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| Here's a little secret, honey! |
For the uninitiated, SED stands for Sex Education for young
adults, youngsters who are growing up and need to learn this from you and not
Imran Hashmi! I don’t have anything against the actor, but I deplore the way
the act is glorified in bollywood, without any information being shared about
the consequences. Yes, there are the occasional ‘Phir Milenge’, ‘Kya Kehna’ but
for each enlightening movie I can give you ten explicit others that can
convince your kid that getting in bed with someone is the coolest thing to do!
Free Lunch!
Now that my older one is 11, I have been grappling with this
question for the last six months and been shamefully procrastinating. Not like
he hasn’t given me a chance to explain. Just the other day, in front of my in-laws,
after an entertaining advertisement, he sprung the question, ‘Mom what is a condom?’.
Squirm, grimace, cringe!
So here are some creative ways that I found to break the news (assuming they don't already know):
1) Birds and Bees? Nah… bring a mammal pet home
"Dad!! Jenny and Tom
are stuck together! Help them, do something!" implored my sister-in-law, as a
10 year old along with her frightened siblings. It was the mating season and
the pet dogs were at it. It was the perfect opportunity for their wise dad to
sit them down and explain what mating was. No shame, no cringing; plain and
simple facts, much to the relief of the frightened kids. Of course they wanted
the dogs to mate more often because ‘Puppies are so cute’!
The extrapolation came as a natural progression!
2) Spark plug
Browsing on the internet, one comes across innumerable tech
inspired ideas by the geeks of the world! Consider the dad who plugged in the
table lamp and remarked ‘See how the sparks got transferred to the lamp. It
creates light, but if not handled properly it could set off a fire.’ Smart idea
and yes, one would have to explain the analogy, honestly.
Similar ideas are the mobile phone being charged by the
inserted charger, a USB device transferring data to a laptop and so on. We’ve
all had our share of laughs about male plugs and female ports. Time we put
that to some use now.
3) Use the videos
on internet
We are blessed to be born in an age where a vast
collection of visual knowledge lies at our fingertips. Well, yes, as paranoid parents, both blessed
and cursed at the same time.
We could use it to serve our purpose. If you are as tongue
tied as I am, try the following video on Youtube; this entertaining series called ‘Sex chat with Pappu and Papa’ will leave you chuckling and asking for more! No, I did not mean that,
what’s with your perverse mind?
The candid conversations between a resourceful dad and a
curious kid are the highlights of this series. ‘What is ‘masturbation’? I know
what ‘intellectual’ means!’ are met with a vehement ‘Shush!’ by a visibly
embarrassed dad. He recovers soon enough, but has to deal with all the old-worldly
wisdom forced down by the patriarch aptly nicknamed, ‘Mogambo’.
4) Books are best!
For kids who love to read, slipping in these witty books in
their hands could be a tactful and humorous way of telling them the truth.
‘Where Willy Went?’ written by Nicholas Allen, is one such hilarious book that narrates the story of a sperm, Willy, an ace
swimmer!
'Mommy laid an egg: Or where do babies come from?' by Babette Cole is another book that
is a funny take on the imaginary (BS) stories, that coy
adults use to sidestep the truth. In a delightful twist to the usual story, the
children show the adults exactly where babies come from!
5) Mythology
One of the funniest jokes doing the rounds during
Janmashthami was, ‘If King Kans didn’t want the eighth child, his so-called nemesis,
to be born, why, on earth, were Vasudev and Devaki imprisoned in the same cell?’
On a more serious note, tales abound in our mythology, about
sex and its consequences. Most children are familiar with these stories.
Abhigyan Shakuntalam, by Kalidasa narrates the story of a beautiful maiden, Shakuntala and
King Dushyant. The king forgets about
the unwed and pregnant Shakuntala, when the ring, a souvenir, is lost!
Mahabharata tells us of the cursed Pandu, who inadvertently kills
a mating dear on a hunting expedition and then dies, later on, when he is
similarly attracted to his wife, Madri.
6) Academic and science books
'Even if we don’t tell them they will learn eventually
from their academic books', is a common refrain from the earlier generation. It’s
a good idea to discuss and openly speak about the relevant chapter at an age
appropriate time. Biology books have already started explaining male and female
parts of plants by grade 5, it could be that chance to explain how mammals
reproduce and make it a matter-of-fact scientific discussion.
While we know what we should do, it’s hard (gulp!) to
actually look into the face of your 11 year old and tell him, Dad and Mom
played games in bed and you are our trophy! ‘Gross’ is what you’re dreading to
hear! So here is part of the problem - firmly ingrained in our Indian psyche, is
the association with shame and lust. That the act is a normal process and a
part of all mammal life on planet earth is not something that was passed on to
us as easily by the previous generation. And then somewhere in our school books,
some enlightened author said, ‘Since the rural population has no other source
of recreation, their population is jumping by leaps and bounds’. That sealed it
forever – sex is the pastime of the boorish and the illiterate!
Hopefully we will not pass on our prejudices to our
children. More importantly, we need to open the doors to discussion on such
subjects so they never feel the need to solicit advice from questionable
sources.
(Oops…did I say 10 ideas? Well I found only 6! Will
ya guys please, contribute to this list, I’m sure you have some crazy ones of your own!
It’s called crowdsourcing and I love your spirit of collaboration!)
