June 17, 2010
Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees…
Sex education for the young
There is a simmering controversy on the topic of sex education for schoolchildren as espoused by D.E.C.S. and D.O.H. and opposed primarily by the Catholic Church and other moralists. The latter says that SE for these young children should be left to the parents. I am not here to join in the fray but to tell you about my personal experience with my now seven-year old daughter.
Being an obstetrician-gynecologist, I most certainly have the educational and professional background. But first, I’d like to tell you that I promised myself to talk truthfully about any matter to a child, whether they be mine or not, as I don’t want them to become confused later.
At about two years of age, Claire, my daughter, asked me why I have breasts and she does not. I told her that she has breasts only they are not yet big because she is still small. Then she asked why Daddy has small breasts even if he is already big. I said because he is a boy. The look of wonder remained in her eyes.
At three, she asked where she came from. I told her God gave her to us. How? We got her from the nursery. Having seen the nursery at the hospital, she became excited. “Mommy, can I have a baby sister?” I said I cannot have another baby because of my hysterectomy. She said she saw lots of babies in the nursery so I can just get one from there. I told her that’s not how it works because each of those babies have mommies, too. She again asked how God knows which baby goes to which mommy. I said because the baby came out from the mommy. So she asked how the baby got in. I told her later I will explain to her when she’s older. At this point, I didn’t know how to answer an inquisitive little girl who I knew would ask several more questions and I wasn’t ready to go into details.
In her nursery class, she had boy classmates. In their classroom, there is a toilet for their use but it has no door so the teacher can look to see what the child is doing and to help when the child needs it. Apparently, everyone else can look in. She came home one day and asked me why boys are standing when they pee. I told her because boys have a penis (exact word) and girls do not. The next day she asked, “Why do boys hold their penis (exact word) when they pee?” I answered “So they can direct their urine to the bowl instead of wetting their pants.” Then she replied “Can I have a penis, too?” I explained to her that there is a difference in how boys and girls are made and you cannot change that.
Maybe because of this, she started to compare how men and women look but got confused along the way, like:
• Why does Mommy have a mustache when she’s a girl? (Ouch… blame the hormones or, the lack of it, in menopause.)
• Why does Kuya have long hair and Ninong Chuck have earrings when they are boys?
• Can gay men (they abound in our area in Malate) who wear clothes like women and have big breasts like women, become pregnant, too?
In her young mind, the difference between man and woman can sometimes be confusing because of fashion trends (long haired and earring-clad men), sexual orientation and unavoidable age-related hormonal changes. These have gone beyond mere anatomical differences.
Just recently, she told me, “Mommy, you know my classmate (name witheld) said a bad word.” She spelled out in a whisper “s-e-x.” Then she asked, “Did you and Dad have s-e-x to have me? Isn’t this bad?” To say I was almost floored with the question is an understatement but I had to maintain a poker face and replied, “S-e-x is not bad when it is between a married couple otherwise we won’t have children like you.” I asked her how her classmate knew the word and why did she say it is bad. Claire answered her classmate didn’t tell her source but that it is a bad thing that men and women do.
I wondered whether it was the right time to talk to her about “the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the moon up above… and the thing called love” or was I too late because I had deemed she was too young to be exposed to this. Should I then let her classmate do the talking… the blind leading the blind?
I went back to my own experience. I learned the difference between boys and girls because there were seven of us children growing up and I knew the differences between girls and boys from exposure. Long hair didn’t seem to bother me as this was the late ’60s and men had hair longer than women (think Jim Morrison and Twiggy). Besides, Jesus had long hair, too. In my childhood, gay men were not crossdressers nor did they have surgeries for breasts. I just knew them as men who wore makeup and walked with a sway but they were still men hence cannot get pregnant. Sex was not talked about in our house. The nearest to sex education I got from my mother was when she told me (when I was 9 or 10) that a woman who kisses a man on the lips ends up being pregnant. So I asked her, then these American actresses must have lots of children. She answered with a hmmp… and walked away. Biology class in 3rd year high school talked about frogs and animals but never about humans. What I learned about sex, I learned from friends my age, never from more knowledgeable adults. Would I say then that this was wrong, or right?
Going back to the question, should sex education be taught to young children? I am in a dilemma myself. I am afraid my daughter might get her information from somewhere else and yet I feel I am not ready to teach her sex education beyond the differences between a man and a woman. I am a doctor, an ob-gyne to boot, and yet I feel inadequate to handle this. How about those not in the medical field?
If you have questions for Dr. Malu, you can email her at feedback@herword.com.
Dr. Ma. Luisa V. Torralba-Mangubat is a Fellow of the Philippine Obstetrical & Gynecological Society, Philippine College of Surgeons and International College of Surgeons. In addition to this, she is also a Fellow in Aesthetic & Medicine Surgery of the Philippine Academy of Medical Specialists and a member of the Philippine Academy of Non-Surgical Aesthetics. For personal consultations, her clinic hours are as follows:
Asian Hospital and Medical Center, Room 722
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Tel. (632) 771-9340
Medical Center Manila, Room 337
Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Tel. (632) 528-1173
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