Mommy and Son Time

I pick Sam up from school every day.  It's about a 15 minute drive back home and I think NPR is conspiring to make us feel uncomfortable and not make eye-contact by playing creepy, sexual news stories whenever the two of us are in the car together.  Today there was a story all about how this gang in Washington DC is driving runaway girls into prostitution at younger and younger ages.  They said that these poor 12 and 13 year old girls will be pimped out 15 or 16 times a day.  It's good for the gangs because it brings in thousands of dollars and there is virtually no overhead except for the drugs and alcohol to keep the girls compliant (good business plan!).  Sam and I really enjoyed that story so much.  Other things we've learned about while riding home from school:

1. Exactly what Herman Cain did to the woman in the car from the woman herself. Thanks Gloria Allred!  You're such a great advocate for your clients!

2.  Incidence of sexual assaults at Occupy Wallstreet protests.

3. Clitorectomies

4. Exactly what Mr. McCreary witnessed in that Penn State locker room IN GRAPHIC DETAIL.

5. Systemic rape in war-torn Islamic countries.

6.  How important it is to give your adolescent children he HPV virus and why, in graphic detail.

Usually we don't acknowledge the stories because then we will be letting the other one know we are listening to it, but sometimes (clitorectomies) Sam gives up and says, "Can I change the channel?" and he changes it to a music station where we can hear all about how Bruno Mars wants to have some really nice sex with a really nice girl, or how Rihanna likes to have sadomasochistic sex.  Yay!  You might think that these would be "teachable moments" but I never planned on teaching my 14 year old about clitorectomies or sadomasochism so I didn't need the icebreaker, thanks anyway, Radio.  

Oh well, when Mitch was a teenager his mom saw an Oprah show about how teen boys were accidentally dying because of practicing auto-erotic asphyxiation.  His mom said she'd never forgive herself if she didn't warn her boys of the dangers of choking yourself while masturbating, so she sat them down and they had that awkward conversation.  Mitch started walking around all the time with a rope around his neck.   He still does.  

That's a funny story.  I'm going to go tell it to Sam.