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fed you when you were born?"
"Yes ..."
"So you see how similar we are to
animals?"
"But, Dad, that still doesn't an–
swer our question.
How
do 1 get half
of you and half of Mom?"
"Well, you have to put it there."
"But how??? !"
"How ..."
"Yeah, that was our question all
the time."
"You mean, how does a man put
his seed in the woman?"
"Right!"
"Well, you didn't ask that."
"Well, that's what we meant; you
just d idn't know what to say."
(giggle)
"Oh, well, that's easy to answer.
Uh, when you grow older, a little
boy's body starts to change ...."
A Common Problem
This father (an open-minded type
who has no trouble at aU talking
about sex with bis adult buddies)
was shocked when he listened to the
instant replay ("1 couldn't believe
it- 1 was so
embarrassed!").
He
eventually got the necessary infor–
mation across, but not without a lot
more hemming, hawing, and grop–
ing for words.
Many of us parents share his
problem. While we want to give our
k.ids the benefit of our knowledge
and approach to the "facts of life,"
many times actually getting down to
doing it means overcoming an al–
most insurmountable emotional ob–
stacle. For the most part, we didn't
learn about sex from our parents,
but from friends, the medica! ency–
clopedia in our local library, or the
centerfold of sorne under-the–
counter publication.
And since our parents didn't
really tell us the facts of life, we
don't know how to go about telling
our children. In spite of the over–
whelming hard sell sex gets in the
media, a lot of kids today sti ll don't
know what it's all about. They may
be more sexually active than the
previous generation, but their actual
knowledge about their bodies and
the consequences of what they're
doing is woefully inadequate.
As the box on the next page
shows, a lot of college-age young
people today had to pick up what–
ever knowledge they possess from
the usual unofficial sources: friends,
encyclopedias, pornographic novels,
and so on.
And since the sex-education con–
troversy in the U.S. in the sixties,
~
..
.
•
.
.. ... ..
.
.
. .
....
many American school systems
have shied away from developing
and p r esenting really com–
prehensive sex-education programs.
The programs that do exist don' t
reach all the k.ids, and the young
people that attend such classes may
not retain aU they're taught.
But it's not just the physiolo-gy or
"plumbing diagrams" that kids
don't have a chance to learn.
Human sexuality is something that
cannot be divorced from its place in
the overall framework of society.
Handling one's sexuality wisely and
responsibly comes under the head–
ing of morality, and morality isn't a
subject that most schools teach.
A moral perspective- the way a
child relates to life- is usually best
imparted to a child by his parents
during his very early development.
But it's difficult to compete with all
th~
other infiuences that bombard a
child daily, and the older a child
gets, sometimes the harder it be–
comes to communicate. (For ex-
~
ample, one nineteen-year-old girl
l
recalls: "When my mother told me
~
about menstruation, 1 already knew
i
and told her to forget it.")
~
So how can parents beat the rest
~
of the world lo the punch, so to
~
speak? How can they make sure
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