"Daddy, how are babies made?"
Given that my daughter is not yet three and a half, the question caught me off-guard. I knew it would come some day. I did not expect it so soon. (The parent's eternal refrain.)
Of course, I was hoisted on my own petard. I have two parenting mantras: Never lie to your kids, and have "the talk" with them as soon as possible. Be careful what you wish for, Providence told me smilingly.
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If you care to know, I said, "It takes a mother and a father and an act of love." This seems to have satisfied her for the time being. But it won't for long. And a lot of parents — especially, it seems, in religious and conservative milieus — have qualms about having "the talk" with their children, and put it off as long as possible. Sometimes they even wait until the onset of puberty.
Waiting until puberty is like not doing it at all. By the time children reach puberty, it is too late — puberty is just a word for "no longer listening to your parents because you are under the sway of raging hormones." Whatever you say to them about sex and relationships after puberty has begun, you might as well say in Klingon for all the difference it will make.
If you want to impart something to your children, you have to do it before they hit puberty. This is true about every topic, but, for obvious reasons, particularly about sex.
Of course, the contrast with small children is total. Unlike us, with our hormones and desires, they are completely relaxed and detached about the whole business — which is exactly how you want your children to be when you bring up the subject. And more importantly, this is how you want your children to be when you start transmitting values and beliefs, as well as facts.
This is really important: Teaching them enough facts when they're really young will make them unembarrassed about the topic, which in itself is an enormously valuable gift to them — and which, more prosaically, will make the ensuing talks easier on both of you.
In the West, we tend to think that exposing children to concepts related to sex will traumatize them, no matter how it's done. But for the vast majority of human history, kids slept in close quarter with their parents, where they got to see everything from an early age. And somehow the species survived.
The only way to successfully do sex education is to do it early and often. After all, when teaching anything else, repetition is key. And it's not like the topic is completely straightforward and without complexities.
Think about the other lessons you want to teach to your kids, principles that matter to you and that you deeply want to impart — let's say, the value of hard work or kindness. Are you going to set aside one moment when they're 13 and say, "You know, it's really important in life to be kind" and leave it at that? Of course not; precisely because it's important, you're going to reiterate it throughout their lives in many ways. I am sure that there are things about sex and relationships that you also deeply want to impart to your children (I know I do).
When they grow into teenagers, they will be thrown into a maelstrom of confusing emotions, urges, feelings, and ideas. They will be completely lost, a ship tossed by the waters. And they will be unable to rely on their parents, the people who they have relied on for their entire lives up to this point. It's a very tough part of life, as all adults well know. The bottom line is that you have to be overzealous, not under-zealous, in preparing them for this moment. And that means having "the talk" early and often.
Finally, this is all a bit academic. These arguments are true, but really the clincher is that this is 2015. Everyone carries around in their pocket a device that can instantly and freely access streaming high definition video of any sex act you care to imagine, including the most gruesome. Even if your kid doesn't have a smartphone, or independent access to the internet, at least one of his or her friends does. Given this reality, there's a simple fact: If you don't do your kid's sex education very early, the internet will do it for you.
And for an even more sobering thought, for fathers of daughters: They will hit puberty surrounded by boys whose sex education has very likely been augmented by the internet. The only way you can hope to prepare them for that is by equipping them with as much wisdom as possible.
That means the question is not whether your kid will be exposed to sexual material at a tender age; it is whether he or she will be prepared for it or not.
Not the best advice for kids, but it's certainly the best advice for parents: Just do it.
