Ready or Not, Sex Education Starts at Home

Sex education begins at home, whether parents are aware of it or not. When sex is honestly discussed, the home becomes a source of both objective facts and moral understanding. When sex is a taboo subject, kids discern that it is something mysterious and forbidden, and therefore something probably worth exploring. As one researcher noted, “Parents are a child’s earliest models of sexuality and authority; they communicate with their children about sex and sexual values indirectly and nonverbally.”

Teenagers need to know that the changes in their bodies and the changing emotions that accompany them are normal. They need to know that their increased sexual awareness is also normal. This is especially important among Christians. The church also must be involved in the education of its young members. Teenagers are going to find out one way or another how their bodies work, and when parents and the church deny kids the information they so vitally need, they set their young people up for trouble.

Kids in Need of Instruction about Sex

When there is a love famine in the home, positive, nurturing communication suffers. As a result, adolescents lack parental instruction about sex. They must gain their sexual education elsewhere, through self-discovery, peers or the media. As a result, sex education is at best incomplete and at worst erroneous.

A couple of students summarized the situation this way:

Teenagers are ignorant about what they are doing. All they know is that they were made with certain body parts, so they might as well find out what they’re used for. Sort of like test-driving a car just to see how well it performs.

Lack of accurate information about sex, although less of a problem than in our parents’ adolescence, is still quite common, and young people often don’t realize how far they are going. Before they know it, they have an unexpected pregnancy on their hands. It must be pointed out that some parents are much to blame since they have not informed their children on the topic of sex, either because they are too embarrassed to discuss it, are irresponsible or are ignorant themselves.

Need I say more?

The Cost of a “Private Act”

According to many, sex is a private act between two individuals. And anything that happens behind closed doors is nobody else’s business. No one has the right to tell other people how they should behave. We are told, for example, that the government has no right to enact or enforce laws that affect a person’s private sexual conduct. And schools should not be allowed to teach principles to guide sexual behavior.

Even many Christians may say, “I guess that’s right. Whatever someone wants to do in private is their business and not mine. After all, they’ll suffer the consequences, not me, right?” Wrong!

If sex is merely a private act behind closed doors, why does the government annually pay large sums of money for abortions? If sex is a private act behind closed doors, why did a former Surgeon General advocate the use of public funds for sex education in all our schools beginning at the third grade? If sex is a private act behind closed doors, why is the U.S. government spending so much money on AIDS research? Why does the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spend so much of its time, at taxpayer expense, on sexually transmitted diseases?

Ironically, many groups that pressure for public funding of abortions and for public care for victims of STD’s also defend their absolute right to have unlimited sexual freedom behind closed doors. Their position is a gross philosophical contradiction.