WHO SHALL TELL THE CHILD?

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12181, 4 July 1925, Page 15

WHO SHALL TELL THE CHILD?

It has become the fashion to speak somewhat contemptuously of those whc shrink from the o£en discussion of matters of sex (writes the Rev. F. SMyers), and, every other day or 60, someone assures ug that ignorance is not innocence. Early Victorian prudery was, of course, ridiculous. But is there not a danger of the pendulum swinging much too far to the opposite extreme? If the Victorian went a little too far in one direction, the neo-Georgian is going miles too far in the other. Now all of this is not to say that the child shall not be told. Sooner or i later the knowledge must be imparted, and it ig obviously wise that it should not be derived from a tainted source. Vet clever writers keep floundering around the question, “Who shall tell the child?-’ They canvass the suitability of dootor, teacher, and priest.

And Mr Alex. M. Thompson has found the problem so colossal that, in a recent article in the “Sunday Chronicle.” he ended on a note which is almost one ol despair. “The task urgently needs to be done,” he says. “But it demands a genius. Has the world no great mind competent to tackle it?" Weil, if clergy, doctors, and teachers are to tackle the job, it will indeed demand a genius such as we are rarely likely to* see. But the natural genius, equipped by Nature for the task, exists alr&idy in millions. One person, and one person only, can speak to the child on this matter with absolute safety and assured confidence—and that person is the child’s mother. If anyone else does it, he may rouwo that evil curiosity which lies at the toot of all moral perversion, or unwittingly supply the first spark of a devastating flame. But if “mother” speaks, and especially if she is wise , enough to stress the utter holiness of the subject—a sanctity too profound for common speech—the child is simply in- i capable of thinking evil of it. 1 having spoken on AM _ one pi ,

perhaps two occasions when it is necessary—the one at about the age of eight and the other before the period of puberty—and having l told the child that if he rightly wants to know more lie must apply to mother and not listen to the talk of companions; then, let the subject drop. I confess that I am distrustful of pamphlets. Some of them are yery good indeed. But most of them, although written with the’ purest and best intentions, may do untold harm. Any of them is liable to induce a morbid brooding that is highly undesirable. If it he asked why emphasis is here laid upon the mother as the natural agent of necessary sex education, and not the father, my reply is that in some rare cases the father is indeed fitted for this work, hut the mother is naturally fitted for it in every case. There is a tenderness of affection between mother and child to which the father seldom, if ever, attains. If there is a real bond of intimate friendship between a boy and his father, the later stage of instruction—say, when the boy goes to school—might well come from the father. But the earlier stage will come better from the mother—and possibly the later stage, too. 'The mother can do this sacred work, and send us forth with clean hearts, just because she is “mother.” We can love our father for his qualities, for his kindness, his justice, his wisdom • but we love our mother anyhow. For life knows no holier and sweeter thing than motherhood.