I caught my son on the crapper with his father’s Playboy.
Sure, it was upside down. Sure, he’s only 3 1/2-years old.
But I’ll be damned if he didn’t get all embarrassed and throw it to the ground.
When I asked him, laughing, what he was doing he said, “Nothing,” with a shit-eating grin on his face.
The magazine may have been upside down, but it was clearly not the monthly interview portion of the rag.
I don’t care in the slightest that he’s looking at naked women. I don’t care that he’s curious and thinks its funny to see boobs. BUT, if we hide those magazines do we implant the idea that what he did was wrong? If we don’t hide them, will he be playing doctor with the girls at preschool a little too soon?
Do you hide your Playboy? Do you leave it out? Do you keep it under the sink counter and if the kids look, they look?
I don’t want to give the impression there is anything wrong with nudity or exploring your sexuality or getting that tingly feeling down below.
I also don’t want to raise a perv.
I don’t have Playboys around my house, I get my porn from the Internets…
What I have NEVER understood is this:
Do men really get turned on by looking at naked women while they are taking big smelly dumps?
I remember finding one of my dad’s Playboy’s in his dresser drawer and showing it to my mom. She freaked out (right in front of me) and went on and on about how he was supposed to get rid of all of his magazines before I was born. (I was 8 or 9 by this point). It was a really bizarre moment in my childhood. To be honest I wish she’d have just said “go put it back, it’s just for adults”.
My husband doesn’t have any of those magazines(to my knowledge), but if he did, I hope he’d keep them hidden from our kids. There’s one thing to talk openly with your child about sexuality…it’s a whole other to rub it in their faces.
I’d keep them put up out of little one’s reach. And if they do stumble on them again. Talk about it. Dont start freaking out and hollering in the backyard like my mom did! LOL!
I’d put them away, hide, or high, whatever.
The reason is that until he starts asking and getting honest answers from you about the differences in the anatomy of boys and girls, he’ll be getting instruction in the reproductive and stimulating function without understanding the why in the differences of the forms.
My little guy said to me just yesterday morning that he wants to sit down to make pee-pee, but he has the choice, because his penis is large enough to let him do that or stand and aim, but my penis (apparently I have one) is verrry small, so I HAVE to sit down.
We’re making our way through all the differences, and no one in my household is hiding bodyparts (though except for the newfound need for privacy that my ten-year old has expressed).
Maybe it will help.
i won’t speak for husband – too much – in this post. but when we married and built a family, periodicals such as playboy did not find their way into our house.
it wasn’t because i nagged, or felt under appreciated sexually… it was because he had a daughter and he didn’t like the idea of some strange man shitting and looking at his daughters boobies.
My experience with perverts is that they will be perverts regardless of how nicely they are raised. And sometimes because of. And most boys are perverts.. lol
I take your point though. I’d hide them better, and keep having the great attitude you’ve got if he finds them again.
That’s a great question… I love that he was dumping while looking at it though…Just like a guy!
Even though I do not have kids, I feel it is my duty (ha!) to respond anyway.
I think they should be kept out of sight, but not hidden in such a way that it implies that the magazines are illegal or something. When he finds them (and he will. Again.) just talk to him, like what Jen said.
For obvious reasons, we really don’t subscribe to Playboy at our house… though the other stuff is pretty securely hidden. 🙂
We’re having issues with the same thing. My husband just keeps them under the sink, as Squeaks is too young to really know any better. Sure, there are days when I catch her carrying around an ad for “Hot Young Ass”, but I think it’s funny. But I also don’t want her to be a sex freak at 10 years old. I’m trying to figure out how much exposure it alright.
Well, it’s not all out on the coffee table here. Rather stock piled in the bottom dresser drawer, yes there is enough to fill a large dresser drawer.
The boys know that it is there, that there are a few out in the master bathroom magazine rack, but they haven’t been overly curious. We’ve told them that Dad looks at them because he thinks the women in them are beautiful and that I don’t mind it if he looks. I’ve told the boys that I know that there will be a day when nude women interest them and that it was a normal part of growing up, just don’t grow up too fast.
There are differences in porn and I’d hand them a Playboy over a Hustler anyday.
We don’t have any playboys in our house although we do have an “adult catalog” or two, which stay locked away in a file cabinet in a closet. Not trying to imply nudity is wrong….I am just not sure that I understand what some of the stuff J.T.’s Stockroom sells is for:)
Although I do wish that they would make a night stand with a lockable top drawer:)
Honestly, I think when he’s older I think it’s okay, but for right now you should probably put them up. I think if it were just a matter of him viewing the female form it would be one thing, but that’s not the case here. Magazines like that are intended to be sexually arousing. I’d worry about the impact that it could have on him as he gets older.
I think if it were a magazine that showed naked women at work, at play, in the home, in everyday situations, and the focus was not on their sexuality it would be different.
Personally, I think he has a strong mother and an equally strong father. You’ll teach him about gender equality by example, regardless of what he sees now. He has the rest of his life to look at tits and ass, let him be a little boy and shelter his innocence now while you still can.
Either way, you’re a great mom. Relax. Kids are resilient… Thank God!
It’s really a tough one…..you and the Kais are going to have to decide what you are comfortable with on this one.
Unless we’re all coming over to make the rest of your morality decisions for you too.
But, just to amuse you – my 4 year old once announced to my mother that “sometimes his penis gets big”……he was about 2 at the time.
So, I think we’re helpless against the onslaught of male hormones.
I think Playboy fits under the umbrella of “that which is meant for adults”. Kids understand what is “for adults” and what is “for kids”. I think it may be easier to decide to put them away if you redefine what they represent and instead of representing sex ed, they represent “adult activity”. No need to bring your toddler into an adult activity.
Plus if he gets into Playboy now, he’ll be really bored in highschool!
My parents had the Playboys in my parents bathroom in the magazine rack. I looked a few times, and my mom always just said to put it back when I was done. My brother stole it and put it in his room, so my mom again said the rule is it has to stay in their bathroom. My dad stopped getting it when I turned 16, saying something about how the girls in there were now too cloe to my age for it to be something he wanted to look at.
My husband and I have a box in the top of his closet where things like that are stored (too much information?) My kids are so little right now and my mother in law snoops, so I just wouldn’t want to have to have an uncomfortable conversation with either of them right now!
My advice is this:
Explain to your child that it is for adults. It’s not ‘wrong’, or ‘bad’, but that it’s not for him to see at this point in his life just as you don’t take him to scary movies or let him watch rated R stuff (assuming you’re at that stage of explanation). Just make it clear that you’re not mad at him for his curiosity, just that it’s not something children should be looking at yet. It’s for when he’s older.
This is coming from someone that isn’t a parent, but that would be how I would handle the situation if it were me.
I looked at our housemate’s Playboys as a kid. I also looked at friends’ parents’ copies of Hustler, Screw… and others, I’m sure. Ah, childhood in the 70s with young parents.
When my mother found me one day perusing a Playboy in our bathroom (I was probably 6 or 7), she said it was fine to look at, but I needed to know that real people don’t look like that (she explained airbrushing) and that for the most part people, especially women, didn’t *act* like that, either.
It gave me some perspective. I still grew up with all the body-image issues of most American girls, but it’s possible that can’t be avoided, nudie rags or no. I do recall getting the impression from those magazines that women spend a lot of time giving blow jobs but men never go down on women, whose parts are too hairy, and apparently, smelly. It was years before I was disabused of those notions. 😉
Whether to keep them toddler accessible depends on your (as parents) comfort level with discussing stuff w/ your son & daughter. They might get the idea that girls have to act a certain way, or look a certain way… or they might assume that some adult behaviors are okay for kids. Seems to me that either of these could be avoided by lots of conversation.
Of course, “lots of conversation” opens you up for the slings and arrows of what your fellow parents will think when your kids tell their pals, and their pals’ parents, about all the delightful discussions at home. Truth be told, I said some pretty outrageous things to family friends, and even neighbors, on topics WAY out of a 7-year old’s league. Looking back, that could have been dangerous if one of those friends or neighbors had been predatory.
All in all, I think I turned out relatively normal… or at least, no more screwed up than most!
what kind of mother ARE you?! what kind of father is HE?! you sickos – don’t you know that sex is purely for reproductive purposes? pornography is a sin. and there is a reason why CHILD porn is illegal. come on.
love,
freaky huff-po right winger
Great issue…I have a boy/girl twins and they are 4 and I am not ready for them to be looking at porn. But we talk about our various body parts, they know the proper names and obviously see each other naked every day.
Like others have mentioned, it is the balance between waiting until they are ready, but making sure that the topic of nudity, of sex, etc. is always open, that they are comfortable with their own bodies.
I don’t know what is better. I guess you just have to go with your gut instinct!
But, what is it with men reading Playboy on the crapper?
Wow! Hard decision and scenario. Not sure what I would do. We have materials around, but it is all very well hidden.
Just catching up and thoroughly amused that everyone is admitting to their stashes of porn.