Don’t Underestimate a Five Year Old
I was five years old. I was at my cousin’s house playing while our moms went out shopping. They came back with presents for us, which was a shock because our mothers are notoriously cheap.
As normal five year-olds, we were obsessed with Barbie dolls. Nevermind that I would soon move on to Legos and Transformers. I only had a couple Barbie dolls and had been begging my mother for more. To my great delight, our mothers had bought us Ken dolls. My cousin squealed and hugged her mother. I tore into the Tropical Beach Ken box to get to the doll. His only clothing was swimsuit, which I promptly pulled off. I wanted to see the goods.
“HEY!! This isn’t what boys look like!? WHERE’S HIS PENIS?? WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY KEN??? HE’S WRONG!”
My mother was mortified. Of course she did the motherly thing, taking away my naked Ken with the smoothed-out bump where a penis and ball-sack should be, then she lectured me–something about girls not needing to see boys naked or something. I don’t really remember what she said.
