1. sex·y  

   /ˈseksē/
   

   Adjective Sexually attractive or exciting. Sexually aroused.

Today whilst on the bus,  I heard a mother say to her little girl who appeared to be around two years of age 'Are you my sexy baby?' The little girl said 'Yes!' to which the mum replies 'No silly, you're my sexy little girl now!'

This isn't an isolated  case, both online and offline I have heard people referencing their babies and children as sexy much as one would use the terms cute, adorable, beautiful or gorgeous etc.  I'll admit to being absolutely aghast at this practise.  Why would anyone use a term that is defined as sexually attractive, sexually exciting or sexually arousing in connection with their child?  Is this not absolutely inappropriate and potentially damaging as it belittles and clouds the definition of the word and it's connotations?  Surely we should be alarmed at anyone referring to our children as sexy, so why on earth are parents themselves doing it?  It's not cute.  It's not funny. It's not cool.  To be frank, it positively disgusts me.  How is a child to recognise when someone is being verbally inappropriate to them when we blur the lines of what is acceptable?

Yet sexualisation is everywhere, granted to the very young it's almost subliminal as they have no knowledge of what certain things represent nor the connotations that are attached to them such as, just to name a few:

* BHS who were selling padded bras and knickers aimed at pre-teens with 'Little Miss Naughty' emblazoned across them.  In America Abercrombie & Fitch were selling push up bras for seven year old and, wait for it, thongs...again starting at age seven with the delightful slogans of 'eye candy' and 'wink wink' emblazoned across them.  After coming under fire they simply renamed the push-up bra to padded bra, because that's so much better right? and stated it would only be available for 12yrs+ yet the sizing started at age 10.  Asda at one point sold childrens knickers in black and pink lace.

* In 2008, Woolworths who once sold a childrens bed with the name 'Lolita' a name associated with the character Dolores, nicknamed Lolita from Nabokovs 1955 novel (where a step dad is utterly obsessed, sexually, with his 12 year old step daughter) which has since become synonymous with sexual precocity.

* In 2005 WHSmith were criticised for selling stationary to young people with the Playboy Bunny motif on them, a motif that is associated with a huge porn empire.  Likewise in  the past I've seen the pink Playboy bunny bedding advertised alongside children's bedding.

* In 2006 the supermarket giant Tesco were condemned for selling a pole dancing kit marketed in the toy department complete with garter and toy money to stuff inside with the packaging stating it can be used from age 11+ alongside the slogan 'unleash the sex kitten inside'

* Bratz brought out the vulgar 'Bratz Babyz Twins Phoebe & Roxxi' dolls.  If you click on the link and look at the picture, I think it speaks for itself really.  Dolls made to look like babies dressed up as skanky prostitutes.


Where does it end?  It's unnecessary.  Why is childhood, innocence and wholesomeness suddenly so incredibly out of fashion?  When I was a child many parents found 'crop tops' scandalously inappropriate attire so you can imagine The Mothers horror when she spied a vile thong in the children's underwear section.

How did it all go so wrong and come to this?

Give children back their right to be children and have a childhood.  Lets end this mini-me obsession.  Childhood is not sexy.

Dear Santa.....

So, Thing Two (age 6) came downstairs one day clutching an envelope asking if we had Father Christmas' address.  I assured her i'd find it and would in the mean time put her letter somewhere safe

Naturally as soon as she went to bed I had a nosy, well you would wouldn't you?  I expected the stereotypical 'I want I want' letter that kids are expected to write.

I should have known better, after all this is Thing Two we're talking about.  Inside the letter was a picture coloured in for him and a card hand written by herself, with a free hand portrait of him..

Bless her, not once did she tell him what a good girl she is and nor did she ask for a single thing

The little things..

Everyday she looks more grown up, so I cherish the parts of her that still hold the subtle chub of babyhood like the gorgeous dimples in her hands.

I admit.  I'm one of those Mum's that is terminally guilty of throwing out that old adage 'In a minute' / 'Not right now' / 'maybe later', often without thinking and mostly because I'm really busy doing absolutely nothing of any importance, such as catering to my net junkie ways.   So many little things that wouldn't actually take long in time or indeed much effort.  Little inconsequential things to me that mean so much to a child, because they have it right, it really is the little things that make us happy, that show we care, that change the here and now into a positive.  Their innate ability to be utterly thrilled by the small things.

Thing Two is getting to an age where she wants more Mummy time and more girly time.  She's a wonderfully undemanding child so it's a subtle undertow that is detected rather then knowingly expressed.  We don't get enough time together and I really do need to rectify this, it really is my fault.  She adores her nails painting, it's a rare treat.  She has a tiny bottle of nail polish that goes on like glue yet needs about 4 coats to show a decent colour and then peels off within the hour.  So, I promised her that in the school holidays I would paint her nails using 'big girl nail polish'.  She asked once and I was too busy, she doesn't show her disappointment she just accepts it but I know it's there and I know I'm the root of it.  I said yesterday I'd either do them that night or this morning.  Last night I explained that as she was about to get in the bath it wasn't such a good idea and that I'd do them this morning.  I don't think she believed it would happen.  Her face was a picture this morning as we sat on my bed whilst my bath run.  We raided my makeup bag and found neon pink, neon green, neon orange, neon yellow and blue.  A colour for each nail.  Bright, shiny, happy rainbow nails. She drank up the attention like a hungry sponge, I could feel it fizzing in her veins and sparkling in her eyes.  All I was doing was painting her nails.  We chatted and we smiled, we giggled and we laughed.  She was chatting to me about creationism, theology and other topics that she's drawn to, despite being five years old.

She once asked her teacher, before 9am in the morning, 'Why do some people believe in God?' her teacher was mostly amused.  Thing Two is an Atheist.  She's told me that she only believes in things she can recognise and detect with her senses like books and tree's but not in God because he's not real and she can't sense him. She tells me she believes in the Big Bang Theory of how the earth came about and yet implored me to tell her how we as 'people' came about seeing as you need a person to have a baby so where and how did that person come about?  Which led on to The chicken and The Egg and evolution. All this in the ten minutes it took my bath to run and for me to paint her nails.

She's an astute smart cookie.  She was lecturing me on a grammatical inconsistencies in Ben and Holly the other day which is quite remarkable seeing as beyond sentences and full stops she's not au fait with the technicalities of grammar.  Whilst suffering from one of her far too common bouts of insomnia she proclaimed to The Husband late one night 'I keep on thinking that life is just one big dream...'

I'd say that I don't think it was ever really about the nails yet despite being a beautiful little oddling wise beyond her years, she still is a five year old little girl and of course it was about the nails.  Shiny colourful rainbow nails.......and time with mum, just mum.

Ten minutes out of a whole day and we both sparkled.

Maybe next time, if only for once, I'll get up off my fat backside and do one of the little things there and then....life is too short for 'not now's' and as a grown up it's far too empty of the little things that really do matter so very much.

It's one thing telling them they mean the world to us yet an entirely different kettle of fish proving it.  Proving that they're enough to make us stop what we are doing, for them, to do something fun and inane.

I've promised Thing Two a girly day out during the holidays, shopping and lunch with Nanna.  She's never been out with me and NOT The Toddler since he was born.

One day when she's an angsty whiny teen who wants nothing to do with me, I want to have memories, good memories that we can share when she's older about the little things we did together in this beautiful time of childhood that passes so very quickly.  I need to learn to grab hold of it for a while before it's gone. Words are cheap.

I watch you when you are sleeping

I love to watch The Toddler whilst he's asleep, inhaling his very essence.  I want to commit every single detail to my memory and store it in a draw in my heart.  I could stare for hours at the soft dimples of his knuckles in his pudgy little hands, dirty fingernails scruffy from a mornings play.  I wish I could count every crease, every hair, every indentation.  The rise and fall of his chest mezmorises me; a lullaby. I drink the sound of his breathing and the sighs that punctuate the beautiful silence.  I resist the urge, barely, to run my fingers through the golden tangles of his hair or to stroke his pinked cheeks.  I stare in marvel, unable to comprehend that he's part of me, this perfection, is part of me and me of him.  That I created him.  I grew him.  I nurtured him. I birthed him. This amazing being he is.  I look at him and my heart stops, I can't breath and for that moment, i don't even want to.  I'm incapable of looking at him and upholding the fact that he was once inside me, this whole complete beautiful human. One day he'll be a grown up, a man with stubble on his chin, thick hair on his legs, broad shoulders and hands that dwarf mine.  Until then......I shall watch him whilst he's sleeping and protect him from the world.

I never truly understood  love was until I had Children, I still don't understand it....it gets deeper every day though.  Impossibly so.