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Parents grapple with sex education
"My son's in fourth grade. One day he came home, pulled out his erect penis, and said, 'Mom, look, I'm bigger than daddy!' 'Put that away!' I cried, it'll get infected!' It's not that I was angry, I was just ... I just didn't know what to do."
Who can blame her? Ah, kids – you never know what they'll come out with. Especially nowadays. Once upon a time, a child's world was more or less innocent, but the filters that kept sex out of it wore out long ago, and now the question is not whether or when children should be told about sex, but how parents can cope with what their kids have already heard, or seen, or, sometimes, experienced.
Shukan Bunshun (Oct 26) polls 1,000 parents on the subject of sex education. The story is as much what parents learn from their children as vice versa.
"My daughter was three when I caught her masturbating under the kotatsu," a 45-year-old mother writes. "Was it stress? Some psychological problem? Maybe she wasn't playing outside enough?"
What she did about the problem we aren't told. In any case, when Shukan Bunshun asks its respondents whether they have discussed sex education with their spouses, the answer turns out to be that surprisingly few – just over a third – have.
Why? Well, it's a touchy subject. "My child asked me where babies come from," says a 41-year-old mother. "I didn't know what to say, so that night I said to my husband, 'How should we answer?' Finally we decided to get a picture book and go over it with the child – but we haven't done it yet."
A 41-year-old nurse brushes aside all hesitation with breathtaking impatience. She and her husband, she says, have decided to give their 11-year-old son the benefit of "living sex education," meaning a demonstration. "That," she says, "will teach him that sex is bound up with affection." Well, if that's what she thinks, what's she waiting for?
"My husband and I noticed that our third-grade son seemed interested in the 'adult video' display at the video rental shop," writes a 32-year-old mother. "My husband said, 'If he wants to see it, let's rent one.' I said no, I'm totally against using videos or magazines as teaching aids. I think it will make it difficult for him to have a loving relationship later on. We finally decided to wait at least until he's had some sex education at school."
Speaking of school, Shukan Bunshun finds that of the 31.3% of respondents who say the primary responsibility for sex education lies with the school (behind 57.9% who would lay it on the parents and 34.1% who would leave it to the parent of the child's gender), a mere 18.9% have any idea what kind of sex education schools are purveying.
A 38-year-old mother who does have some idea writes, "My fourth-grade daughter uses words like 'penis' and 'vagina' without the slightest embarrassment, having learned them at school. This can be a problem at times. Frankly, I wish the school would exercise a little more discretion."
On the other hand, a 40-year-old mother says: "I want schools to teach kids to have some fear of sexual diseases, especially AIDS, and the complications that can result from abortions. The way things are now, society has zero deterrent influence on children."
Yes, adult influence on children is unquestionably on the wane. But some adults do rise to the occasion in old-fashioned, no-nonsense fashion.
"When my eldest son was in senior high school," writes a 48-year-old mother, "he got his girlfriend pregnant and she had an abortion. When my third son was in senior high school, he brought his girlfriend home one day, and my husband and I had a talk with them. 'Just make sure you don't do what your brother did,' we said."
October 27, 2006
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Japan Today Discussion
| Parents grapple with sex education |  |
mummet   (Oct 27 2006 - 10:39) | Rate | Report |
God, I think it might terrify they boy to never have sex. Can you imagine having to watch ya parents at it????
| Learn about sex from videos? | |
| Dids (Oct 27 2006 - 11:03) | Rate | Report |
(And I can't wait for Lad to appear in this thread...)
| It'll Never Work Out Like They Plan... | |
| matsellah (Oct 27 2006 - 15:24) | Rate | Report |
Another couple tried that previously. What happened? This...
I hope she didn't tell her husband.
| Parents grapple with sex education | |
| nitro (Oct 27 2006 - 16:22) | Rate | Report |
hahahaha... pretty bad when your fourth year son has a bigger todger than your own..
| OK | |
| Anomaly_Jr (Oct 27 2006 - 17:02) | Rate | Report |
Secondly JT, just how many times are we going to have a story about the crap sex education in Japan? It seems like this kind of story appears every few months.
| Parents grapple with sex education | |
| varble (Oct 27 2006 - 17:41) | Rate | Report |
LOL! wow, nail on the head my friend. You brought tears to my eyes with that one.
| Parents grapple with sex education | |
| zaichik (Oct 28 2006 - 00:28) | Rate | Report |
Wasn't it Monty Python's Meaning of Life that had the "boarding school headmaster giving sex education demonstration" scene? Absolutely terrifying!
| What if.. | |
| odudog (Oct 28 2006 - 01:49) | Rate | Report |
| zaichick | |
| steen (Oct 28 2006 - 08:26) | Rate | Report |
Sex education should include the relationship between the partners to avoid children doing sex just for fun.
| Parents don't need to resort to videos | |
| the_sicilian (Nov 2 2006 - 06:56) | Rate | Report |
The last quote from a 48 year old mother of HS boys, that seems reasonable enough (beleivable). I would hope that a parent teaches their kids that there is a consequence for these actions. Feeling good and having fun come at a cost. If they are taught that the end result could be a child, a disease, or both, and that you better have the ability to deal with that risk, then the kids SHOULD make the right decision. One hopes.....
ciao
| Japanese parents are useless when... | |
| samrinoma (Nov 2 2006 - 22:08) | Rate | Report |
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