What Léo says

I said I’d talk about work on Wednesdays but I missed Monday and I really want to talk about Leo, so here goes. No work today –just plain parenthood!

Léo is 4 and a half years old and our conversations have been quite interesting lately. He’s into 2 big topics: love and death.

He listens very intently to songs on the radio and asks questions about lyrics –and these songs are often about breakups. So he asks “why do people not love each other sometimes? Will you always love me, mama?” That, the fact that sometimes people don’t love each other anymore boggles his mind. He just doesn’t get it, so we spend time talking about that –about divorce (I don’t name it but I explain that mommies and daddies live in separate houses) and breakups. I can tell he’s pausing to reflect on what we discuss. The he moves on to other topics –Avengers usually- and asks more questions another day after listening to yet another song about lost love.

The other big topic he’s into is death. He started asking about death a couple of months ago. I had read an excellent post on Cup of Jo about the way she talked to her children about death so I mirrored what she said. I explained in very simple terms that people stop breathing, stop walking, stop doing what people usually do. At first he cried and said he didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want us to die. But we said that everyone dies and it’s ok –but of course we said that he wouldn’t die for a long while. We got this book, which explains the cycle of life really well and simply. And because he has toys with batteries, I explained that the heart is like a battery that dies at one point –which he understood. He doesn’t really asks questions now –though the order of people’s death is still something he inquires about: “so will I die before Jude?” Now he says: “I’ll be sad when you die.” Once I told him I’d be sad, too, when he dies and he said “No mama, you’ll already be died.” Silly me, of course I will. 

I like talking to him about these big topics. It makes me feel that I am here for him and available for whatever question he has, however uncomfortable the topics are.

What about you. Do you have children and what are their main big topics of conversations right now?