It is ignorance of this truth which has led to the dishonouring and befouling of pure and beautiful youth, which is the original source of the greater part of all the social troubles and the sex difficulties of adolescence.
The tiny child of two or three years old, just beginning to perceive and piece together the psychological impressions stamped upon it by its environment and the mind-states of those around it, is the weakest link in the chain of our social consciousness. Physically, the new born babe for the first few days of its life is the weakest link in the chain, the most liable physically to extinction, but spiritually, socially the link most liable to warping, even destruction, is the awakening mind, the still half-sleeping consciousness, of the child between two and three years old.
The mother or guardian then who desires her son or daughter to face the great facts of life beautifully and profoundly should begin from the first to mould that attitude in the child. It may appear to the unthinking like building castles in the sand even to hint at truths which it cannot comprehend to a child who remembers nothing of the words used in later years. This is not so. What the child absorbs is less the actual words than the tone of voice, the mode of expression that spiritually impresses itself upon its own little soul.
Then there comes a later stage for most civilized human beings, usually after they are three years old, when there arises the possibility of permanent consciousness through permanent and specific memory of things seen, done or heard. Most grown-ups of the present generation will have some vivid memory, dating back to when they were between three and four years old, when they received a strong mental impression that grown-ups were lying to them or that there was something funny or silly in questions which they asked. Perhaps they noticed that whilst Jack the Giant Killer was taken seriously, questions about where pussy got her kittens were laughed at. Almost each one of us who is to-day grown up then received some grievous injury. This time is of great importance in the psychology not only of the child, but of the whole adult race arising from the growing up of each child, for one’s earliest memories are few but very vivid. As things are to-day, generally between the ages of three and four or so, in the months which are likely to yield a lifelong memory, the spirit is wounded by the shock of a serious lie.
When as a mother or father you are with your children it is vital to be most careful to answer truly, and if possible beautifully, the questions which arise. No one can foresee which question and answer may make that terrible impression which lasts for a lifetime.
When your little son or daughter is about the age of three or four or five, the day will come when you are asked questions about the most fundamental facts in human life, and then the answers to these questions contain the probability of a lifelong memory. Answer with the truth.
Many parents are anxious to tell their children the great truths in a wise and beautiful manner. But few feel that they know how to do it, for it is a most difficult thing to know how to answer searching questions about profound subjects, and particularly about those which the community wrongly considers shameful. Each mother knows, or should know, the temperament and needs of her child, so that the adaptation of the advice I give should be varied to suit the individual child. In essence, however, children’s demands at an early age are remarkably similar, and the questions of children on birth and sex differ in form, though seldom in substance.
The following conversation between a mother and her little son indicates what seems to me the best way first to tell a child who has reached the age when he may have lasting memory of the facts that he is blindly seeking in his baby questions. It will not suffice to learn the answers off by heart; the baby will then soon confound his elders, but the substance of the conversation should prove useful.