Crude Talk

As I have mentioned before, it still surprises me when Catherine says things that she has learned elsewhere. For the first five years of her life she was in such a protected environment with us and a small group of caretakers that I felt like I had a pretty good idea of everything she saw, heard and experienced.

Two weeks ago while driving in the car I heard Catherine recite the following poem, while laughing:

Trick or treat
Give me something good to eat
If you don’t I don’t care
I’ll just pull down your underwear

What!?! I foggily remembered that poem from my childhood, so was a little surprised that in the past three decades children still recite that poem and still find humor in it. But I have been working in juvenile court for 15 years with deprived and delinquent children. There is nothing funny about sexual assault and ripping someone else’s clothes off.

So I asked Catherine where she learned that poem. She said “on the hayride.” On Halloween our neighborhood hosts a huge party which includes crafts, dinner, games and a hayride. Most of the children are older than Catherine, so it made total sense to me that she learned the poem on that hayride.

But I was torn – what should I do when she is making a joke about pulling down someone’s underwear? I was conflicted with whether I should ignore the statement and hope she forgets about it or use it as a teaching opportunity and explain what is right and wrong.

I decided to ignore the statement and hope she forgets about it. But, over the next week she continued to repeat the poem incessantly, telling it to her sister and laughing every time. So, I had to address the issue. I explained to Catherine that it was OK to say the poem, but that she was never allowed to pull down someone else’s underwear and no one was allowed to pull down her underwear. Hopefully, my lesson was sufficient. We have never had any reports of her trying to pull down someone else’s underwear or someone trying to pull down her underwear, but I wanted to make sure she knew that it was not funny.