[Sidenote: Mothers and other first teachers.]
The first instruction which may begin to lay the foundation for the
individual's sex-education should be given in early childhood by
parents, or by other adults, who happen to be on the most intimate
personal terms with the child. Usually this means the mother; but there
are numerous cases of teachers, governesses, grandmothers, and even
fathers who have greater personal influence with certain children than
their mothers have. The essential point is that the child should be
instructed only by an adult who can exert the greatest personal
influence.
[Sidenote: Mothers and adolescent boys.]
Many parents who believe in sex-education for their children hold that
the mothers should give all necessary hygienic guidance and teach the
elementary facts of life to the children of both sexes in the
pre-adolescent years, but that with the dawn of adolescence the girls
should continue to be instructed by their mothers, while the boys
should be guided by their fathers. So far as girls are concerned, this
seems to be a fairly good plan; but nine times out of ten it is not
best for the boys for several reasons: First, the sudden change of
attitude on the part of the mother will surely impress upon the boy
that there is something about sex in boys that even his mother dares
not talk over with him. At about this same time when the mother begins
to avoid the sex question with her boy, he will surely begin to get
vulgar information and impressions from his boy companions. He will in
all probability begin to hear the impure and obscene stories and vulgar
language that are so common among many men and boys, and he will be
sure to learn that the vulgarity which he hears must not be repeated in
the presence of his mother and sisters. It is a most critical time in
the mental attitude of the boy. His mother has so far been directing
him towards purity and then suddenly sets him adrift. If there is ever
a time in a boy's life when he needs intimacy with his mother, it is in
the early adolescent years of twelve to fourteen. A strong mother's
heart to heart guidance at that time will influence the boy more than
all the sex-education which the schools and colleges combined can ever
hope to offer. Such is the problem of home teaching for adolescent
boys. I emphatically protest against the foolish and even dangerous
idea that because a boy is beginning to metamorphose into a man his
mother should cease to help him with the problems of sex. Lucky is that
adolescent boy whose mother realizes her duty and her opportunity and
holds him as intimately as if he were a girl of corresponding age.