The Social Emergency Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...has been kept as far as possible from foul suggestions from others; (2) if the child has had its questions honestly answered or temporarily though unevasively postponed; (3) if the child knows from its parents' lips that it came into the world from its mother's body, first growing there "beneath its mother's heart" until it was strong enough 126 to be born; and that the mother would never have wished to have her child grow in her body had it not been that there was a strong man who would care for both mother and little child with great love and tenderness; that there has to be a father to love the mother and child, and that, therefore, mother and child must love the father, and the child must love both father and mother, and that this love is what makes the home; and (4) if in the process of imparting information, confidence has been established and modesty conserved. Anyone who has ever seen a group of six- to ten-year-old boys and girls stand side by side and gaze with rapt but natural wonder and delight at a bureau drawer or chest full of the beautiful little garments waiting and ready for an expected child can never doubt the wisdom of a child's knowing from the start some better version of the story than any of the evasive temporizings of the conventional parent. What shall the parent do who has never spoken of these things to his child until now the child is ten, eleven, or twelve years of age, and especially if the parent has given the child one of these evasive answers in reply to its 127 innocent questions? It may be said in passing that if the parent has thus evasively answered the child's first questions, he will never be bothered in all probability with any more questions. For the best way to set up the barrier is to answer questions falsely; and one way to establish confidence and to facilitate further communication is to answer truthfully. The child may know more or less than you think it knows. The parent does not know what a ten- or...