My Inner Bitch's Bout with Sex Negative Education, by Tinamarie Bernard! - Click here to read about Tinamarie's experience with "sex negativity" at her son's camp.
There is a lot of guesswork that goes into how a parent should raise their children and how much information should be fed into their sponge-like brains. In a large number of discussions, the answer almost always defaults to "it depends on the child. While this is by and large obviously true, we have nevertheless set forth a set of standards and milestones that are deemed age-appropriate for the various stages of life.
Can't drive until you're fifteen, can't join the military until you're 17 and a half, can't drink until you're 21. It's also 18 or 21, depending on your location, to purchase adult items and go to R-rated movies without an adult.
The one area where parents seem to become the most nervous is when and how to start discussing the ideas of sex and biology with their children. Tinamarie states that her eight year old son is well past the biology part and they were discussing actual relationships by this point.
I can't speak for anyone else's family, but in mine this would have created an outrage of Biblical proportions and my mother would have been ridden out on rails the second my grandparents found out.
Which brings us to the topic of the week! We would like to know your thoughts on when it is appropriate to begin sex education. Do you think it is the responsibility of parents and teachers to educate; maybe just one or the other?