Our 2 and 1/2 year old plays next door with the 8-year old boy quite often. The neighbor is an lonely only child, understimulated, and a little young for his age, so they make a good pair. Let’s call him “K.”
So a week ago, K brought my son home and said that he was hungry and needed to eat. It was strange, because usually we have to drag my son home and he rarely says he’s hungry, but we didn’t think too much about it.
In the middle of dinner, my son asks my wife, “Have you seen K’s penis?” Confused, we said, “No. Why?”
My son continued, “Cause K pulled his pants down and told me to eat his penis. And I said no. Penises are yuck. I eat food. I don’t eat penises.” We said, “Really?”
“Yeah. Penises are yuck. I told K, I’m not going to eat your penis. I eat food.” We began to realize why my son had been brought home and where the “he’s hungry” story had come from - we think my son wouldn’t stop talking about it.
We didn’t freak out. We know 8-year-old boys are into experimenting and it’s probably just something he heard on the playground. We hadn’t yet given my son the whole molestation conversation, but we quickly had one and he obviously understood. We were just amazed and proud at how he handled the whole situation.
So my wife bravely went over to the neighbors and told them what had happened. We tried to make it clear that we weren’t particularly upset, but it has been awkward with our neighbors ever since. They are good people - we just thought we’d give them some time to calm down before letting the kids play together again. I think they’ll be more closely supervised from now on. And we learned that we don’t have to worry too much about our son.
Well, um, congratulations (does one offer congratulations in a situation like this?). I think you’re probably right that it was just kids experimenting but you’re also right to insist that the kids be monitored closely and not be left alone together.
If I may put in a personal plea for tolerance, please also monitor your son’s “penises are yuck” thing so that it doesn’t turn into full-blown homophobia.
Just a guess, but I think he was referring to them as a food source as opposed to…something other than a food source. I don’t see that as something that could turn into homophobia.
Am I the only one wondering if K is okay? Not just that he’s playing with a much younger kid, but his saying such a thing makes me at least consider that he may be getting molested.
The thought also crossed my mind. If he’s playing with kids his own age most of the time and just messing around with the toddler briefly, once in a while, I don’t see a problem. But if he’s spending a lot of time with a 2 year old, there’s something wrong.
We had some teenage boys next door to us when my son was a kid. Sometimes they’d wrestle or toss a ball, and that was OK. But when they wanted big kid time and my boy would go over there wanting to hang out, they’d end up throwing his shoes up on the roof to get him to leave. It was clear they only had a passing interest in playing with him.
Either that or his folks aren’t particularly quite about their sexual activity. Not to accuse the parents of doing anything wrong, but it’s possible K overheard his dad say it to mom or something. Somewhere he must have come across the idea of “eating” penis or at least putting it in another persons mouth. I just don’t see that as something a kid would think of all on his own.
He could be developmentally disabled, that’s how it was with me. My best friend was half my age when I was in junior high, I simply didn’t have much in common with boys my own age.
You’d be amazed what kids can think of on their own. I got busted in kindergarten for asking girls to take their pants and underwear off during nap time. I’m not proud of it or anything in hindsight, but it was obvious that there was an erotic fixation with female genitals present even though I wasn’t aware of that as a reason at the time. All manner of sex play occurs in children without real knowledge of sex itself, or sexual acts. When you think about it, as a male, you’ve got a thingy, and a sense that it goes somewhere, so you kind of figure where it goes. An issues of Playboy I saw when I was six gave me virtually all the info I needed to complete the picture
FTR I wasn’t suggesting sitting down a 2.5 year old and having the birds and bees discussion. All I was saying is that homophobia is learned and asking hapaXL to help keep his son from learning it. No accusations, no recriminations, no anything other than that.
When I was about 7, I got caught playing Doctor with the little sister of a kid we played with. She was maybe…5? Her parents were bonkers with anger. Mine were pretty much the same. We were down to nothing but t-shirts, but still…at that age? I mean, my current sexual interests aside, at that age I would think it was pretty innocent curiosity stuff. My parents were extremely private people, I didn’t come by the curiosity from overhearing or seeing anything inappropriate.
Speaking as someone who’s had some training with this stuff, an eight year old asking for oral sex is a warning sign. It’s already strange if he can only play with much younger kids, but the oral-genital connection cranks up the warning level. That’s not something that pops naturally into an eight year old’s mind unless he’s seen it.
It may not be that he’s been molested, it could very well be that he’s just seen some pornography somewhere. But he’s been exposed to the image of oral sex somehow.
I would not allow a two year old to be around this kid unsupervised for any length of time.
Frankly, when I was working in schools, I would have been mandated to report an incident like this. It’s likely nothing would have come of it (at least not the first time) but I would have had to report it. It isn’t nothing.
Ugh, this was my first thought too when I read the post. I was kind of alarmed myself about this. I’m not sure I would want the two to play again together after this, but then again I’m really sensitive to this kind of stuff. It could seem innocent now, but why take the chance for more to happen later?
Ott, for heavens sake, this is a 2 year old! He doesn’t know ANYTHING about that-at that age, genitals are where PEE comes from, and that’s yucky.
I would have said the same thing at that age, and I’m a straight female.
Yeesh.
Another thing-why is an 8 year old’s primary playmate a two year old? That’s another thing that set off alarm bells.
Frankly, I wouldn’t let him play with my kid at all, supervised or not.
If I remember my “Child Development” Psyche course correctly, “playing Doctor” to figger out what makes girls and boys different is normal behaviour between ages 3 to about 5 years of age. That usually just curiosity-no biggie.
What the OP described is scarey. The 8yo has been exposed to oral sex porn at some point. Monkey see, monkey do. He may have been abused already. And left unsupervised may do something unpleasant to other child. He needs help. I hope that he gets what he needs.
She didn’t believe a six year old was capable of saying that.