As a certified millennial who grew up enjoying The Sims on an historic desktop till 3 within the morning each weekend, I couldn’t look ahead to my children to enter the world of the Goth household, simoleons, and the panic of attempting to get your Sim to pee when their uncomfortable bar is darkish pink and but they’d relatively take a look at the fish within the aquarium. (That you just purchased with the motherlode cheat code.)
However my oldest, now 11, requested me about The Sims when she was a lot youthful, and I used to be nervous. I knew the sport was rated T for teen, and I felt slightly not sure about having her play a sport the place my buddies and I used most of our hormonal vitality creating Sims that seemed like our crushes — after which having them make out and “WooHoo” on their first dates.
She, after all, simply needed to create households and construct homes. However by the point she was round 9 and we had already had a sex talk or two, I watched her create Sims and construct their digital relationships to the purpose of getting them make infants. She knew how infants had been made, and to her, it was only a organic act she received to copy in a sport. No totally different from the wildlife video games she performs, the place she smashes a button titled “BREED” and creates new child wolf pups.
However in the future whereas enjoying, I watched her click on on a Sim to work together with, and she or he took discover of the choice to “WooHoo”… with out making a child. “Ha!” she stated. “Why would the Sims do the ‘WooHoo’ factor in the event that they aren’t going to make a child?”
And that’s how The Sims 4 opened up a complete new stage of the intercourse discuss for me and my tween.
My husband and I’ve by no means shied away from speaking about intercourse with our children — in age-appropriate ways, after all. We now have three daughters, and since they had been younger, they’ve identified the facility they’ve over their very own our bodies, they know what it means to honor another person’s selections with their physique, and so they know the precise names for personal elements and what intercourse really is.
Nevertheless it’s nonetheless a tough dialog to have. You wish to give them the data they should really feel safe and to be protected — data is energy — however you additionally don’t wish to overwhelm them or give them something pointless to fret about. (Or, worse, share with their buddies whose mother and father possibly aren’t snug with that form of discuss but.)
The Sims 4 surprisingly made it simple for me. As quickly as my daughter identified the choice to WooHoo with out having a child, we eased proper right into a dialog. “Nicely, intercourse isn’t only for having infants,” I advised her. “Typically individuals wish to WooHoo simply because they wish to with that particular person.”
She nodded, however wanted extra clarification. “However you possibly can’t simply determine to have a child in The Sims with out WooHoo, proper?”
We talked about adoption, about IVF, about all of the methods people can have babies without sex. After which that discuss led into a complete dialog about how intercourse with out the will to get pregnant is totally regular and good, however that having intercourse means there’s at all times a danger of getting pregnant. “So that you don’t should need a child to WooHoo, however there’s at all times an opportunity you may have a child if you WooHoo,” she stated. “Acquired it.”
I felt like I’d gotten away with one thing. How was it this simple? Why was I at all times slightly panicked — regardless of figuring out I needed to have these open conversations with my child — about this topic?
I felt so good in regards to the dialog we’d had, however then one thing began buzzing round in my mind and I couldn’t cease. My child already knew what abortion was, so I used our Sims discuss as a platform to carry it up once more. I advised her that as a result of there’s at all times an opportunity of being pregnant with intercourse, typically individuals find yourself with pregnancies they weren’t prepared for or didn’t need. We talked about safety, about how the worry of being pregnant typically stops individuals from having intercourse, however that in the event that they needed to, there are issues they might do to forestall it.
Which, naturally, led to a deeper conversation about consent. And about individuals having infants even when they aren’t married. All issues she knew already, however watching it play out on The Sims — how even selecting to “WooHoo” with one other Sim means asking them for permission first — actually appeared to solidify it for her.
On the finish of our hour-long Sims gameplay, the place I used to be left with an unfinished home however a Sim who had profession aspirations and spent numerous time racking up cooking abilities within the kitchen (she burns numerous stuff nonetheless), I additionally had a tween daughter who knew far more about intercourse — and in one of the best ways.
I absolutely imagine these conversations would’ve occurred with out The Sims 4. I needed these conversations to occur, however having them happen so organically, as we laughed at a few of the outfit selections and debated adopting a cat for our Sims household, felt so good. It jogged my memory of so many essential conversations I had together with her as a toddler, like splashing within the bathtub and reminding her that her physique is her physique. Or giving her a pep discuss as I did her hair for Thanksgiving in order that she would bear in mind to inform members of the family if she didn’t wish to give them a kiss.
Simply tiny little moments — by no means making an enormous big lecture or deal out of any of it, by no means horrifying her with data — that weave their method into her core self so she feels safe, liked, and protected.
As a result of irrespective of how you’re feeling about abortion or premarital intercourse or little children figuring out what really occurs when you’ve a child, the reality is that the extra our children know, the safer they’re. When intercourse isn’t some huge, scary factor floating within the air, a phrase we shut down as quickly as we hear it, an act they’re by no means allowed to learn about or converse of, it turns into only a regular, on a regular basis a part of life.
I imply, even the Sims do it.
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