THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

I know it’s a corny joke, and I’ve used it before, but when my parents told me about the birds and the bees I was so impressed that I went steady with a sparrow for six months! It’s actually not funny. When I was a child there was no such thing as sex education – except mutual exploration behind the bike shed. Our parents didn’t tell us anything. There were no sex education classes in school.

Even at high school in biology class there was no mention of the human body or our reproduction organs. We knew all about pistols and stamen and how busy the bees were pollinating flowers. And sex was a dirty word we sniggered and whispered about.

I raise the issue, seriously, today because Family Planning Victoria wants children as young as four and five to start learning about their bodies and relationships  and, apparently some five-year-olds  already have sex education classes in some Victorian schools.

The obvious questions here; How young is too young? And should this be coming from the schools or should children be given this information from their parents?

Of course, some embarrassed parents would rather their kids be told at school. Gets them off the hook.

3AW’s  Dr. Sally Cockburn has a good yardstick. She says ‘When kids start to ask, they should get answers’. And that’s sensible. And smart.

It seems futile to brainwash your child about babies being found  in the cabbage patch if they are getting more graphic –and often harmful and dangerous—from their classmates.

I know of one case of a friend who, as a five-year-old hit school and hit the trifecta.

The naïve and protected little girl found out from a cynical, know-all classmate, exactly where babies come from, that there was no Easter Bunny and Father Christmas was really her father in disguise.

Did her mother have to talk overtime to a disillusioned and teary child that night.

For decades now that clever but simple series of books called ‘Where did I come from’ has helped bridge the gap for thousands of parents. But likening an orgasm to a sneeze was always going to cause problems.

It’s never too early for parents to teach their children the names of their body parts and to warn them that it is wrong for people to touch them there. To warn them about stranger danger.

But would you want your child to be given sex education that early in their innocent lives. The Herald Sun cartoonist Knight makes light of it today but his message is serious. He shows kids at kindergarten peeping into their pants and one boy pointing to a drawing of a man’s genitals and asking the teacher ‘Miss, is that the pink Wiggle’.

In this ‘anything goes’ world where the sexualisation of children and the exploitation of children seems rampant at what age would you start telling your kids everything. And is there the risk of too much information too soon. It’s your call.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008