Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction: Vital Facts of Life for All Ages — John Shaqi
Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction: Vital Facts of Life for All AgesShannon, Thomas W. (Thomas Washington)
Philosophy
Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction: Vital Facts of Life for All Ages
Shannon, Thomas W. (Thomas Washington)
Sex; Sexual health
=An example.=--On my second lecture trip through Canada, a father told me
how he answered his little girl’s question, “Papa, how did I get into
this world?” His answer was as follows: “Daughter, God dropped you out
of heaven one day while it was raining. Papa saw you falling from a
cloud and ran out and caught you in his arms and brought you into the
house.” That father was boasting of his tact and wisdom.
=Another example.=--A mother in the South, in reply to a similar question
asked by her five-year-old boy, said: “Son, God sent you into this town
on the Cotton Belt train, about three o’clock one afternoon. The doctor
was at the depot and saw you. He knew that we wanted a little boy, so he
put you in his satchel and brought you to mamma.” When this mother
related this to me, her boy was nine years old and had not asked her
another word about his origin. At the close of my lecture, with tears in
her eyes, she said: “Professor, do you suppose that my little boy has
been hearing vulgar stories and is keeping his information a secret from
mamma?” “Yes, nine times out of ten, if you have a bright boy,” was my
reply. Upon investigation she found that her boy had been hearing vulgar
talk for about three years. How long do you suppose it will take that
boy to eradicate from his mind and heart the evil effects of such
training? It is not a question whether your child and mine shall get
this information or not. That question is settled. The child will get
the information. The questions for us to settle are: _When shall this
information be given? Who shall give it? What shall be given? How shall
it be given?_
=Results of the old method.=--I shall not call in question the love,
sincerity and honesty of these parents. In most cases they were sincere
and did the best they knew how. I am concerned about the results of this
time-honored method. Did the old method of deception, misleading and
false replies ever satisfy the inquiring mind of a child? Did the old
method ever make a child wiser? Did it ever lead a child to regard human
reproduction as delicate, sacred and pure? Did it ever lead a child to
greater love and faith in its parents? Only negative answers can be
given to all these questions.
=How the child finds out.=--As a rule, it is not long after a child
becomes interested in his origin until some older child, a playmate or
servant will say, “I know something that you do not know. You would like
to know it. It is how little children come into this world. I will tell
you all about it, if you will not tell your mamma and papa about it.” I
do not care how good the child may be, how well trained, or how
obedient: such is the intense interest of a child in the mystery of his
life that he will agree to keep the story a secret. Now the child
listens eagerly to the half-truths, couched in impure language and gets
a perverted vision of the origin of life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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