Sex & Children

Great Debates
21

First, I’m Canadian, so I don’t know if the sex ed here is the same as what is taught in the U.S. I’m 29, so sex ed for me was in the eighties. In our catholic grade school, we learned the basics - including differences in male and female bodies, how babies are made clinically (the penis goes into the vagina, but we aren’t going to show you how), about girls getting their periods, puberty, etc. In public high school we were taught about birth control and STDs.

My daughter is in grade six. She had her first sex ed class this year. They separated the boys and girls, and taught them they same things I was taught in grade six - puberty, how babies are made, etc.

When my daughter was 4, she asked me if mommies really have babies inside their tummies (as per Bradley, in her day care class). I told her that if they are pregnant, then yes, they have babies inside of them, very near their tummies. She asked me how the babies get there. I told her that mommies and daddies make them there. She was perfectly satisfied with that answer.

At 5, she asked me what my birth control pills were when I was picking them up at the pharmacy. I told her that they kept me from having any more babies, as I didn’t want to have any right now. She was okay with that.

At 7, she asked me how mommies and daddies make the babies. I told her, the whole story and the truth, complete with cartoon illustrations (the book is called “Where Did I Come From?” and I highly recommend it).

Any other questions she has asked, including those about homosexuality, oral sex, pregnancy, etc. have been answered in the same way - straight, no bullshit facts.

My husband and I do not hide the fact that we are sexually attracted to each other from our daughter, but we also do not publicly announce, “Honey, we are going to have sex - don’t knock.” If she asks, I’ll tell her what we’re doing. But I have also told her that sex is a private thing between two adults.

Maybe three if you’re lucky :stuck_out_tongue:

Bragging mode on:

I got my CNE!

Bragging mode off.

22

Wait for it. My SO is writing such a book as we speak.

Part of the book is interviews with college students. One of the questions asked was “What did your parents tell you about sex?” Truly illuminating answers came out, such as “Don’t do it or you’ll go to hell”, and “Men only want one thing.” Not exactly informational.

Back to the OP, a woman I dated last year knew everything by the age of 12. He parents would routinely have sex in the same room as the kids, and were always very open about everything. Did this warp her? No. Did it turn her into an axe-murderer? No. Did it turn her into nympho? No comment.

t “and for those of you who don’t think reproductive anatomy can be compared to a lethal weapon, y’all haven’t seen me yet” dn

23

I seem to recall a total of two one-semester-long classes in high school which included sex education, as well as drugs and whatever else they cared to throw in. And probably the only reason I got two was because I changed schools. And in that time, there was exactly one class which discussed homosexuality at all.

One class.

And of course, I took an estimated 1,125 hours of instruction in higher mathematics. I’m going to be a goddamn social worker. Why the hell do I need to know how to find the derivative of an equation? Hell, I’ve forgotten most of that shit anyway.

So in other words, I spent 1,125 hours on something which I never used outside of class and for which I anticipate no use in the future, and 30 minutes on the entire rest of my sex life.

[hijack]
And, of course, no time at all on how to cook, clean, pay taxes, vote, conduct a relationship, shop for food, keep house, keep a budget, fix my house, or drive. In other words, my high school education prepared me spectacularly well for a career path I never entered, and not at all for anything resembling a life.

It’s my opinion that compulsory education ought to teach things that everybody is going to have to know. There is a fairly strong possibility that a given kid is not going to need to know how to balance a chemical equation. But they are going to have to know how to shop for food, fix plumbing, and the rest.

I know, I know. Forms young minds, think logically, etc. At least, let’s not focus myopically on these things and leave the important stuff for gym and “student awareness” class. Leave the apprenticeship for higher education to take care of.[/hijack]

[hijack] Oh, and have you ever noticed it’s never called sex education? It’s always “human development” or “student awareness” or “moral education” or “health class”.[/hijack]

24

Canadian question on a related to sex ed issue: Do they do the carry-a-baby-doll-around-to-teach-you-parenting-skills thing in the U.S.? My sister, at 16, had a fairly realistic looking baby doll with a computerized data recording system. It would cry at random periods and record how quickly it was responded to. It also recorded whether it was abused (thrown, shaken, etc.) It was part of her “Family Responsibility” class.

Of course, by the time she was sixteen there were two girls in her class with real babies.

Bragging mode on:

I got my CNE!

Bragging mode off.

25

Katt: They do that here at the high schools in my area. A young cousin of mine took that class.

I don’t know if that type of thing is helping, though. We’ve got a really high raye of teen pregnancy in this city.

Cristi, Slayer of Peeps

I made my husband join a bridge club. He jumps next Tuesday.

(title & sig courtesy of UncleBeer and WallyM7!)

26

You may one day be interested in reading the academic literature on which the field of social work is based and in which continued study occurs, and you’ll want those skills close at hand to understand the statistical methods. Or, maybe not.

I always considered sex more of a hands-on extracurricular. Little classroom instruction needed.

Isn’t that what parents are for?

27

OK, maybe the calculus is a bad example; I chose it because I hate it especially. How about physics and chemistry? It’s occasionally nice to know certain things thereto relating. But did I really need to put 2,500 hours into that kind of trivia?

28

These questions I can answer. I have only recently left school and Sex Ed continued for me from grade 5 where the class was split into the boys and girls and each went their own way to learn about their bodies up and including Grade 12. This was in the Catholic system so I don’t know about other places.

As I said first we learned about our own bodies how they would change and all that. Each year a little more would be added and it was all learned in health class. (This was in a small town but it varied from the schools I went to and such but in general thats what they did. Some years though it seems they skipped it or didn’t talk much about it.) Grade 9 we learned in Religion class about it. We learned about the major std’s their symptoms what could happen if you don’t get treatment etc. We talked about birth control and all those things. Grade 10-12 was basically the same thing also in Religion class but we also talked about the church stance and public opinion and that sort of thing.

All the sex ed I took had mainly to do with body changes (when in the younger grades before puberty), birth control, std’s and the like.

pldennison:

Not everyone’s parents can do those things and some wouldn’t be the best examples. My parents aren’t going to teach me to drive nor do taxes either, some parents don’t have the time to show their kids these things (not picking on the parents but with time constraints you probably know what I’m speaking of). I have to learn on my own how to do my taxes (parents go to an accountant), some people aren’t good examples for things like relationships, budget, driving.

I just suggest you think back to your High School education and tell me that you use the majority of what you have been taught in the real world.

Many people go through school and the instant they get out of it forget everything. Somethings we have no need for and I think we could give the basics and if anyone wants to go more in depth they can but am I going to use radicals? They have no use in the real world that I have seen yet. And the classes (sorry, class)that I have seen that does deal with real world stuff (budget, job finding etc. No taxes btw.) is out of date (by at least 20 years). Also that class lasts only half a semester and you only take it once. (The only other class that I have seen that deals with real life stuff was Math 24 which was the easiest math you could take and it taught you how to balance checkbooks and writes checks etc)