Parents, Not Media, Should be the Sex Ed Teacher

Printed in The Family Post: Fall Issue 2006

By Susan Rogers

Hey Mom and Dad - where do YOUR children get most of their messages about sex and sexuality?

If you answer: “From me (or us), the parents(s),” I hate to say you’re wrong, but you are probably not being realistic.

Unless you homeschool your kids, and don’t have a TV, and monitor everything they see on a computer, and have made a point of starting early to teach about sex and sexuality, it’s most likely that your kids get WAY more messages on this important topic from media sources than from you.

Just standing in line with you at the grocery and drug store checkouts gives your children an kids’-eye-level view of headlines that would have made most of us blush just 20 years ago. As soon as your kids know how to read, what are they learning from these headlines?

Four Surprising Things Guys Find HOT

The Sex He Craves: Thousands of Men Finally Admit What They’re Secretly Aching For

“I’ll Bet You’re Wild in Bed” - True Tales of Girls Who Work at Cosmo

And that’s just a recent issue of Cosmopolitan. Other magazines and tabloids shout, “Katie Will Have Tom’s Baby!” or “Charlotte Church Has Best Celeb Breasts.”

If your children watch any TV, advertising tells them that buying and using certain alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, cars or shampoos will make them more sexually desirable.

What are the lessons here? At best, our children are learning that sexuality is an important part of life. At worst (and more likely), they are learning that:

• Sex is THE most important part of anyone’s life and is constantly on everyone’s mind.

• It’s every woman’s job to drive her man wild with desire.

• It’s normal for single young people to have sex with many different partners.

• Marriage is entirely optional for having a baby.

• Men’s sexuality is normally expressed by being “tough,” strong and uncommunicative. Women’s sexuality is normally expressed by dressing and acting provocatively so that men will notice them and want them.

Clearly, it’s OK if our kids learn the first lesson: sexuality is an important part of life. But most parents will agree that the other lessons are not so great.

So, if you live in a typical household, where your children are exposed to hundreds of media messages every day via TV, movies, advertising, the Internet, video and computer games, etc., your first priority is to help your children develop perspective about the media messages they see about sexuality.

You can start this process by casually making general statements about what you see, without expecting any response or discussion. Obviously, what you say will depend on how old your children are. The examples below cover a variety of ages:

• “Wow. These magazines sure talk a lot about sex, don’t they? I don’t know anybody who talks about sex as much as these magazines do. They only put this stuff on the front because they want to sell more magazines."

• “You know, it’s nice to be in love with someone and to want to have a baby together. But your mom and I believe that you need to be married to each other before having a baby. Having you kids and being a family is one of the best things about being married to your mom.”

• [Mom laughing out loud.] “That Cosmopolitan magazine is so funny! I can’t believe they think women don’t have anything better to do than constantly think about sex.

• [Dad] “I can’t believe this Cosmo magazine every month. It’s not just a woman’s job to learn how to make love better. It’s the man’s job too, and for us it’s harder to figure out how to be good at it than it is for women.”

Your children are sponges, absorbing whatever they see and hear to learn about the world. But they are also people. They are developing their own ideas and they want your guidance. Start when kids are young, and as they grow, make it clear you want to listen to them and hear their questions, not just lecture at them.

It’s MUCH harder to be a parent now than it used to be —a constant battle to keep media from being our children’s sex ed teacher. Children eventually become sexually active young adults, and the age at which that happens depends a lot on how you communicate with them about sexuality as they grow up. Be honest and open with them from the very beginning, and it’s much more likely they will confide in you when it really counts.

Susan Rogers is a Grass Valley resident and parent. Her website MediaLiteracy. com offers resources for parents interested in the influence of media on children and families.