The ABCs and the birds and the bees

If only teaching our kids about their bodies were as simple as helping them learn the alphabet. We’d just sing the body part song with a verse about baby making and puberty mixed in and all would be well.

Too bad it weren’t that simple. As parents, we do a lot of the hard work when it comes to teaching our kids and we count on the education system to help with this complex task. I had no problem helping my kids read, exposing them to new experiences, encouraging them to be curious about the world and finding teaching moments in daily life. Speaking with them about sex was not as easy.

I appreciated that they were learning about it at school – not on the playground but in class at an early age. We had always identified their body parts by their correct name. We had a book that told the story of where babies come from that I found uncomfortable to read aloud to the boys but they seemed unfazed by the topic.

There wasn’t such a book when I was a child. The word “vagina” came up in conversation with my mother only once and that was when I asked her to babysit so that I could see “The Vagina Monologues” at the theatre. It felt so wrong!

Despite our discomfort, we do need to equip kids with knowledge about their bodies, personal boundaries, health, safety and even diversity. That’s what the new physical education curriculum in Ontario does. I read through the documents and found nothing objectionable. The concepts are taught based on the age of the students.

It’s body science, as I heard a veteran sex educator from British Columbia explain during a radio interview. That province and others have had much more liberal sex education curriculum than ours for years. Let’s tell them about the ABCs and the Ps and the Vs.