The latest round of sex-ed curriculum letters and columns in my local paper reflects some puzzlement at the McGuinty government’s whiplash-inducing flip-flop. For the record, regardless of the merits of the ex-new sex-ed curriculum, McGuinty should be voted off the island just for not seeing this coming. I have been receiving emails and invitations to protest the new curriculum since December. I’m sure Dalton has too.
What I should have seen coming was the portrayal of parents who opposed the changed to the Ontario sex-ed curriculum as knuckle-dragging right-wing bigots. Read the comments here , here , and to some extent here .
Count me in I guess; although anyone who has followed my posts about the birds and the bees knows that my children ask a lot of questions and I don’t sugar-coat anything. But believe me, when one of my pre-teens asked me how homosexuals conceived children since they couldn’t have intercourse and what’s the point of marrying someone you can’t have sex with, I wished I had a habit of making things up. Oh, look at the time… Anyway, these letter-writers all miss the point. I have no issue with my children knowing that their genitals won’t fall-off if they touch them or that homosexuals are not psychopaths. I don’t think that sex-ed is corrupting. I am not anti sex-ed, I am anti sex-ed curriculum. My kids’ sex-education is no government’s business. Sex-ed and curriculum are two words that shouldn’t go together. Like Public and Toilets.
But while letter-writers and columnists don’t get my point, I do get theirs and, believe it or not, the government’s. Unfortunately, many children do not get proper sex education at home. It’s like religion in Catholic schools: parents want their kids to have it, they just don’t want to teach it. Some children — yes, they are still children — are sexually active in grade 7 and 8. The hoopla over the HPV vaccine was based in part over the fact that grade 4 girls were vaccinated because after that we couldn’t be sure they were not already sexually active. That shows immense failure on the part of the parents, not the system. How are parents failing their children when it comes to sexual education? Is it MTV? Is it pop radio? Is it La Senza Girl? Is it American abstinence-only sex-ed policies? Honestly, I don’t really know. But I will grant my detractors that the rate of teenage pregnancy and abortion, and STD transmission is outrageous and no flattering reflection on parents or the state’s ability to handle the topic. It’s easy to blame your opponent when stats increase regardless. But while we’re talking, we are still failing our children.
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Given that it is well known that parents have more influence THAN ANYONE ELSE about this matter in the lives of their children, and given that parents often are quite squeamish about discussing these matters with their children, I’ve long wondered why there isn’t more of an effort on either the part of the government, local communities, or faith-based groups to help “grease the wheel” and get parents and kids talking. (Maybe there is, and I’m just not seeing it.)
On those lines, may I recommend the DVD “Healthy Chats for Girls: An Age-appropriate, Sensitive-yet-fun Discussion about Puberty and Growing up for Mothers and Daughters” presented by pediatrician Dr. Chrystal de Freitas. I got it at our public library, and I do recommend it if you have a daughter that is approaching puberty.
Ultimately I think that it’s ironic that the super-religious families responsible for much of the protest are the one’s whose kids need sex-ed the most. Why? Because these are also parents the parents who are too neurotic to actually TALK to their kids about the issue. I went to a private Christian school and the only information we had until highschool were the myths we joked about on the playground. Check out some of them and ask me again if we aren’t in need of reform http://www.lionsdenu.com/7-myths-about-sex-petition-for-updated-sex-ed/
Nate: Do they need more sex ed or just a different kind? There’s the “religious family sponsored sex ed myths” and then there’s the more run-of-the-mill “secularly sponsored sex ed myths.”
I got lots of the latter. Both are damaging, I’m sure.
Nate,
If you didn’t get a good sex education at a Christian school, blame your parents, not the school.
And all those bystanders who were standing around listening to the myths being spread around but not joining in the conversation? They had been given the facts of life from their parents, and were laughing at your ignorance! And if they were unsure about the accuracy of some of those myths, they would go home and ask their parents!
Not all christian parents are neurotic prudes who are unwilling to discuss basic biology. Don’t make hasty generalizations, or be too quick to buy into stock stereotypes.