Age appropriate honesty and directness is what's needed.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

I had two abortions in between the births of our two girls. One was when my husband was out of work and we were living paycheck to paycheck and we couldn’t afford for me to miss work. The other was a wanted pregnancy but the fetus was not viable. My husband and I are Democrats but unfortunately live in a wackadoodle red state.

Our girls are exposed daily to people who think bodily autonomy applies to corpses and not living women. I find myself unable to find the correct words to talk to my girls about my abortions. I am not ashamed and I don’t want them to think it was some kind of dirty secret; that abortion is natural, normal, and nothing to be ashamed about. But I can’t find the right words. Can you help me?

—Talk About It

short+sassy

How does she expect Prudie to answer that question without mentioning how old her daughters are?  Geez.  But moving on.

She should schedule a time to talk to her daughters with no distractions.  Cell phones left in another room, etc.  She can use current events to open the discussion.  This is a good idea for parents to do anyway at an appropriate age.  That she's especially worried about them for the bodily autonomy that women are losing in this country, which have sometimes led to fatal consequences.  During this discussion, she can talk about her own experiences, the decisions she made, and why.

But she also needs to realize her daughters may not keep it a secret and consider the ramifications of that.  I know she doesn't want to treat it like a secret.  But considering the community they live in, there could be negative results if word got out.

banana468

I think it really depends on how the LW wants to handle the truth, the age of the girls and explain it accordingly.

Given where they live, I don't think I'd open the door for total transparency as that can easily be repeated and I would not want to open up myself or family for the possible responses.

I'd also likely consider talking to a skilled child therapist about this.