Stoves and Sex, part I

Recently Elizabeth Smart gave a speech about human trafficking at John Hopkins University. Her comments spawned many idiotic headlines about how she had “slammed abstinence education.” I watched the entire speech, and that’s not what I heard her say. I’ll address what she said, the reaction to it, and my reaction to both of the above in part II.

Right now, I want to talk about stoves.

Note: Technically, “oven” refers to the interior space where you bake cookies, cakes, pies, and Thanksgiving turkeys. “Stove” refers to the burners where you boil water and stir fry vegetables. “Range” means both of them combined in a single appliance, which is the norm these days. In my post, I use the three terms interchangeably, since they all involve heat that can be dangerous.

My apologies for blogger's annoying formatting regarding bullet points.

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I have four boys. Two of them have survived toddlerhood. Two of them (ages 1 and 3) still terrify me daily. 

Recently we purchased a new gas range. How can I teach them not to stay away from the shiny stainless steel, the sparkly blue enameled oven, the pretty open orange flames? 

Here are some options:

1.       I shout. Every time a kid gets near the hot stove, I yell “No!” but offer no further explanation. The kid is mystified. Why is the stove bad sometimes and okay other times? Why can Mommy use stoves but not big kids who mostly use the potty? One day when Mommy isn’t looking, he reaches out and touches the stove. Nothing happens. Obviously Mommy is crazy and arbitrary. He shrugs off other “random” versions of “no!” and wanders into the street to play in traffic.

2.      I lie. “If you touch a hot stove, your whole body will catch on fire and you’ll be left with horrible scars and then you’ll be so ugly no one will ever marry you. And you might also die.” I show him a charred piece of toast as an object lesson. Given that my kids lean more towards “anxious” than “fearlessly independent,” he develops a lifelong phobia of kitchens and cooking. He eats fast food for the rest of his life, and dies young of a heart attack.

3.      I punt. When he acts curious about the appliance and asks how it works, I say “Don’t ask questions. All you need to know is that you shouldn’t touch it. When you’re older, I’ll explain everything.” I then act embarrassed and refuse to discuss the matter further. Dissatisfied, my young scientist asks his friends for information. He finds their magical explanations fascinating but contradictory. One day, he decides to figure it all out for himself. As he attempts to disassemble and reverse engineer the oven, he causes a small explosion.

4.      I preach. “Stoves are the spawn of Satan!” I say, and invent scriptures to support my supposition that the technology is evil. The kid gets very confused. As he grows older, he notices that most of his friends—even children from his same church-- think stoves aren’t sinful. He notices that Mommy still uses the stove and he worries for her immortal soul. As an adolescent, he shrugs off Mom’s hypocrisy and rejects all of her teachings. (After all, this is the same woman who lied to him about Santa Claus.) He quits going to church and declares himself to be an atheist.

5.      I babble. “See, ovens are generally good but sometimes bad. I’d really prefer that you not touch them, at least not when they’re hot, but I’m not going to actually enforce any kind of discernible standard. I personally didn’t use ovens until I was ten, but some families say a kid only needs to be eight and other say twelve…personally I think eight is a little young but I don’t want to judge so I’ll just make vague, weak  suggestions and babble about my own experiences and let my words wash over you meaninglessly…”

6.      I ignore the problem. “He’ll figure it out for himself,” I shrug. “A couple of second degree burns and he’ll teach himself everything he needs to know, right?” One expensive skin graft later, as I’m fending off Child Protective Services threatening to “repo” my child, I think this approach might have been a mistake.

None of those sound like good options, true, but I could try them. There are even worse options involving abuse, which I deliberately omitted. There’s also another choice to consider, though--one which might actually work:

7.      I parent:

·         I install knob covers on the burners. I lock the oven when it’s in use.

·         I seize opportunities to point out things that are “hot” and “cold” to teach him those concepts.

·         I make concrete rules like “Until you are five years old, you must stay in another room when I open the oven door.”

·         I issue warnings. “I’m about to take the pie out!” I beep like a truck backing up, if that helps to remind kids to keep their distance.

·         I enforce rules. “I told you to leave the kitchen and you disobeyed me. I was very dangerous to sneak up behind me and scream while I was leaning into the oven. I don’t care if you were playing “Hansel and Gretel”, it was still a horrible idea. Plus I’m not a wicked witch. I AM a mean mom, though, and you don’t get any of the cake.”

·         I invent teaching songs like this:

“Heat, heat in the range
Means that kid hands (and toys)stay away.

No whining or games:

When you see open flames,

You must find somewhere else for your play.”

·         I explain. When the child gets a minor burn from a cookie sheet, I reinforce my reasons. “Yes, it hurts,” I say, while applying aloe lotion and a bandaid. “That’s why we have a rule about not touching hot things.”

·         As the kid grows older, I allow him to assist in the kitchen, under my direct supervision. When I think he’s old enough, I allow him to make cookies all by himself. I also explain that he must clean up after himself or lose key privileges.

·         After eighteen years of effort, I watch him head off to college, secure in the knowledge that he can at least prepare pasta and potatoes. He has cookies down pat. He might even manage vegetables if he cared enough to try. At any rate, he probably won’t burn his apartment down or die of gas inhalation. Parenting win!

Public schools can have occasional “fire safety” days.  That’s fine. Sunday School teachers can say “obey your parents.” That’s great. Friends and family can demonstrate that they have similar rules. Excellent! The government can issue regulations that all new ranges sold in the U. S. must have child safety features. That’s probably beneficial, on balance.

Those efforts, done properly, could support my efforts at keeping my kids safe.

They could also be done badly. Imagine that the public school holds a “fire awareness” day in which an expert came in and talked to the kids about how pyromaniacs are just misunderstood. Two weeks later, the Sunday School teacher preaches that an interest in the chemistry behind flame is prurient. We visit the relatives, and they say “Rules stifle young children. Let them experiment all they want with the broil setting!” Then the government, concerned by a startling case of a toddler catching his house on fire, passes laws making oven use, even in a private home, akin to driving--with strict age, oversight, and licensing requirements. 

None of those would be helpful at all. The mixed message would be horribly confusing, and the regulations would be a huge and eerie over-reach into my home.

Still, good or bad, these other influences are limited. My guidance will be the single greatest factor in helping my children develop a healthy relationship with the range.  

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Nothing can replace me modeling appropriate behavior every day in the proper context. There is simply no substitute for good parenting. 

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The helpful messages are useful, though, and the scary scenarios are terrifying enough that I’d prefer the “support parents” version.

Everyone on board so far?

Great! Now, take everywhere I say “ovens” or “stoves” or “range” and replace it with “sex.”

I believe that our Heavenly Father has issued specific rules about intimacy. Basically, He has said that sex is great—as an expression of love between a man and a woman in a healthy marriage. It is spiritually and emotionally (and sometimes physically) dangerous in the wrong context, though, which is why he has placed restrictions on its use.  

God is not arbitrary; He has reasons for His rules.

I’ll pass this lesson on to my children.  The question is how I teach it, and how everyone else can help or hinder.

More on that in part II.