London - Discussing the “birds and bees’ with a child can be an awkward moment for parents. But actress Emma Thompson, star of the Nanny McPhe movies, was so enthusiastic about her maternal rite of passage that she went a step further than a simple chat.
She created a sex handbook for her 13-year-old daughter, Gaia, to try to help her cope with the online pressures that confront today’s young people.
“We can only help by listening, being aware, by not turning away and by not saying, oh, that’s all so disgusting,” the actress said.
“So I wrote my daughter a handbook about where emotions are felt in the body, about sexual feelings and the connections between sex and emotions.
“And I drew pictures and said, you know, you can sometimes feel things in your loins you don’t feel in your heart, and you need to look at that.
“If you listen to what’s going on in your emotional language, you will be able to keep the sexual activities safe.”
The double Oscar-winner, who is happily married to her second husband, actor Greg Wise, also told how she was abused by a children’s magician at her eighth birthday party. She said the “old man” took her behind a door and asked her if she wanted a sweet before sticking his tongue in her mouth.
Thompson said: “He gave me the sweet and said, ‘Will you give me a kiss?’ and I said yes. So I went up to kiss him on the cheek and he planted his mouth on mine, stuck his tongue in my mouth and wiggled it about.
“I thought it was my fault – children always think it’s their fault.”
It is this memory and concerns about social media and online porn that prompted Thompson to create the guide for her daughter.
The star of new film Saving Mr Banks said: “There are so many more pressures. The sort of sexual questions being put to young kids is horrifying to me, but that’s what’s out there – boys and girls watching pornography, boys showing girls hardcore porn on their iPhones.I’m in a constant state of anxiety but I know these kids have to negotiate these thickets by themselves.”
Thompson is also the mother of Tindyebwa Agaba, a Rwandan former boy soldier she and Wise adopted when he was 16. Now 26, he is a human rights lawyer. The actress joked: “He is the only one in our family who knows how to clean and load an AK-47 – which is something I’m quite relieved about because I’m sure we’ll need it at some point.”
Her latest role tells the story of the creative struggle between Mary Poppins author PL Travers and Walt Disney – played by Tom Hanks – over the 1965 film adaptation of the book starring Julie Andrews.
Thompson’s first marriage to Kenneth Branagh ended in 1995 after it emerged he had had an affair with Helena Bonham Carter. Speaking about the episode for the first time recently she said: “Helena and I made our peace years ago. You can’t hold on to something like that. I haven’t got the energy for it.” – Daily Mail