Adultery for children Should sex education begin at home? By Cecil Pinto
"Dada, what means adultery?" I tried not to look too shocked as I turned away from my computer monitor and faced my eight year old son Desmond. "Where did you hear that word?" Desmond picks up a lot of words from watching cartoons on TV. Words we don't normally use like 'phenomenal', 'gigantic' and 'awful'. Recently he has been watching Mind Your Language on DVD and has picked up 'metaphorically', 'pour favor', and 'jolly good'. But I am drifting. Let's get back to adultery. I don't think that is a word that would come up on Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel, but then one never knows. "Why don't you Google it?" Desmond misinterpreted my hesitation for ignorance and suggested I do what I always do when I need generic knowledge. But then he had a second thought. "But Dada you have received First Communion, no?" This was getting curioser and curioser. What had my receiving the Holy Eucharist a million years ago got to do with adultery? "Dada you had to study the Ten Commandments too, no? So you know what is adultery!" Then I got it, but not quite. Sure we had to study the Ten Commandments when we went for pre-communion Catechism class, but now that I think back whereas some commandments were explained at length, some others, like the one about not coveting your neighbour's wife, we just learnt by rote and never bothered to understand. Quite rightly too. At that age the neighbour's mangos, on the mango tree, were much more covetable than his wife. How do I explain to an eight year old about sexuality, monogamy, celibacy and Catholic guilt? Concepts that even we adults have difficulties with. Would I be a good father, but a bad Catholic, if I encouraged my son to question each and every church dogma. Isn't he a bit too young to understand the implications? Sometimes blind faith is better than questioning everything. I did what any sensible father would do. "Go ask your Mamma, she will explain it properly. I have got important office work to do." "Dada, we saw Jane and Kenny having sex!" Whoa!! Jane and Kenny (names changed to avoid identification) are Desmond's cousins aged four and five respectively. "What exactly happened, and when was this?" I asked Desmond cautiously. Apparently it was at a recent family outing. All the children had been playing football and were queued up to have a bath. Kenny ended up doing some playful wrestling with Jane which was observed by Desmond and his older cousin Leroy who is the expert on worldly matters. It was Leroy who explained to Desmond that they were indulging in sex. "But Dada they had their cheddies on, so it was not really sex, no?" This was getting a bit too tricky. How did he know that cheddies had to be removed before it could be called sex? Was horseplay among kids (locally called 'playing horsie-ghoda' i.e. horse-on-horse action) a type of frottage? I did what every right thinking father in my position would do. "I'm busy Desmond, go ask Mamma!" What will I do a few years down the line when the time comes for that all-important father-son talk about the 'birds and the bees'. Probably find some Internet site that explains it better. Come to think of it neither of my parents gave me the 'birds and bees' talk either. It's just a phrase we picked up from English books, comics and movies, but none of my friends recall being given the B&B talk by their parents. We learnt about sex from older classmates who brought pornographic literature to school and explained to us youngsters how it all happened. That probably explains many of our Internet surfing habits. Also the weird metaphor of a stork bringing a baby has never ever penetrated our cultural consciousness. Even the youngest Indian child knows the connection between pregnancy and childbirth, and to an extent the connection between unprotected sex and pregnancy. In many ways universal AIDS awareness has taken the role of sex education, which is a good thing for us busy parents. SSC students in Catholic schools of my generation were sent for a religious retreat where a priest explained, among other things, concepts of virginity and celibacy, as also the prohibition against artificial contraception. A distant and vague concept since most of us were celibate virgins anyway, because of lack of willing partners – so contraception was the furthest thing from our mind. Also at that time smuggling in some booze and cigarettes for an overnight retreat was much more exciting, and immediate, than trying to score with the unscore-able convent girls. Coming back though to very young children and matters of sex, I would rather err on the side of being a bit more open in these matters. I don't mean expose them to hardcore sex but why get all hot and blustered when there is even a mention of sex or some slight nudity on TV or in a magazine. At least in the home there is a possibility of a decent explanation, or telling them that this is 'something adults do'. Isn't that better than having then get bizarre knowledge and attitudes from dubious sources? The same people who question how foreigner women raise their daughters have difficulty with their own kids watching Children Dance Competitions on TV. They in fact will encourage their children to participate in such competitions where sexually loaded pelvic thrusts and bosom heaving is expected of little girls - and in fact encouraged by the same doting parents. Fifteen minutes of fame for miming a Bollywood adult item number. Bah! "Dada have you ever had sex with your cousin?" Now this was going a bit overboard. Apparently Desmond had watched a program called The Moment of Truth where contestants are asked increasingly embarrassing questions about their personal lives to win large sums of money if they answer truthfully. He keeps mixing it with his favourite program, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? Now this time I could not dismiss him to his Mamma, so like any tactful father would I answered truthfully. "It was a very long, long time ago. We were kids, and we had our cheddies on!" ------ The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 30th October 2008. Renew your wedding vows in Goa... http://www.renewalsetc.com ===