In the matter of sex education

In the matter of sex education, probably more than in any other, you're bound to have made mistakes. Own up to them. Admit that you've made them. To yourself admit them for certain. And if you feel like it, admit them to your teen-ager, too.

Keep in mind that good body feelings are permissible. And that there are safe and harmless ways of finding at least temporary, partial gratifications.

Recognize that your child is bound to feel hostile toward you for the fact that you have not been able to meet all the curiosities and questions and sex wishes he has had. You couldn't have. It's impossible. Even so, if you let him get his hostility out for the present and past lacks he has felt, even though some of these are imagined, it will help prevent him from using sex as an indirect way of letting hostility out.

Don't be afraid to set limits and to define what he may and may not do.

If, like many youngsters, he doesn't bring up the subject of sex, you do it if you can.

If you feel embarrassed in doing it, say so.

If he wants to talk, listen to him. If he happens to bring in old fears and childish beliefs, don't make fun of them. Many strange, childish fantasies are commonly held over. Truths often sink in better after fantasies have been expressed.

If you like, it won't hurt, and it may help, to mention some of the child fantasies you now know are common. Tell them much as you would tell a folk tale or story. "Children often imagine--thus and so!" After all, these are childish folk tales that most of our children once told themselves. With the retelling a teen-ager may now be able to sever the connections between fact and fiction that he put together when he was small. But don't pry for old memories. That only does harm.

What he needs now is for us to take his love affairs seriously, which does not, however, mean somberly. We can smile with him but not laugh at him. He wants us to listen to how he feels and to be glad he is telling us. He resents reactions like those of Deborah's parents.

Sobbed fifteen-year-old Deborah, flouncing out of the living room, "You're horrible, you two! Forbidding me to marry Kent when I grow up. I don't care if he isn't socially suitable. I'm going to marry him, I tell you, whether you disapprove or not."

What these teen-agers crave is to have their feelings accepted with reactions similar to those that Edith's folks gave. Although Edith, too, was only fifteen, they listened with serious interest. "He's simply super, let's face it! I don't see how such a wonderful fellow even wants to look at me. We've got so many plans. He's going to study eventually to be a doctor. It doesn't matter how many years it takes. We'll get married as soon as we're old enough and I'll train for a secretarial job or to be an actress, I can't decide quite which. I'd rather be an actress, of course. But then the theater is so demanding. We'd never be together in the evening and that wouldn't work. I expect I'll have an awful job learning shorthand. I haven't that kind of a mind. But you can do anything, almost, for love."

"And it gives you a wonderful feeling," Mother put in, "to dream and plan."

"Only sometimes it's so frustrating because there's such a long stretch to go."

"Yes, I know."

Remember--

These youngsters hope so mightily for our understanding. They want us to respect the fact that they are involved emotionally as deeply as they dare. This affair may last. It may not. Most boys and girls go through several heart-shattering relationships in the process of maturing. They are trying out their fledgling wings, as it were, feeling out what it is like to be a man or a woman in love. * In this process they are enormously grateful for our steady and dignified regard.

Remember--

These boys and girls are struggling to have their love needs and sex needs met at a period in life when they possess bodies that are old enough for complete satisfactions which must, however, be curtailed in a world that says "Wait."