Innocence

By Joshilyn Jackson

She is on the tail end of it. It is going. She is my youngest, and her eyes are still wide and feckless. She is a flibbertigibbet. She cannot be pinned down. She gets every solo and the lead in every play, she is the only girl in jazz who can do a full split. She is built like a blade of grass.

She wants toe shoes. She wants to know who she will marry. She wants a puppy. She is incapable of turning in her book report on time. She likes a boy, a boy, a boy and she doesn’t even know what that means, but she knows enough so that I am pretty sure she would die if I told you what his name was.

Setting: The pediatricians office, waiting for her check –up. While we wait, and wait, and wait, she gets bored enough with her own book to ask me to read her the pamphlet on puberty in girls. We read it. We get to the part about periods.

Her, in outraged tones: Does that really happen?

Me, very matter of fact: Yup.

Her: Well whose idea was that?

Setting: My basement. A commercial for insurance or banking or something comes on and someone who might be 5 for Fighting is singing, “I’m 22 for a moment...”

Her: I don’t get that song. It makes it sound like your twenty-two for, like, a second, and then BANG, what, you are forty-five all of a sudden?

Me: Yes. Exactly.

Her: Mama. That doesn’t make ANY sense to me.

Me: *I wait til she prances out of the room to say, in an ominous tone* It will.  

Setting: We are rubbing the belly of a nice dog.

Her: Why do Ansley’s nipples look like that, like, weird and poinky down like that?

Me: Ansley was a mommy-dog. The puppies nursed there, and pulled them down a little.

Her: EW! It’s kinda gross. I’m glad that doesn’t happen to PEOPLE!

Me: *crickets*

It’s going. She used to look like this, and now? She’s nine.

The last day I was truly innocent happened when I was nine. Things changed that year --- a hundred things happened. Here is one: I stole Alex Haley’s ROOTS and read it under the covers. The slave ships, the rape, the foot. I never knew people could be so mean. Literally. I did not know there were people in the world capable of such things.

Her last day is coming, but I take her to rub the bellies of adoptable dogs and read her Frances Hogsden Burnett because it’s not my job to end these days. The world will do it for me.

When did you lose yours?

Comments

[judy merrill larsen]

I love this. Love love love. I think i lost mine in 4th grade. I was new in town and I discovered girls could be really mean behind your back.

[Karen in Ohio]

Joshilyn, as the mother of three wonderful girls, this one made me tear up. We lose our innocence far too early in this day and age.

I was older than most--in high school, and it was too traumatic to share publicly. Besides, I think one of my aunts reads this blog, and she would drop her teeth.

[Joshilyn Jackson]

I hear you Karen-- it wasn't JUST Roots for me either, but you can't tell them all, all the things.

Some of them you can't tell.

I remember in 6th grade -- if you want to hear one I can't tell. HEH

In sixth grade, a magazine drive happened and you could WIN PRIZES? you know how they do? Fundraiser prizes. And to get kids riled up, they threw soem free prizes including the pink spangly lizard beanbag doll I coveted.

An 8th grade boy caught it. After I went up to him and said, "Wow, that's what I am going to try to win!"

Him: Want this one?
Me: REALLY????
Him: Sure. You can have it. If you suck my dick.

His friends LOST IT BAHAHHAHAHAHHA

I literally RAN away. Turned and RAN! I was ashamed and revolted and ---the very IDEA was FRESH information. Not a good way to get it.

[Karen in Ohio]

Ick!

[stuckinmypedals]

I held onto my innocence longer than most. I started teaching at 22 and had to make my first CPS report. I remember going home that day, heartbroken to live in a world where children are beaten and starved at the hands of their parents. It is a blessing and a curse to have a job wherein I help make sure those kinds of things stop.

[Holly Gault]

Blubbering.
This and Kira's post yesterday:
http://kiwords.blogs.com/kiwords/2011/04/not-wrong-just-so-so-different.html

[Holly Gault]

From Hank:
oh, Joss, you are always so wonderful...

when I was about..11? maybe younger, a bit? A client of my father had his daughter invite me to a costume party she was giving...it was a must-do..She had to invite me, I had to go, even though she was cool and I wasn't. it was boys dress as girls, girls dress as boys. It was a LONG time ago, so it was all acceptable.

'So at the last minute, the family decided it wouldn't be girls-dress-as-boys. But the mean girl hostess decided not to tell me that.

[Tenessa]

The last day, for sure, now that I look back was when I was 8. I was molested by a trusted person. I was sosososo innocent, I did not even realize why things felt so wrong until I was old enough to recognize it for what it was. I lost my innocence that day, but I did not know it. I can now see the innocence refusing to relinquish its hold; clinging to my younger self until it was broken in the easiest of ways as a teen whose eyes were opening wider to a world that seemed larger and scarier than ever.

As an adult that has dealt with the ghosts of the past and put them away as best I can, I can see that night, almost three decades ago, was a turning point in my life. Sexuality became a sort of secret obsession of mine. One I never talked about probably because sex was not discussed at my house and because I was ashamed of my curiosity, of my knowledge.

[Storyteller Mary]

I stayed mostly in my own "anything is possible" world until college, and the Vietnam War, and friends being drafted, and photos of napalmed children.
I do wish the innocence could be preserved a little longer.

[[email protected]]

I was in fourth grade, and a girlfriend who was a bit older (and whom I idolized) told me how babies were made. I didn't believe her. Two weeks later on a Girl Scout overnight, i told an entire cabin of girls what I had heard. They were as appalled as I. One of them went home and asked her mother if it was true. As a result, she wasn't allowed to hang around with me anymore. I lost more innocence to that than to finding out the facts of life, but I did learn to keep my mouth shut. My own mother was lovely about it when she got the irate call about me. I should have gone to her in the first place, and I did after that.

[Alan P.]

This is my house right now, although the Princesses have always known that babies get nursies and unlucky babies get fake breast milk. But, Princess one is nine and getting breasts and hair and doesn't want to talk about periods, but she does like sitting next to Sammy at Religious School.

This weekend we will try to read "The Journey That Saved Curious George", so I can teach her about evil in the world.

[Catherine]

Oh. Yes. I lost much of my innocence at eight, when people started telling me that my body wasn't good enough, and that I was worth less because I weighed more than they thought I should. Other kids, mostly. Some teachers, too. The worst was the older girls who yelled "BOOM ba-ba, BOOM ba-ba" behind me every time I took a step in tennis class. No, that's not it.... the worst was the gym teacher who saw and let them do it. Yeah, the adults were the ones who kicked my innocence to the ground and punched it in the face. The kids were mean, but that happened a lot and was just part of the way the world worked, as I already understood it. The adults were the ones who successfully made me believe that I didn't matter.

I stayed innocent in a way about the world at large until MUCH later. I had a deep-seated trust that the world was getting better, that the US and people on the whole were kinder and smarter than in the past, and that we'd learned from our mistakes and wouldn't act out of revenge or fear or prejudice anymore, at least on a large scale. That ended the day AFTER 9/11, and it was a big shift in my worldview. I was 24. I'm still reeling.

[lil Gluckstern]

I think I was innocent until the day I realized that the world was a dangerous place. I must have 5 or 6, and we driving along the Hudson River in New York City. There were sailors patrolling near some battleships. My mother explained about the war (II) and all the possible evil people who could be out to hurt us. After 65 years, I still remember the fear, and the anxiety that i was raised with. My parents were survivors of the Holocaust, and it never left them. I have hope, but it is hard these days. Hope everyone is safe.

[lil Gluckstern]

Wonderful post, by the way; your little girl sounds charming.

[EmBee]

I lost mine in second grade when I learned from a family member that the scars on my father's wrists and the bends of his elbows were from a nearly-successful suicide attempt that happened when I was an infant. Deceit, mortality, self-destruction, fallibility, mental illness - all in one fell swoop.

[Gayle Carline]

Mine ended at 11-and-a-half, when I got my period, which wasn't supposed to happen until I was TWELVE because Grandma said it would and my mom told me, "I wish you hadn't started so young." I spent the day wandering around the yard with that weird padding where I'd never worn padding before and thought, "Well, this is it. The end of my childhood. I am now a slave to my body." Felt like a huge weight chained to my ankle. No more flying for me.

Having only a son, I am a tad envious of your wonderful daughter and your ability to look into her world, if only because you know what Female looks like, biologically speaking. I love my son, but he is sometimes an alien. In many ways, he still seems innocent. He's 18 and laughs at dirty jokes and innuendo, but his eyes are still brimming with trust and optimism. I sure want him to hold onto that.

[gaylin in vancouver]

First thing - that baby picture is so adorable!

Secondly, yeah, the whole step-grandfather pedophile means innocence was lost pretty young. Sometimes I think the hardest part of the badness in my childhood was no one rescued me and believe me I waited to be rescued.

[Joshilyn Jackson]

Oh my lord, you people make me laugh and you break my heart.

[Joshilyn Jackson]

BY THE WAY --- I can;t BELIEVE how young these little girls are gettign their periods now. WHen I was nine, NO ONE had breast buds or periods. A few began havign these things SWELL into ten, most of us where 11, 12, 13----Is it the MILK?

[gaylin in vancouver]

Joshilyn,
Saw a news story the other day and they are saying that good nutrition is what is causing the young age of menarche. It means that young girls are healthy (or heavy) enough to make them babies sooner . . .

[Skipper Hammond]

Not till I was a grown woman and my son died. His sister was only four when she learned things don't always come out good in the end.

[Reine]

MHS spring football practice. Seaside Park, Marblehead. Tommy had a heart attack and died.

[Reine]

I thought only old people had heart attacks.

[Joshilyn Jackson]

Oh my. That just makes me weep.

And Reine -- I know,me too -- old big bellied type white male executives, screaming about buy low sell high---That's who we think will have heart attacks.

And it;s the number 1 killer of women, too --- all ages.

[Amy]

There were lots of things that opened my eyes, the specifics of which don't matter. But even with more awareness of ugly, unpleasant happenings and ideas, I don't think I truly lost my innocence until my dad died.

[Elizabeth- Cambridge, MA]

I'm not sure I can pinpoint one moment. In high school, a boy took advantage of me and I didn't even realize it was wrong until I was older. We were dating but he was 18 and I was 15... What were my parents thinking???

I lost my grandfather when I was 7 and for 14 years thought he had died because he had cancer (and my dad said something about bone cancer and how horrible it was) but then my mom informed me that he had committed suicide to keep us from having to watch him die. That was possibly the moment where everything changed in my personal life, especially because I still see the scenes from What Dreams May Come when I think about suicide...

9/11 was pretty powerful too but I'm not sure I fully understood what it meant at the time. Now my baby brother is 18 and joined the Marines and my innocence is going to be destroyed all over again.

[Reine]

Elizabeth, that is so very sad... your grandfather. Your brother, too... so hard to watch them do that. One of my boys was a fleet marine. He came home, though, and he is healing.

[Pam aka SisterZip]

At the age of 12, I had construction workers...grown men...make lewd and definately not suggestive comments about me and my body. My Lutheran elementary school was building a new gym & more classrooms and these construction workers were sitting on one of the high walls of the gym. I just kept my eyes forward and walked home. I never told my mother or my teacher. I guess I knew it wouldn't matter if I did.

[Storyteller Mary]

Oh Pam -- that's terrible. One would have thought the school would have done something. They had a duty to protect you. When an addition was being built to Henderson Junior High (conversion to Francis Howell North), our principal had a talk with the workers, and they agreed to moderate their language and not drink beer while school was in session. Of course, Wayne G. could talk nearly anyone into nearly anything. He was just that reasonable.
It doesn't quite reach the level of Designing Women, but a very classy and confident professor at U of Minnesota- Minneapolis introduced herself to cat-calling construction workers, said she would prefer proper and respectful greetings as she went to work in the morning, learned their names (that part would be hard from my swiss cheese memory circuits) and from then on they said "Good morning" "like civilized people." I almost fell out of my chair when she told us about it . . . not sure I could have done it myself.

[Carol R]

I was seven when we immigrated from Canada. My younger brother had been sent to live with my grandparents for health reasons and we moved to be with him as soon as my parents could manage it. He was not happy to see us. He had grown to really enjoy being an only child of doting grandparents and did not want to share. It was shocking to realize people move on and don't look back. I loved my life in Canada and for years resented having to give it up for someone I was no longer important to. We're friends now, but that is the work of decades.

[Harley]

For me it was high school. My friend Bill, a beautiful, talented, kind boy woke up dead, at age . . . 16? A heart ailment no one knew he had. A month later, my friend Julie was hit by a bus while riding her bike in the rain.

My twins are about to turn 9, and my oldest is 11 and going through puberty. You are singing my songs. This is a beautiful (scary) blog.

[edj]

Oh I LOVE this post. LOVE. It makes me think--not back to my own loss of innocence, but of my own daughter, now 14. We were living in Mauritania, in North Africa, and she was 4-nearly-5 and looked about 3, and she fell asleep at a party, and a young man loaned me his robe to cover her with and told me he'd like to marry her. No one lost innocence in this story, but it made me think of it. (He was about 16 and he was willing to wait till she was 15 or 16 herself, he told me. I thought I was very polite in how I responded but my Mauritanian friend told me later that I was actually very rude) I think it reminded me because she was still a baby and yet he thought of her differently.

[karen]

This is so beautiful. I have been struggling with my writing after a loss in the family and now, at 6am, as I read your blog, you have inspired me another inch towards my pen and paper. Thank you for the lovely words, for the insight into your adorable girl and for me, the inspiration.
K

[Alan P.]

This fall, about ten young men will discover they have congenital heart defects during football practice. They will die that day of heart attacks before they are 21. I was in college (18) when the news blurb announcing "today's top story at 10" was one of my teammates from high school football died that way at UMSL. The theme from Hill Street Blues has been a little sadder since.

Just last night a co-worker told me his brother in law has been molesting a family member, age 3. It never gets better, does it?

[Cornelia Read]

Oh, how beautiful, dear Joss! And I just took my kid to her incoming freshman college open house, two weekends ago. I think we both lost our innocent worldview around age five, in a lot of ways.

[Sandi]

I was thirteen, in eighth grade. October 19, 1981. I was the smartest girl in my class, and the fastest. My father was a teacher, I loved to read, and I was more comfortable talking to adults than many of my peers. I was most definitely not popular. The most popular girl was Sara, and she was not nice to me, or anyone else outside of her narrow circle. Two friends and I wrote a nasty note to her (well, nasty by my innocent thirteen-year-old standards) and put it in her locker. Somehow, someone told that I wrote it, and there was an ugly scene in the hallway with a teacher. There was no official punishment, but I felt tied to Sara because of it. Months passed, Sara wrote a nasty note of her own classifying all of the girls. Lots of hard feelings. A few days later, I heard a rumor that she was home sick because she tried to kill herself by drinking Drano. I thought about going to her house, but figured, what could I do? - she wouldn't want to talk to me. Besides, it was just a rumor. That night she covered her Barbie Dream House with a sheet, removed her Jordache jeans from the clothesline in the basement, hung her father's hunting rifle from the ceiling and shot herself.

[Jill]

I was in 9th grade and babysat for folks who had Playboy magazines spread on their coffee table - yep - wow - rocked my 15 year old world. And that was 1970's playboys - probably more innocent than now - don't know.

10th grade - my good friend's dad died - another type of innocence destroyed by realizing that not just old folks die - her dad was 45.

[Julie]

This broke my heart. Thank you for writing it.

[Roxanne]

I have shared in some of the same experiences of the other posters--learning about sex, mean girls, but THE EPISODE that caused me to lose my innocence--not where I was merely embarassed but felt dirty--was when a cousin of my mom's and her husband came to our house to inform her that their daughter's fiance felt uncomfortable around me when I would hug him because he could feel my breasts. I was 17. I went to a tiny, private, Christian school and lived near tons of family, and I literally hugged EVERYBODY--with nary a thought about my breasts or their proximity.

That was the first time I ever felt dirty in my life. By the way--my mom was wonderful about, but I've never really talked much to those family members again.

[Brigitte]

There have been many icidents that feel like I've been hit somewhere inside when they happen. The first I remember, I hated when I started going to school and found out how pointlessly vicious, cruel and competitive all the other kids were.

I comforted myself by thinking of the day, far in the future, when school would be done and people would grow up. Until the day I overheard the snotty, rich old ladies on the front steps of the church right after mass, picking on so-and-so's clothes and lack of money and such. And I realized all those horrible kids from school will NEVER GROW UP.

[Debby]

...mine was when I was six, and when my 'boyfriend' Robbie was hit by a car as he was crossing the street to get on the school bus. :(

I was also an early bloomer, and started developing in 3rd grade...ah the joy of being teased for already wearing a bra. Although my reading ROOTS was also quite an eye-opener when I was in seventh grade.

[Jill W.]

You are killing me with this post as are all of the commenters, but it is beautiful.

[Roxanne]

BTW--that is a LOVERLY portrait of adorable Maisy who is barely nine and nearly twenty-two in a moment.

[Laura]

It was after my parents divorced (which didn't de-innocentize me, as far as I can tell). My dad and stepmom had some property by a pond/lake, that we would go to camp on during the summer. There were neighbors who had actual houses on their property, that we were friends with. Once we were camping, and after dinner Dad was hanging out at the other house while all the kids splashed around in the pond and so on, and then it was dark and we went to sleep in our sleeping bags, when Dad came back and there were unpleasant noises somewhere outside the tent. The conversation was something like
"Are you okay?"
"I was stupid, I had too much to drink, I'm throwing up now."

It seems so tame and innocuous now, especially compared to the much more serious and tragic things other commenters mention, but at the time, it was like being hit in the head with a brick of Parental Fallibility that I had somehow never seen before.