TELLING CHILDREN ABOUT SEX

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 184, 31 December 1942, Page 12

TELLING CHILDREN ABOUT SEX

Should There Be [nstruction In The Schools?

-asks

M. R.

KENT

in

this article tor "The Listener"

66 UMMIE," said a small voice in my ear the other day, "I know how babies come."

"Do you," I said, with some apprehension, "and how do they come?" "T’'m not going to tell," said Sonia, aged eight, with the knowing giggle that is reserved for sex secrets by the very young. "Iris told me!" Iris, too, is eight, but a much more knowing, whispering eight than my little Sonia. So Sonia and I sat down on the chesterfield while I tried to explain to an eight-year-old mind that a method of reproduction that is ordained by Nature cannot be either wrong, vulgar or amusing. To Sonia it was evidently all of these things. Had not the knowledge just reached her, told in a quiet corner from behind her informant’s hand to the accompaniment of a chorus of giggles? Obviously it was both wrong and amusing. That Part Was Easy I felt a little guilty and rather sad about this. I had meant to forestall "the other children" and tell Sonia myself. Sonia has always known where babies

came from. We got that over with when she was very young. We were washing up one day. Sonia said, "Mummie, where did the dishpan come from?" "Why, from the store of course!" I said. "Where did the storeman get it?" "From the factory where it is made." "Where did the cups come from?" "They came from the store, too, And the storeman got them from the factory. And the factory man got them from earth that was dug up out of the ground and made into cups." Silence for half a minute. Then, "Mummie, where do babies come from?" "Why, they grow inside their mothers’ bodies, of course, just as the egg comes from the hen, and the little chick comes from the egg." "Oh. Weill, where did the sink come from?" And so on. That part was easy. I had always meant to answer truthfully any questions .that Sonia asked, particularly about sex. But it seems that sometimes

the knowledge comes to them before they are even curious enough to ask for it, Sonia Is Lucky So now Sonia knows, and although I did my best to erase the muddy impression of the first telling, I suppose there will always be a faint smudge in that part of her mind where sex knowledge is stored. 7 And yet, on the whole, Sonia is lucky, At the age of eight she already knows how. babies are born, and why, and where they come from. She knows that mothers go to the hospital so that the doctor can help the baby into the world, and she knows that all Nature goes through something of the same process, There are still a lot of details to be filled in to make Sonia’s knowledge complete, and when she asks for them they will be given her. At the age of 18 my genezation knew rather less than Sonia does now. They surmised a great deal, but they weren't sure of very much, and over the whole business hung a murky pall of parental secrecy. We wanted to know about sex, We felt that we ought to know, but did not dare to ask our parents. But times: have changed, and this leads us to the question of whether or not children should be educated in matters of sex, My own answer is an emphatic "Yes." Start in the Home How then, shall we set about this education? Shall we include it in the public school curriculum? Shall we take it along with our arithmetic and geo_graphy and reading and writing from Miss Jones, who teaches say, Standards 1 and 2? Shall we start in the home, or shall we leave it all until a child reaches a more mature age, a secondary school age, for instance? I am all for starting in the home, when the child asks its first.sex question. Usually it is the simple, "Where did baby brother come from?" All the answer it needs is a simple statement in plain words. A little child’s mind is crystal-clear. There is nothing murky in it, even about sex, until someone puts it there. He accepts the origin of the baby (Continued on next page)

SEX EDUCATION (Continued from previous page) just as simply as he accepts the origin of the bathroom tap or his milk bottle. By the time the child is five years old and ready for school, the foundation can be laid for a sensible matter-of-fact acceptance of the phenomena of sex av explained more fully by his teachers. An important point in a child’s sex education should be the emphasis laid on the kinship, the similarity of all things natural; the reproductive struggles of the flowers, insects, animals, birds, fishes, not only in their sex relations, but in their efforts to survive, and their sacrifices for the genvration that is to follow them. A Job for the Experts Yes, you say, but is Miss Jones of Standards 1 and 2, or Miss Smith of the kindergarten a proper person to impart this knowledge? She may be, but the chances ate that Miss Jones or Miss Smith has grown up with her own mind a muddle-of ill-assorted sex fears and repressions and half-digested knowledge. Until we have raised a generation of sex-normal teachers I think we shall have to depend on the expert. Just as in

some countries there are teachers. who specialise in the teaching of group singing and in art work and who go from school to school at stated times teaching these subjects, so we shall have to choose and educate suitable teachers to enlighten our children on the subject of sex. It should be easy, once we have accepted the idea of systematic sex education, to work out a course of instruction on the subject. We already have our experts, our psychologists, biologists, child behaviourists, our pedagogues. Let them get together and compile a course in Sex Education for Children, and then let this course be ‘given to a selected group of students in our teachers’ training colleges. | Yes, we shall have to do something about the parents-something dramatic to some of them, but propaganda has been used with telling effect before to-day. Look how the campaign for better diet has caught on. People want to be healthy both mentally and physically. There is no subject on earth that interests the average person more than — health. All right, give people sex instruction from a health standpoint. My guess is that they'll jump at it. Because, -after all, we’re all human, aren’t we?