THE THREE GIFTS OF LIFE. By Nellie M. Smith, A.M.
Special studies in many parts of the country, especially during the war, have made it clear that girls in the adolescent stage are definitely aware of the need for clean and trustworthy instruction on matters pertaining to the relations between the sexes, to the control of the emotions, to the care of the body during the menstrual period, and to other problems arising from the facts of sex.
It is pathetic, is it not, to have a high-school girl write: "Some parents are ashamed to tell their girls everything, so that is why I think they should be told in school." Whose parents had she in mind?
Another writes: "There are many girls with no mother or very near female relation that can tell them all they need to know, and if anything should happen in a girl's life, she does not think it proper to speak to a male, even if it is her father." Are the girls who have mothers or "very near female relations" to be none the better, or happier for it?
I hope that mothers will not continue in the future, as most have done in the past, to hesitate about giving such information to their children. If you are perhaps tempted to feel that you would like to preserve the child's innocence as long as possible, you have but to realize that innocence is not the same as ignorance. We are apt to forget how young we ourselves were when we had obtained one way or another a large mass of information about reproduction, and even about sex. The question is not whether a young child should have this information or not; the question is whether he shall have correct and pure information, or false and filthy information. For one or the other he is sure to get. True knowledge is the best mantle of innocence.
Much misery is caused, not only for girls, but also for boys, by the lapses from the path of virtue. If the young man who has gone astray is in a position to say, "Had I but heeded!" instead of saying, "Had I but known!" it will make a great difference in the way he will later feel toward the one person from whom he had a right to expect protecting knowledge. It is true enough that knowledge alone is not a sure protection against wrong-doing; but you can have no moral training without knowledge, and knowledge is the least you can give.
There is no reason why parents should think of enlightening their children on this subject as a disagreeable necessity, instead of as one of the important means through which to be of real help to their children, and at the same time to help themselves to retain their hold upon the children.
XIII.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF TRANSITION
There comes a time in the life of every boy and every girl that brings a maximum of trials and worry—to the other people. This time is the golden age of transition from childhood to manhood or womanhood, the age of adolescence. If you have had annoyance and hardship with your infants, if the children have perplexed you and tried you—as you thought, to the limit—you may be sure that there is more in store for you. For the age of adolescence brings with it problems and perplexities and annoyances that will make you forget that it's any trouble at all to look after younger children.