"Mommy, What's a Whore?"

(Photo credit: alistercoyne)

My four-year-old asks incessant questions, and I try my best to satisfy them all. I've managed to address things like, "Does Jesus have a butt to sit on?" and "What does 'dead' mean?", and sufficiently explain why the cream cheese in the center of a cheese danish is not the same as the cream cheese in the middle of a crab rangoon. But a few months back, Colin asked me something that - no matter how hard I tried - I could not seem to come up with an answer to.

If you're familiar with the classic nursery rhyme "Little Boy Blue," you'll know that it says, "Little Boy Blue/come blow your horn/the sheep's in the meadow/the cow's in the corn ..." My mom used to sing it to me when I was little; I don't know if she made up the tune or heard it somewhere, but consequently, I sing it to my kids all the time.

The problem? Colin thinks it's, "Come blow your whore."

When we get to that part, Colin always bellows that line ... like the neighbors need to hear it. But once after singing it, he stopped abruptly and said, "Mommy, what does 'whore' mean?"

"It's horn," I told him, carefully enunciating, as I have done at least a thousand freaking times before.

An impatient look. "Yes, but what does 'whore' mean?"

And therein, as my brain began to search frantically for a suitable answer, my dilemma started.

I make it a point to always explain things to Colin as thoroughly as I can. I don't believe in giving him vague answers that don't answer anything, or saying "You'll find out when you're older." He's asking because he wants to know, darn it - and how frustrating it would be to always receive a glossed-over, dumbed-down version of the truth! He is insatiably curious and loves to learn, and so when he asks me a question about something, we usually look it up on the internet. I think I've passed my love of research on down to him, and usually - usually - this is a great thing. We've looked up volcanoes, vermouth, and Venus fly traps, the urinary and circulatory systems, and how harmonicas work - and those are only the ones I can remember right now; we look up so many crazy things. But whores? I didn't know what to say.

When I was a freshman in high school and babysitting two little girls, and one of them asked me what a condom was, I was relieved to be able to say, "You can ask your mom when she gets home." But now, I am the mom. And as much as I believe there's a kid-friendly, age-appropriate explanation for damn near everything, I just don't think there's a workable way to define "whore" for a child that age. Of course, my obvious hesitance to answer made it an even bigger deal, so he pressed on.

I called my mom for advice. "Colin is wanting to know what a W-H-O-R-E is," I stage-whispered into the phone.

"Tell him it's a word for a lady who isn't very nice," she suggested.

It was so simple - the perfect answer - until I envisioned him getting mad and saying it to someone based on that definition. Especially to someone like ... my mother-in-law: i.e., "Nana, you're a whore!" Which, inevitably, would happen. Because there's some unwritten law dictating that children must say the most embarrassing things at the most inopportune times. (To the most un-receptive of people; my mother-in-law would probably attempt to have him exorcised for that.)

Despite my mom's wisdom, I hung up feeling no more sure of my answer. Luckily, the crisis had been at least temporarily averted; while I was on the phone, Colin had lost interest and moved on to the next big thing.

Anyway, if someone's got a good way of explaining a whore to a small child, please feel free to chime in with your best advice. Otherwise I guess I'll just resort to picking up the phone every time I need to skirt an issue, since it seemed to work the first time. Watch out - it may be you I call!