Daughter found pics!

[TnTCpl]

Yikes! My 12 year old daughter found a 3x5 pick with 12 proofs on it in our home office. She handed it to me and I nonchalantly took it and said "thanks" I wanted to die!!!!! I didn't know what to do. When tucking her into bed she asked me if I was a lesbian and I said no. She then says 'well then I dont' know what those pictures are about" I left it at that. I dont feel like I need to give her an explanation especially since none of the pics with me and the other girl showed my face. But I am feeling guilty that I let hubby take the damn pics in the first place and very angry at hubby for being so careless. Any thoughts on this and what should or should not be done?

[JustAskJulie]

I think you've probably done the right thing. Unless/until she brings up the subject again, you should probably just leave it alone. If/when she brings it up then you will have to decide how much (if anything) to tell her.

[starlinn]

There are two things children need. They need to explore their world, but need a confort zone. When something like that comes up, their first thought is about themselves. It is selfish in their 12 year old way. I wouldnt bring up the subject, but if it does come up, let her know that no matter what you and dad love her, and will always be there for her, and what you do during adult time does not affect her in any way. If she wants further explanation, tell her you will explain when she gets older.
I went to the circus recently with my 23 year old daughter. There were alot of women with nice bodies and very little clothing. I was critiquing them, not realizing what I was doing, until my daughter asked me why was I so into women's bodies. I had to dance around that...and made me realize that I had to be careful. I hope everything works out for you.

[Jamie&Kieth]

Here is the scary part, 12 year olds know more than you think you know. MY OPINION, if you lie to them they will get suspicious and perhaps not trust you, if you tell them the truth then it could be more than their world can tolerate.

Most important concept to remember is that you & your husband love each of your children and that you trust them and they trust you. Try and feel them out, after all you know your children better than anybody else does.

If you feel there is an area of uncertaintity then (MY OPIONION) you must tell them the truth. Most important tell them about your love for each other and your family.

My daughter caught me in the "act" with two other women when she was 15, she knows both of them and was pretty upset about the whole situation. It took a lot of talking & explaining, she finally came around. Recently, before she left for college 10 days ago she ask me about it, her question/statement was "you know mom, if you didn't lie about it and cover up the truth about your and dad's relationship, I could handle that a lot easier than the covering up and telling the "white lies", I'm not stupid" ... pretty much what she said to me.

So be please be careful and do not blame your husband.

[lovedoctor]

Gosh, that is a tough bind to find yourself in.

It's hard to know what is the right thing to do, because it's inevitable that it change your relationship with your daughter somewhat at a vulnerable time in her development. Kids ARE selfish and really can't see their parents as sexual beings - their worlds revolve around them - and you are their parent(s)!

I guess I would just try to be as aware as I could about any vibes or unspoken questions coming from her and agree that it is best to be as honest as you can in the context of her ability to comprehend. She is probably still a little concrete in her thinking and this might rock her world a little bit.

Whatever happens, just go easy on your self and your hubby. You guys are just human, you love each other, and what you do is not wrong - it's just different than a lot of her friends parents (or is it??)

Good luck and let us know how it's going...

[AlanCatherine]

It's a very vicious circle isn't it? You "protect" your kids from knowledge about what happens in the real world and they develop this "belief" that you are non-sexual beings. So when they discover that you really DO have sex, it shocks them. Why on earth doesn't everyone just tell their kids straight from the word "go"? What is the fear of them learning at this age instead of that age? I have heard of too many "sheltered" children who end up pregnant at 12 or 13 because they simply didn't know.

My advice on this is to simply tell your daughter the whole story. Not necessarily in minute detail but educate her. Tell her how YOU feel about it. If you don't, she will develop her own ideas and you have absolutely no control over that. So you could at least put her straight in that respect. Right now she doesn't know what to think which should not be construed as meaning that she doesn't think anything at all. She does think. But without your input, you have no idea where her thoughts are going. She saw the pictures. You can't change that. You can only change what she knows.

[Sweet_Candy]

Our oldest has asked us why we were looking at other couple's pictures and we told him we enjoy making friends with other married couples and left it at that. His response has been to ignore it when he sees us looking at ads. We don't want to hide anything from them but we do keep it simple. For those of you wondering we don't show graphic images to them...our request from others is their pics be g-rated.

[HotMoCpl]

There is a very good book titled, "Just For You". I think you should read it very soon. I'm not kidding. All of my "12 year olds" are over thirty now and I wish I had read that book before the turned 12. Its amazing what a guy can learn after he turns 50. Good luck.

[TnTCpl]

Thank you everyone for the advice. Our daughter hasn't mentioned it again and is acting completly normal. So I am just going to leave it alone unless she brings it up again. I did make it perfectly clear to hubby that if he wants to continue taking pics he has to be more careful and keep all the pics locked up, he at first said she shouldn't have been in the office to begin with and I pointed out that she was just getting some paper and it could have been anyone (babysitter, my parents, etc.) that found the pics. He agreed and apologized. If she were older I would have had no problem explaining things to her, but she is at a difficult age.

You guys really helped put all this into perspective for me! We are still new to this lifestyle and its great to have a place to get some insight from some wonderful people who have been there and done that. Thanks again!

[Chicup]

Originally Posted by TnTCpl

he at first said she shouldn't have been in the office to begin with and I pointed out that she was just getting some paper and it could have been anyone (babysitter, my parents, etc.) that found the pics.

Hehe I don't know a child who has not looked in those places they knew they shouldn't so even if it was innocent this time, next time she might be actively looking.

I say DESTROY all the pictures, or they WILL be found sooner or later. My wife knew where all her fathers playboy/penthouses, their porn, and her mothers dildo was. I knew where my fathers shotgun was, and later found their marital aids so to speak. She will not ever forget asking if you were a lesbian and as she gets older she is going to want to find out for sure.

(Also my parents toys were locked up and I still found them)

[intuition897]

Chicup, that's pretty damn scary! My own toys are under lock and key, but I guess I shouldn't underestimate my kids' resourcefulness.

We had an awful moment one time, not with the kids, but with my sister and brother-in-law. Luckily the kids were at the sitter's. We were all out to dinner one night and we decided to head back to our house for a few beers. Mr. and I had to get our car, so we gave them the house key and said to go on ahead of us. After we walked halfway to our car, Mr. asked, "Did you shut off the profile on the computer?" Our eyes both widened, when I realized what was about to happen. See, our computer at that time was at the computer desk in the kitchen...visible from the front door. So we literally ran to the car and raced to get ahead of them. Of course, my BIL thought Mr. was playing around and so kept pace with us even after we had passed them. Finally got to the house and ran ahead to get in ahead of them (they must've thought I was nuts), and lo and behold there was my naked butt in all its glory plain as day on the computer screen. Talk about your close calls.

[couple_ps]

Kids always find a way to find things they were not suppose to find. When I was a kid, I knew where the porn magazines of my uncle was even though it was not my house.

intuition897: you do have a nice butt by the way :-)

[dxfan69]

one way to take care of the pics so they can't be found is scan them with a scanner and burn them to a disk and keep the disk in a secure space until you want to look at them. then you can destroy the pics and negatives so it wouldn't happen again. have you thought about a digital camera? that way the your pics are safe and agian it can go on the same disk you have any other pics already burned to it. this is a tough situation that i don't look forward to having with my kids when they get old enough or find something by accident either.

[lovefest04]

"and lo and behold there was my naked butt in all its glory plain as day on the computer screen."

intuition897, I'd love to see you naked butt any day of the week. You robbed your BIL of what could have been a highpoint in his year.

Back to the problem at hand.

I think everyone gave great advise re the 12 year old and how to handle it.

But, no one seemed to provide guidance when it came to her husband.

My wife would have hung me by my balls and spanked me until I yelled Uncle. She's often scolded me about pics on the computer etc, but to have our children find some.

Of course, for all I know your husband might enjoy it.

[SoulmatesNky]

On the digitalizing idea of the photos... that is a great idea, but I would suggest to take it one step further and use a program to put a password on the files so they can not be opened. A lot of simple programs have this capability, such as Winzip. Winzip will allow you to put a password on any ziped file so that it must be supplied to see the file, but they will be able to see the names of the pics so be careful (I can just see... "erotic-wife with Mary using toy" filename to really get them thinking lol) I do not believe that the typical child will spend the time to 'hack' passwords or find the cracks to get around them.

I have also put in a lot of thought of protecting my home PC from inadvertantly revealing me to any other user... especially when my wife allowed a college girl to use ours when nothing was protected!!! I swear this young lady always is smiling at us!!!! e-gads!!!! It really is surprising what you can find out about a persons interests when you have time to play with their computer and know where to look. I highly suggest "Privacy Eraser Pro" at www.privacyeraser.com in the minimum. There are also 'hiding' programs out there like "Folder Guard" http://www.winability.com/home/?5257...35373937353535 that can restrict access and make invisible files/folders/programs. I find this program to be a little complicated but there are hundreds of these types of programs. Also set up all your sites to make you feed in your password.

But to the issue of the 12-year old and the photos. The fact that she handed the photo's to you is an important move. That really took some courage... afterall, she could have pretended to not see them, but she didn't. Your embarrassment aside and your desire for avoidance will just allow her young mind to embellish the situation far beyond the reality. Does she even know that her father took the pictures? Is he in them? She could be feeling that she is burdened with a secret against her father! No, because she handed them to you, you need to broach the subject. She basically put it in your court by handing the photos to you, after all, they upset her enough for her to confront you about them and she should not have to live with the burden that has been placed on her. She is likely believing their is infidelity going on and divorce is looming.

It really is not her business what you do behind closed doors, however, I really agree with STARLINN above. She needs reassurance that all is o.k. I do not believe you should be blunt and all-telling, since she can not and should not be exposed to the extreme eye-popping sexuality world. So using 'shallow'-truths she needs to be reassured about her mother's sexuality, her parent's marriage, and her future.

Good Luck... Soulmates