Thursday, June 11, 2009

Word Vomit

Oh. My. God.

My mom takes everything out of context, one little comment drop and BAM! Tsunami. It's ridiculous, she thinks that porn is the devil. Like it's this horrible secretive thing. 

My [just turned] 7 year old cousin got caught watching HBO porn the other day. All of a sudden she's gonna be a whore (which is in question but not because of this incident in particular) and the channel (some random movie channel) is thought to be PornGaloreTV. 
Mom, this is 21st century reality. Welcome. 
HBO porn starts early on Fridays (evidently) it's not one of "those" channels and if a child is curious they're gonna watch it! It doesn't really matter so much how you raise a child, they are curious and interested in whatever that kid in particular is into. 

A tiger can't change his spots.

I tried (admittedly, somewhat inarticulately) to explain that "it's just porn" and that it's not the end of the world. Wrong. Choice. Words. The "it's just porn" comment sent her over the edge. Apparently, this is another way to say that's it's totally fine for kids to watch it which is not what I was trying to say at all. I'm just saying it was a week ago, let's not dwell on it, it's not the end of the world, I never really thought about it being so "available" to them either but what happened did. They watched or they didn't, let's put a block on the TV not have a long as rant about how this is going to affect their lives. (Maybe because I watched it when I was "too young" too and I turned out... oh wait.)

So here we are a week later and this porn watching is still weighing heavy on her mind. She's deeply concerned. New rule: the kids are no longer allowed to have the remote when they're watching TV in the middle room. Seriously? Is it really necessary that we go to that? The 7 year old- okay, fine whatevs but my other little cousins are a couple months away from being 10 & 11. Just activate the parent lock thingy! No need to confine them to 1 channel. Plus, do we really want them to call us over to change the channel for them? The answer is no. No, we don't.

I kept trying to clarify myself but I couldn't even finish a sentence I was immediately cut off with "we shouldn't be conditioning them..." and "it shouldn't be available to them in this house..." and blah freaking blah. 

I know this. I agree. Just sayin', this is not something to get all riled up about (again!) a week later. 

AND THEN it was "I know you watch that kind of stuff but I don't...". 

I'm like "wha?"
How did this turn to me watching porn? 

I couldn't even get a full word out, she kept saying "you don't have to deny it, you don't have to say anything, I'm giving you the out." Um, okay. I wasn't even trying to address that because a.) I do sometimes and b.) I'm not condoning the watching of the porn by the kiddies. 

So then I did what I should have done the minute she starting talking: shut up.

It's always like this with my mom. It's so frustrating. Every mountain is  the Himalayas and when I try to bring it back down to size (Mt. Baldy or something) Wammo! suddenly I'm saying the opposite-the Himalayas don't exist. 
Or something. I kind of lost myself on that one. But still! Ugh!!

My mom is really good at making me feel like shit and guilty for a point that I wasn't even trying to make. I hate feeling like this, it seems like not living would just be so much easier than this. I hate myself for not being able to shut the F up. I deserve to be a mute. Or dead. Either way.

2 comments:

  1. The only "conditioning" that could come from that situation would be your cousin growing up to be maladjusted to a natural human function. Making sex taboo makes people uncomfortable to talk about it, resistant to education about it and leads to more unwanted pregnancies and stds than other kids who aren't shamed into ignorance by their crazy catholic parents. And it's not like HBO shows anything hardcore. There aren't any moist, hairy, pulsating extreme close ups.

    You made a good point, and even though no one was around to agree with you, there are plenty of people who DO agree with you and stood up for you in spirit! :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like you having a voice, and being alive!

    ReplyDelete

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