Censoring Lulu
November 18, 2009 3 Comments
Another day, another cafe outing. But this time, Lulu’s booming vocals were the most memorable part of the trip.
We made it through nearly the entire trip with no problems at all, then just as we were getting up to leave a genuinely enormous man walked in and approached the counter. I looked around to see if Lulu was following me, when she opened her mouth, pointed to the man, and loudly asked:
“Has that man been – “
I instantly leaped across the cafe and slapped my hand across her mouth (gently!), and whispered in her ear that she shouldn’t say that out loud. She had asked me once how people get fat, and I simply said, its because they’ve been eating too much. So I knew exactly what she was about to ask.
I took my hand off her mouth, thinking I’d managed to silence her. But no!
“But MUMMY,” she hollared “has that man been – “
Again, my hand went over her mouth. I scooped her up and started swiftly heading for the exit. I glanced around, and saw the large man watching, clearly aware he was the topic of conversation. Finding her mouth free again, Lulu tried for a third time.
“Mummy, has that man been eating too much?”
But by then, we were outside the cafe with the door closed behind us, and Lulu’s runaway mouth was turned firmly down at the corners.
My explanation wasn’t that great either. I found myself telling her that if you want to talk about someone, you either have the conversation with that person, or you talk about them when they can’t hear you. Great, I’ve just taught her to talk about people behind their backs.
Emma that is truly funny and reminds me of a horror afternoon at St Lukes with Emily. First a big guy walked past us and Emily said, extremely loudly “that man has got a big tummy hasn’t he mummy?”. To which I knelt down and explained that it’s not okay to tell people that they have big tummies even if it’s true because it makes people sad when people make comments about how they look. She looked confused. Clearly she hadn’t got the message because, just a few minutes later at the chemist, having just been given a necklace by the lovely lady working there (which she desperately wanted but I had refused to buy her), she repaid the kindness by saying to me… “mummy, that lady has got a big tummy hasn’t she”. I quickly paid for my goods, avoiding eye contact, and left the store. I was so mortified. How do you explain it? I had a bit of a go at her and in the end all I could think of was “it’s not okay to say people have big tummies and that’s all there is to it – don’t do it again”. So now she won’t even comment on pregnant tummies, lest she gets it wrong.
Ha! Poor you. Better to err on the side of caution, I think, so you’ve done well.
When Miss M was about 2 yrs old we were out shopping, and she said to me (about the cashier), “Mommy, he’s really ugly”. I was mortified.
Luckily the gentleman working the register, who I didn’t think was ugly at all, just laughed..