Teaching My Son About Inappropriate Touching

My nine-year-old son grabbed his 12-year-old sister’s butt this morning. I didn’t see it, but she was pissed off and he wasn’t denying it. They specialize in annoying each other, of course, and that seemed to be the intent of the incident. I interceded right away on this one, and maybe with a little more sternness than I normally would have. But just last night, I was thinking about the rape at Steubenville and the detailed replaying of it in social media, and I concluded that I’m with those who think we don’t do enough to educate our sons about rape, and maybe that conversation needs to start early, like by making clear to a nine-year-old that he’s not allowed to grab his sister’s private parts.

Adam is funny, clever, sweet, mischievous, a kid who likes to play the angles but, in the quiet moments at home, still likes to be babied. When I’m asked what he’s like, I have a stock line about how I often feel like I’m raising a fraternity social chairman; and my job, somehow, is to raise a mensch-y one. It may be silly and unfair to conjure a soft link to raising a nine-year-old and the incident in Steubenville, but I don’t think so: We love our kids, but we can’t assume they naturally know better. For teens, there probably should even be a place for the topic of rape in the school curriculum.

Later this morning, on the way to school, Adam informed me that Millard Fillmore, the 13th President of the United States, had a 12-inch penis—and he wanted to know if this was large. Only in the universe of nine-year old boys—who are equally obsessed with presidents and with penises—could the two get conflated in such a way. I mean, Millard Fillmore! I love the innocence. But in years to come, we’ll be having serious chats about penises, vaginas, relationships, respect, and the rest of it.

Eric Messinger is Editor of New York Family. He can be reached at emessinger@manhattanmedia.com