say
marriage. I was wise enough to determine that at 4 or 5 years