morbid curiosity and the danger of resorting to filthy sources of
information is illustrated by the story of a seven-year-old boy who
was invited by an older boy to come to the wood-shed for the purpose
of being told an important secret. "If you promise not to tell any
one," the older boy began, "I will tell you where babies come from."
"Why, I know where babies come from," replied the second, not
greatly interested. "Oh, yes you do! I suppose you think that a
stork brings them? Well, you're 'way off there. The stork ain't got
nothing to do with it," the instructor continued breathlessly, for
fear of being deprived of his opportunity to impart his precious
secret. At last the secret was out; but the younger replied, coolly,
"That's nothing. My mother told me that when I was four years old."
Since the matter had ceased to be a secret, and since the story even
lacked novelty, all opportunity for the elaboration of details was
destroyed.
But what can you tell to a child of four or five? For that is the
age at which the question is likely first to present itself.
Remember that the child is not asking a sex question, but one about
the direct source of himself, or about some particular baby that he
has seen. You can say that the baby grew from a tiny egg, which is
in a little chamber that grows as the baby grows, until the baby is
big enough to come out. This will satisfy most children for a
considerable time, but some children will immediately ask, "Where is
that little room?" To which you may reply, "The growing baby must be
kept in the most protected place possible, so it is kept under the
mother's heart." Or, you may say that the baby grew from a seed
implanted in the mother's body, that it was nourished by her blood
until it grew large enough, when it came out at the cost of much
suffering. Of course, you will tell the story as personally as you
can, about your particular child, and in as simple a way as you can.
If you tell the little girl or boy this much you have told him all
that he probably cares to know at this time; you have told the truth
so that you have nothing to fear about his being disillusioned
either as to the story or as to your own trustworthiness; and you
have avoided arousing the suspicion that certain subjects are
unworthy of understanding. And then you will find that this new
conception of his relation to you, as truly a part of your being,
will deepen and strengthen his natural feeling of affection and
sympathy. It is also well with the first telling to impress the
child--in so many words, if necessary--with the idea that he must
always come to you for anything he wants to know, and that you are
always glad to tell him.
As the child grows older his knowledge of life must grow also. In
the country and in small towns the child becomes familiar with many
important facts about life without any special effort being required
to inform him. He learns that chickies hatch out of eggs and that
the eggs have been laid by the mother hen. He learns that the field
and garden plants grow from seeds and that the seeds were borne by
the mother plants. He learns about the coming of the calf and the
colt; and even city children can learn that kittens and puppies come
from mother animals. It is a comparatively simple matter for a child
with such knowledge to get the further information that the baby
brother developed from an egg that mother kept near her heart during
the hatching time. Much of this knowledge that the country child
acquires incidentally must be brought to the city child through
special efforts and devices, in the school as well as in the home,
that he may acquire the fundamental facts of bearing and rearing
young, in plants as well as in animals, and that he may look upon
these facts not as strange or disconcerting marvels, but as natural
happenings.
Miss Garrett, one of the most successful teachers of sex and
reproduction, tells the story of some city boys who had been taught
these things, and who had decided, in their club, to raise rabbits.
The selection of a father rabbit and a mother rabbit was too
important a matter to leave to a committee, so the whole club went
in a body to attend to these preliminaries. The care the boys took
of the mother rabbit during her pregnancy was in itself an
education. Later Miss Garrett saw the leader of the club--who had
been the "toughest" of the gang--with another boy on the street,
while a pregnant woman was trying to cross with a heavy basket.
"Come on, Jim," he called, "let's help her across." This same boy
but a few months back would have ridiculed the poor woman in her
plight.
Every child can learn what Jim and his companion learned. He can
learn to respect motherhood and to be considerate of mothers as
mothers. It is very interesting to see the great differences in this
regard between families in which the fact of motherhood is a secret,
and those in which it is a matter of common knowledge. I was
visiting a friend whose six-year-old boy knew that another baby was
expected, and he was very careful to avoid annoying his mother. Of
course, the attitude of the other members of the family also had an
influence upon the conduct of this child. But another mother
complained that she received very little consideration during
pregnancy from her oldest son--a boy of fourteen--although all the
other members of the family were as careful and as thoughtful as
could be desired. This second mother, however, had allowed her older
boys to grow up on the assumption that sex and reproduction had
nothing to do with life, or, at any rate, were of no concern to them
and were not suitable subjects to know about; so that her boys did
_not_ know that something unusual was in the air, or that
something special was expected of them.
The important thing for the mother to do during these growing years
is to retain the confidence of the children, and to give them an
opportunity to become acquainted with the everyday facts about
plants and animals. The questions that come to the child's mind will
be questions of motherhood and babyhood, chiefly, and not questions
of sex or fatherhood. When these questions do at last arise, as they
are sure to almost any time after twelve years, and sometimes even
before, you have a great advantage if your child brings his
questions to you instead of to his casual acquaintances of the
school or street, even if you are not prepared to answer all the
questions for him. The girl will come to her mother, and the boy
will come to his father, if they have acquired the habit of coming
with frankness and confidence. Then, if for any reason you are not
qualified to tell what needs to be told, you may just as frankly say
so and refer the child to the right instructor, who may be a teacher
or the family physician. Older children may even be sent to suitable
books. But the most desirable condition is that in which the parents
have prepared in advance to answer all the questions themselves, and
even to anticipate some questions.
[Illustration: In the country children become acquainted with the
facts of life.]
The child should receive instruction along these lines at various
stages in his development, even up to young manhood or womanhood,
corresponding to his physical development and to his mental
development, which normally proceed in close relation to each other.
The girl should be informed how to care for her health. The boy
should be instructed about the sex life of the opposite sex to know
what they have a right to expect, or rather what they have no right
to demand of the other. Boys during the adolescent period, which has
been called the "age of chivalry and romance," are keen to
appreciate the rights of others and their own duties to the weak; it
is at this time that we are to appeal to their sense of honor in
establishing ideals of purity, and the sense of responsibility as
bearers of the life stream. The standards of sex morals are
established during this period, for girls as well as for boys. Their
strength to time of temptation will lie in the ideals which now
become fixed. We want our girls to grow up demanding purity of the
young men they will meet, not pretending that they do not know the
difference. And we want our boys to grow up with faith in the
literal truth of that fine line about Sir Galahad:
His strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure.
The parents who wish to prepare themselves with a knowledge of what
to tell their children in place of the old stork fable; of when to
tell, instead of postponing to a dishonest "some other time"; and of
_how_ to tell, instead of in the embarrassing, half-expressed
vagueness, would do well to read some of the abundant literature on
this subject that has been issued in recent years just for our help:
Some of the best titles are given below.
The following titles, with comments, are taken for the most part
from "A Selected List of Books for Parents," issued by the
Federation for Child Study:
BIOLOGY OF SEX. By T. W. Galloway. A concise and reliable statement
of fundamental sex facts.
GIRL AND WOMAN. By Caroline Latimer. Very helpful in understanding
and dealing with the physical, mental and moral disturbances of
girlhood and early womanhood. Some of the recommendations,
particularly regarding physical aspects, are open to question.
MARRIAGE AND THE SEX PROBLEM. By F. W. Foerster. Emphasis is laid
upon the religious and spiritual sides of the emotional life, upon
training for self-control and the mastery of moods and instincts.
SEX. By Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thompson. The biological
aspects of sex and also interesting chapters on sex education, the
ethics of sex, and sex and society. Good bibliography.
SEX EDUCATION. By Maurice A. Bigelow. Covers the problems of sex
education and of criticisms of sex education.
SEX EDUCATION. By Ira S. Wile, M.D. An excellent little volume for
the purpose of assisting parents to banish the difficulties and to
suggest a plan for developing a course in sex education. The chapter
on terminology is most helpful.
THE SEXUAL LIFE OF A CHILD. By Dr. Albert Moll. An exhaustive study
of the origin and development in childhood and youth, of the acts
and feelings due to sex. Indispensable to anyone interested in sex
education.
THE SEXUAL QUESTION. By August Forel, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D. Translated
from the German by C. F. MARSHALL, M.D., F.R.C.S. A comprehensive
and reliable study of the subject from biological, historical,
social and hygienic viewpoints.
TRAINING OF THE YOUNG IN LAWS OF SEX. By the Hon. E. Lyttelton. A
brief presentation, from a lofty point of view of the many phases of
the sex problem as it confronts the boy.
The following books on sex education were written for children. They
are listed here, not to be put into the hands of the young, but as a
help to parents in supplying methods of approach and a usable
vocabulary:
THE RENEWAL OF LIFE. By Margaret W. Morley.
THE SEX SIDE OF LIFE. An Explanation for Young People. By Dr. Mary
Ware Dennett (Pamphlet, published by the author, New York.)
THE SPARK OF LIFE. By Margaret W. Morley.
THE THREE GIFTS OF LIFE. By Nellie M. Smith, A.M.
Special studies in many parts of the country, especially during the
war, have made it clear that girls in the adolescent stage are
definitely aware of the need for clean and trustworthy instruction
on matters pertaining to the relations between the sexes, to the
control of the emotions, to the care of the body during the
menstrual period, and to other problems arising from the facts of
sex.
It is pathetic, is it not, to have a high-school girl write: "Some
parents are ashamed to tell their girls everything, so that is why I
think they should be told in school." Whose parents had she in mind?
Another writes: "There are many girls with no mother or very near
female relation that can tell them all they need to know, and if
anything should happen in a girl's life, she does not think it
proper to speak to a male, even if it is her father." Are the girls
who have mothers or "very near female relations" to be none the
better, or happier for it?
I hope that mothers will not continue in the future, as most have
done in the past, to hesitate about giving such information to their
children. If you are perhaps tempted to feel that you would like to
preserve the child's innocence as long as possible, you have but to
realize that innocence is not the same as ignorance. We are apt to
forget how young we ourselves were when we had obtained one way or
another a large mass of information about reproduction, and even
about sex. The question is not whether a young child should have
this information or not; the question is whether he shall have
correct and pure information, or false and filthy information. For
one or the other he is sure to get. True knowledge is the best
mantle of innocence.
Much misery is caused, not only for girls, but also for boys, by the
lapses from the path of virtue. If the young man who has gone astray
is in a position to say, "Had I but heeded!" instead of saying, "Had
I but known!" it will make a great difference in the way he will
later feel toward the one person from whom he had a right to expect
protecting knowledge. It is true enough that knowledge alone is not
a sure protection against wrong-doing; but you can have no moral
training without knowledge, and knowledge is the least you can give.
There is no reason why parents should think of enlightening their
children on this subject as a disagreeable necessity, instead of as
one of the important means through which to be of real help to their
children, and at the same time to help themselves to retain their
hold upon the children.
XIII.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF TRANSITION
There comes a time in the life of every boy and every girl that
brings a maximum of trials and worry--to the other people. This time
is the golden age of transition from childhood to manhood or
womanhood, the age of adolescence. If you have had annoyance and
hardship with your infants, if the children have perplexed you and
tried you--as you thought, to the limit--you may be sure that there
is more in store for you. For the age of adolescence brings with it
problems and perplexities and annoyances that will make you forget
that it's any trouble at all to look after younger children.
After years of painstaking attention to all the details of a child's
home surroundings, in the hope that this attention will result in
distinct gains to the child's character, it must be very discouraging
to notice some fine day that Louise is becoming rather finicky about
the food--which is just as good as she has always had--and that Arthur
is inclined to become rather short in speaking to his mother--not to
say impudent. And both are likely to become critical not only about
the food but about a hundred other things that they find at home. And
both are likely to be something not far from impudent in giving
expression to their criticisms. In fact, they will be quite prepared
to undertake the education of their parents, and to tell you with
alarming assurance just how and when to do things, both at home and
abroad. Fortunate, indeed, are the parents who have come to this
critical stage in their education equipped with a sense of humor.
However, these unexpected and mortifying outbreaks of inconsiderateness
and bad manners do _not_ show that your early efforts have all been in
vain. They do _not_ show that outside influences beyond your control
have perverted your children, or have counteracted your efforts. They
show merely that Louise and Arthur are still growing, and have now
entered upon that most interesting and most significant period of the
new birth.
It is well, first of all, for the mother--and the father, too--to
realize that this period is a passing one, for this knowledge can
save you many a worried day and many a sleepless night. I do not
mean that when the child comes to this dangerous age you are simply
to let nature and impulse have their way. I mean only that the
problems are to be met with many devices, but not with worry. For we
are coming to understand some of the fundamental causes of the great
changes that occur in the nature of the growing child at this time,
and we are learning, accordingly, better ways of dealing with the
troublesome manifestations of these changes. Not that we can lay
down rules for the proper handling of all adolescents everywhere,
for we can not. Every individual is a problem by himself; but we can
learn a better way of approaching this precious problem, a more
helpful attitude to maintain toward him or her.
There is a physical basis for the remarkable alterations in the
minds and morals of this age. The infant grows very rapidly at
first, but with a diminishing rate until about the twelfth year.
Then, almost suddenly, the rate of growth increases again, and in
four or five years most children have attained nearly their full
physical growth. Associated with this great physical growth is the
fact that some organs grow much faster than others, so that the
proportions of an adult come to be very different from those of a
child. In the meanwhile, however, there has been a great strain on
the system, because, apart from the demands of the general body
growth, some of the organs have not been able to keep up with the
special demands made upon them. For example, the growth in body
weight and in muscle may proceed more rapidly than the proportionate
growth of the lungs or the liver, or the weight may increase more
rapidly than the proportionate strength of the muscles. Moreover,
the nervous system is developing at a more rapid rate, probably,
than the other systems of organs, and this strain shows itself in
various ways that are disagreeable to adults with fixed habits and
standards.
All of these changes are intimately bound up with the development of
the sex organs and with the approach of sexual maturity.
A graceful child becomes awkward and a well-mannered child comes to
act rudely and to speak quite unlike his former self. These changes
are related to the fact that with the development of the nervous
system there arise impulses for hundreds of new kinds of movements
which the child can learn to suppress or to control only with the
passing of time. This is the age at which the child is exposed to
the acquirement of many undesirable muscular habits, such as various
kinds of fidgetings, biting of the finger-nails, twirling of
buttons, wrinkling of the forehead, shruggings, swaying the body,
rolling the tongue, tapping with the fingers or the feet, and so on.
Nearly a thousand of these uncontrolled or "automatic" movements
have been described in children of this age. Of course, any of these
movements that produce sounds or that catch our eye are very
annoying to us, and if we have never nagged before, we are likely to
begin now by saying _Don't this_ and _Don't that_, for we
have never been tempted like this before. But nagging is not what is
called for.
Are we then to let them keep on annoying others, or are we to leave
them to themselves to make permanent these awkward and disturbing
and often hideous movements? We should do neither. We should
remember that now of all times the boy or girl needs our friendship
and our sympathy; we should let the young person feel that our
objections are not based upon our momentary annoyance, but upon our
concern for the kinds of habits he will acquire; and we should do
what we can to help him break his habit, not insist that he break it
for us. Moreover, it is not certain that all of these fidgetings and
tappings should be suppressed upon their first appearance. Most of
these automatic movements disappear of themselves as the child
matures and learns to direct his nervous energy into channels that
lead to useful actions, as he acquires skill and self-control
through practice in gymnastics or with tools, or musical instruments
or at some games. And while there should be every opportunity to
play games and musical instruments and to handle tools, etc., we
should not be discouraged if, after a whole day of hard exertion in
work and play, there is still some energy left for drumming on the
table or teasing sister or the cat, or for dancing a jig upstairs
and rattling the lamp.
Closely connected with the rapid development of the nervous system
is the fact of the increasing irritability of temper. This will show
itself every day in a hundred ways. Of course, it is unreasonable,
and, of course, the boy or girl is not to be allowed to become rude
and impatient and domineering. But with this increasing irritability
comes increasing sensitiveness, and it is very easy for you to make
him realize that his conduct is not that becoming a gentleman, or
that his manner has been offensive. He will not give you the
satisfaction, very often, of letting you know that he fully
appreciates your point of view; indeed, he will even make a show of
disputing your position; he will try to argue out a justification
for his conduct, or at least a mitigation. But he knows very well
what his offense is, and is thoroughly ashamed of himself; but he
has to save his face.
It may be helpful to mothers and fathers, and to others who have to
do with girls and boys of this age, to know that what appears to us
as impudence is very often but an expression of the child's awkward
attempt to hide his discomfiture or embarrassment. This is
especially true in the early stages of adolescence. The boy or girl
is becoming conscious of himself as a person, and resents being
treated as a child; the only way he knows of asserting his
personality is by affecting an air of disdain toward those who
presume to treat him as a child. This swagger is more likely to be
put on when there is a third person present. It is therefore always
safer to reserve your discussions and corrections to the time when
you are alone with your girl or boy, and can place your conversation
on an intimate basis.
Hand in hand with spells of most irritating self-assertiveness, the
adolescent is subject to spells of most depressing humility and
self-abnegation. Indeed, at every point this period is marked by the
most violent contrasts and alterations of mood. Hours or days of
seeming indifference to all interests and activities will be
followed by keen excitement and enthusiasm. A fit of doubt in his
own ability and worthiness will be followed by almost ludicrous
self-confidence. A feverish desire for constant companionship will
follow a dull and moody search for seclusion and solitude. In
general it is perhaps wisest to ignore these changing moods, except
where they find their outlet in offensive or vicious conduct. We
must remember that it is just as trying to the young person as it is
to the older ones; and, while we may not be prepared to yield our
comfort and our standards to the whims of the girl or boy, we should
seek for adjustment through sympathetic exchange of ideas and
sentiments, and not through arbitrary rules. In any case, these
changing moods need not in themselves be considered occasions for
misgivings and worry about the future development, for they are part
and parcel of the rapid changes in the nervous system.
So complex is the character of this stage that volumes have been
written about it; it has been recorded in song and in literature,
and has been celebrated in religious ceremonials from ancient times.
If, then, the mother finds it perplexing, and somewhat beyond her
full comprehension, she certainly should not blame herself.
It has been said that the complexity of the individual during
adolescence is due to the fact that at this time the brain and the
whole body become at last awakened to their manifold capacities, and
that the child now is not only capable of doing everything that a
human being can do, but feels the impulse to do everything. But
manifestly he cannot do all things at once; hence the rapid changes
of impulse and mood. There is a sudden increase in emotions, without
suitable habits for giving them an outlet. There is vague longing
and formless yearning for the child knows not what. Much relief and
satisfaction come from physical exertion, especially for boys. There
is much satisfaction of the emotions from association with others;
hence the growth of the gang and the feeling of kinship.