I'm Catholic. Specifically, I'm a show-up-for-Mass-quarterly-but-volunteer-every-week-and-drag-the kids-to-religious-ed Catholic. My parents fed me the faith of my fathers with the same zeal they fed me lima beans and about the same result - I grew up knowing they were good for me and being able to participate in public occasions without spitting them out, but I didn't develop any enthusiasm for either until I was in my 20's. But throughout that period of my life, I was blessed with friends from various Christian and Jewish traditions who didn't reject me out of hand for my worldly excesses and helped me recognize by their examples how God could be a real and powerful presence in a human life. The openness to God they taught me paved the way for a conversion experience that set my relationship with the Lord apart from my newfound appreciation for succotash.
The Evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews who shared their faith with me left me with great admiration for their ideas on modesty and chastity. Nonetheless, I live in the secular world, and my kids go to public school. I don't plan to keep them out of the public school's sex ed programs when the time comes, as it will this year for my oldest. Life sciences belong in the curriculum of any school, in my worldly opinion. But parents have a unique responsibility to prepare their children for adulthood that goes beyond breaking out the charts and telling them the names of body parts and what they do. If you don't have an example of how to do that, it's tempting to leave it to the schools or just leave it alone. Neither is a good option.
One of the challenges I face in teaching my kids about these topics is conveying the right amount of information for their level of interest and understanding. What I have found very effective is answering their factual questions in the simplest, most limited fashion I can manage, then opining on God's role in creating the fact in question. If they ask more questions, I add one new piece of information at a time and repeat the process. If not, I back off. Example:
Child: How did the baby get into Mommy's tummy?
Parent: Daddy helped put the baby in Mommy's tummy. God made it so every baby needs a Mommy and a Daddy to get started.
Child: How did Daddy help?
Parent: Daddies have special seeds in their bodies for making babies. Mommies have special eggs in their bodies for growing babies. When a Daddy seed and a Mommy egg come together, they make a baby grow. God can make a baby out of just a little tiny egg and seed.
Child: What does the seed look like?
Parent: It's really small, and you can't see it except under a microscope.
Child: Does it look like a watermelon seed? We saw seeds inside a watermelon once. Remember?
(This is why it's best to start talking about bodily parts and functions with your kids from their earliest childhood, by the way - it takes a lot of micro-conversations like this over a number of years to convey information about human reproduction without over-sexualizing it.)
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1 comment:
I'll have to remember those suggestions. Right now, I tell my 4-year-old that God put her in my tummy. And she can see the c-section scar and knows that's where she came out. But doesn't know that not all babies come out that way. Great blog idea and awesome posts.
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