Sheltered

A few days ago Rebecca was reading a book. She looked up and asked me, "Mom, what does it mean to be a jerk?"

At this, I did some quick thinking. How do you explain that? I told her that it is when someone does something that isn't nice, other people would call them a jerk. I quickly followed up with how this was not a nice word, and we don't call people that name. Then I asked her what book she was reading (so, if necessary, I could have her stop reading that series). She assured me that the kid in the book said he was acting like a jerk, not someone else calling him that name.

Then I thought about the situation more rationally. My 7 1/2 year-old daughter doesn't know what the word jerk means. My daughter who is about to enter second grade hasn't been called this name or heard someone else called it. My children don't call each other names like this. (They think calling each other "Mister" or "Bad Girl" is pretty mean stuff.)

I know what this means. It means that my children live a sheltered life. By the time I was 7 years old, I knew things a lot worse than the word jerk. (I also had 3 older siblings, which makes a difference...) While my children are sheltered, there is nothing more I want than to keep them that way for as long as possible. There is so much evil and meanness in the world, and they will experience that soon enough. But I want them to have the knowledge that home is a safe place to be sheltered from the pains and cruelty that come in the outside world.