literature

A Scene in the McDodd Home

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It's one of those moments that every parent dreads, explaining the facts of life to their child.
It doesn't matter how great a parent you are, deep down we all secretly wish they could just learn about it from their friend on a bus ride home from a field trip. Then at least we wouldn't have to suffer their looks of confusion -or even horror - as we attempted to explain without looking directly at them.

Of course, this is all irrelevant for me...since I haven't actually had that particular talk with my kids yet.

Not that we haven't tried. No, a while back my wife got the idea of having "the talk" with our children, all of our children. Bad time to have ninety-seven kids.

I had had a pretty good day when she sprung it on me. I didn't lose a single document that had needed my signature, I didn't stumble onto or spill anything on anyone, and some of the girls and I had watched my favorite movie on TV after dinner.

I came into the bedroom ready for what I'd hoped was going to be a pleasant sleep. Sally was reading on her side of the bed, and as I climbed in she slowly put it down.

"You know Ned, Hooley's been asking some pretty mature questions lately," she said. I had just put my head to my pillow when she spoke. I turned over to face her and noticed that she was glancing at me quite awkwardly.

"What kind of questions?" I asked.

"Well, mostly about where babies come from."

I didn't think that was such a big deal. "She knows about that, she's seen enough of her sisters born to know."

She seemed surprised at my unworried attitude. "It's not like telling her "they come from Mommy"; she wants to know how they get here."

Then I finally got what she meant. That put me at a loss for words. How old was she? Twelve? That seemed far too young to me to want to know this stuff. Then again, I guess that things were different nowadays, but still...

"So...what are you going to tell her?"

She raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm going to be the only one telling her?" Her tone made me a tad more uncomfortable, like I should've known that I would have had to participate. So I almost didn't voice my next thought.

"I just thought that...you know...that we'd go by gender. You tell the girls when they were ready and I'd explain it to Jojo." Oh yeah, wrong thing to say.

I shrank under the now exasperated look she gave me.

"And why would you think that? Why should you be allowed to avoid the conversation ninety-six times just because I'm female and you're not?"

I chose my words carefully, so far we had avoided most small confrontations on how to raise the kids that had ended with me sleeping on the couch, and I wasn't sure f this one might turn into one of those.
"I don't know, I just thought it would be more awkward - for them - if they had to hear about this kind of stuff from their dad."

She "hmm"ed at this. She might have been playing that scenario in her mind. "I see your point," she said with some hesitation. Then she sighed and looked away from me. "It doesn't matter though, because I think that we should do it together. It may be embarrassing but it would be better for them to hear it from both of us."

A word in that quickly-spoken sentence stuck out to me. "Wait, them? You mean individually...right?"

She slowly looked back at me. The way she was dancing around it I knew it was not going to be good. "No, all together."

"What!?" I shouted before thinking, Sally shushed me and I made sure to lower my voice before continuing. "We can't do that! We don't need to! We can just talk to Hooley; we don't need to scar the younger girls' innocent little minds."

"Well, what happens when Hooley hears it from us, and decides to tell everyone else?" she asked, "It's like a small town in this family; you don't think that their little minds aren't going to hear it anyway? I just want them all to hear it at once. So they can get the facts, and we only have to do it once."

It still sounded like a bad idea to me. But, only having to go through with this once did sound alright. It was scaring me almost to the point of nausea, but at least it would be only once.

So reluctantly I agreed. The day that followed was not as pleasant as the previous one.

All day long I focused on that night when I came home and we'd have to call them all into the living room. What was I going to say? Would Sally mind doing most of the talking? How did I think I could even do this when speaking to crowds still intimidated me? Or maybe that was just because this particular crowd was so important. I wanted to be a good dad, but I just wasn't sure if they'd see things any differently after such a mature talk. Would they all still be kids?

Far too soon the clock in my office announced the time to leave. I took the longest possible route, but it still wasn't long enough, because then I reached my house.

A few of the older girls were helping Sally with dinner. I tried to sneak by but she caught me in the hallway.

"We'll get them all together after dinner, alright?"

"Oh, are we still doing that?" I said in an effort to sound calmer than I felt. "Yeah, that's alright." I obviously wasn't hiding it very well.

"It's going to be fine." she reassured me. "It's not as difficult as you're making it, I'll be right there with you to field the tougher questions if you want." I was glad that whatever worries she'd had from last night seemed completely gone. It actually made me feel a little better.

Dinner flashed by without me tasting a thing, and then suddenly the moment was upon me. Sally had already begun gathering them all in the couches, chairs, and floor of our living room. I noticed Jojo move into his favorite seat, looking just as confused as some of his sisters.

It was a while before they all settled down, with many fighting over who had what spot and who stole what spot, but then all was quiet, and all eyes were on me.

Well, on both of us.

Sally looked like she was losing some of her nerve, but when she spoke it didn't sound like it. "Ok kids, I know you all are wondering why we called this meeting..."

"Are you having another baby?" interrupted Polly.

"No, sweetie." Sally answered. She wasn't too far off, though. "Anyway, I hope we can all listen and be grown-up about this."

Then she looked over to me, and I knew that it was my turn now.

I looked out over all those pairs of eyes. One-hundred and ninety-four eyes individually, somehow doing the math didn't help any. I took a deep breath, him-hawing a bit. "Ok...um...you see kids, when Whos reach a certain age...they all go through these sorts of changes." I made little circles with my finger, and tried not to rush my words too much. "Some of them are good...and some are...really messy but anyway, back to what I was saying, they decide to...take a new step in their lives..." I paused, biting my lip. I don't know really why I did it, but I guess it just became too huge to me. So, I went for the cop-out.

"Long-story-short you're getting a puppy!" Then, as the cheers swelled, I bolted from the room.

Sally followed bewilderedly after me, and we actually did wind up having a confrontation that ended with me on the couch. But at least now we have a dog, and Sally and I decided to wait a little while longer to give the kids "the talk".

So they (and I) could grow a little more.
I was over at my grandmother's so that I could use her computer to get online, and I took the chance during some downtime to write this little ficlet up.

The origin of this is really just that after seeing HHaW, little scenes would pop into my head about what daily life must be like in the McDodd household. Like, when do the kids go to bed? Ned has to kiss all of them goodnight, so how long would that take?

And what if the older kids wanted to stay up later?

Then I thought about what would happen down the road as they all got older, and this came into my head. Especially the last part.

Since I did it so fast, it's probably not that great, and I betcha everyone's ooc. But I thought it was funny, and for some reason it even came out in first-person, and that usually NEVER happens for me.

I also think that them having a dog isn't funny enough, it would be funnier if they had a tiny pet, like a gerbil.

Yes, this is the type of stuff that runs through my little brain.
© 2008 - 2024 katrinamyla
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KittyTheNerd's avatar
My grandma gave me the talk when I was 12. She drew  pictures! She also told me about how my cousin was gay by comparing her to Terk from Tarzan.