Womb With a View

"Can I play with my friends over at the church?" Daughter asked me yesterday while I was painting the porch. "There's something going on there. They're with their mums. Is that okay?"

"I guess it's fine. Just don't roll into traffic!" And as she took off, it dawned on me. The mums were there, with enfants, to join the Life Chain. That would be a line of people on Main Street showing support for the pro-life cause. My daughter. Mine.

Sure enough, she came home and had a million questions. "What exactly IS abortion?" I was unsure how to handle this one. How to explain the pro-life/pro-choice debate without getting too detailed or without clouding her with my opinions?

I chose to explain in very general terms but nothing vague and no lies. I think she's old enough to talk about this. We've already discussed the whole menstruation thing. I don't want her to think she's bleeding to death, you know?

But as I begun, she asked, "Would you have gone?"

Husband walked by at that precise time and laughed, "Mum would only go there to heckle!" So now I had to explain why, which I did again in general terms.

"Yeah, I thought it wasn't your thing," she said. "Actually, my friends asked if you'd be coming and I said that you probably wouldn't because you probably gave women abortions."

!!!

"Um, what gave you that impression?"

"I dunno," Daughter said. "You know a lot about women's health stuff and I remembered you volunteered at a family planning clinic. Some lady said that they give women abortions at those clinics."

So now Daughter knows about:
- menstruation
- abortion
- the birth control pill and other contraceptives
- the political system and women's current access to health care of their choice

But I haven't really talked about sex yet.

All I wanted to do yesterday was put a second coat of paint on the porch, dammit.