"No! You can't! Ewww! Gross!" began the tirade. And it went on...and on...and on...have I mentioned that my daughter possesses aspergian levels of persistence herself? Or that she argues like a courtroom lawyer? Or her addiction to high drama? I swear, it's been like living with a seventeen year old since she was four. I confess I usually have much less patience with her arguments. In this case I was biting my tongue to keep from laughing.
I tried to keep my mirth restrained, to be sensitive to her genuine distress and figure out where it was coming from. But I really almost lost it when she declared that she was afraid if I got my nipples pierced I'd be wanting to show off my ta-tas to everyone. "Oh honey, you have no idea", was all I could think. I mean, it's not as if I haven't been showing off my boobs to strangers on the internet for the past five years already!
In seriousness, I think my girlspawn's hyperbolic reaction to the idea of mommy getting her nipples pierced is more about her need for reassurance than anything else. She hasn't spoken of anyone specifically, but I know that many, perhaps most, of her classmates must be from so-called 'broken' homes. She sees that both mommy and daddy have relationships with other people that go beyond ordinary friendship. (We're obviously not having sex in front of the kids, or even kissing our other lovers in front of them. But when mommy spends the night at Tia's house, and Shy comes over on the weekends and sleeps in the same room as daddy, the kids are bound to think that something's up.) It makes perfect sense that she might be feeling anxious about the stability of the most important bonds in her life. Grownups involved in poly relationships need reassurance often, why shouldn't kids?
Ironically it was also our poly-ness that saved the day. Shygirl, my husband Izzy's submissive and the newest member of our family, has her nipples pierced. And the kids think Shy is one of the coolest grownups evah. So when I was trying to convince girlspawn that getting one's nipples pierced was a perfectly sane thing to do and I mentioned that Shy'd had hers done, it stopped my little ranter in her tracks.
(Of course, as I might have known this led directly to another parental adventure, when girlspawn begged to see Shy's nipple piercings while her little friends were over to play. But that's a story for another time.)
Now that she's had some time to ponder it - and had a private word with Shy about her piercings - my girl seems to be getting used to the idea of pierced nipples. Enough so that when we took her to see the St Pete Pride parade last weekend she excitedly proclaimed "Look mommy, I see a boy with his nipples pierced!"
