Parents not wholly responsible.—A few editors, doctors and reformers have censured parents severely for not teaching their children the truth on these subjects. They should remember that ten years ago a very few parents had read a sane book or listened to an intelligent lecture on these subjects. Their only information had been gained from the playground and street on the sly. Courses of lectures, adapted to age and sex, should be given in every community. Ministers, teachers, physicians, merchants, parents, young and old, educated and uneducated, all should hear them. A few standard books on sex-hygiene and social purity should be put in every home. Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” More people are in physical, mental and moral slavery because of ignorance concerning the laws of sex, than all other causes combined. It follows that those who have learned the truth should impart it to those who have it not.
How children have been treated in the past.—We have seen how parents have been led in the past to conclude that all information as to the origin of life is injurious to a child. For a child to inquire, “Where was I before I was born? How did I get into this world?” was a sure sign of his depravity. As a result of these traditionary ideas some parents have slapped a child for asking about his origin. Still, others have scolded and ordered the child from the room, commanding him never to ask such ugly questions again. What must be the feelings of a child treated in such an unappreciative and heartless way! Such treatment has never satisfied the inquiring mind of any child. Under such treatment a child will go off alone, pained and puzzled to know what was wrong in that simple, natural, honest question. In most cases the child’s question has been evaded by some one of a hundred falsehoods about “swamps,” “sinkholes,” “hollow logs and stumps,” “bird nests,” “storks,” “old women,” “doctor’s satchel,” and “under a cabbage head.” When only a small boy, I was called from my bed early one spring morning to see a beautiful colt the mare had found. For awhile I looked at the colt with admiration and wonder. Then I very naturally inquired, “Where did the mare find her colt?” I was told that she found it in a nearby brush pile. For the next six months no brush pile escaped my eager eyes.
An example.—On my second lecture trip through Canada, a father told me how he answered his little girl’s question, “Papa, how did I get into this world?” His answer was as follows: “Daughter, God dropped you out of heaven one day while it was raining. Papa saw you falling from a cloud and ran out and caught you in his arms and brought you into the house.” That father was boasting of his tact and wisdom.
Another example.—A mother in the South, in reply to a similar question asked by her five-year-old boy, said: “Son, God sent you into this town on the Cotton Belt train, about three o’clock one afternoon. The doctor was at the depot and saw you. He knew that we wanted a little boy, so he put you in his satchel and brought you to mamma.” When this mother related this to me, her boy was nine years old and had not asked her another word about his origin. At the close of my lecture, with tears in her eyes, she said: “Professor, do you suppose that my little boy has been hearing vulgar stories and is keeping his information a secret from mamma?” “Yes, nine times out of ten, if you have a bright boy,” was my reply. Upon investigation she found that her boy had been hearing vulgar talk for about three years. How long do you suppose it will take that boy to eradicate from his mind and heart the evil effects of such training? It is not a question whether your child and mine shall get this information or not. That question is settled. The child will get the information. The questions for us to settle are: When shall this information be given? Who shall give it? What shall be given? How shall it be given?
Results of the old method.—I shall not call in question the love, sincerity and honesty of these parents. In most cases they were sincere and did the best they knew how. I am concerned about the results of this time-honored method. Did the old method of deception, misleading and false replies ever satisfy the inquiring mind of a child? Did the old method ever make a child wiser? Did it ever lead a child to regard human reproduction as delicate, sacred and pure? Did it ever lead a child to greater love and faith in its parents? Only negative answers can be given to all these questions.
How the child finds out.—As a rule, it is not long after a child becomes interested in his origin until some older child, a playmate or servant will say, “I know something that you do not know. You would like to know it. It is how little children come into this world. I will tell you all about it, if you will not tell your mamma and papa about it.” I do not care how good the child may be, how well trained, or how obedient: such is the intense interest of a child in the mystery of his life that he will agree to keep the story a secret. Now the child listens eagerly to the half-truths, couched in impure language and gets a perverted vision of the origin of life.
What are some of the results?—Five very sad misfortunes have come to the child. (1) The child has learned that his parents evaded his question; in most cases, he discovers the answer to have been a falsehood. (2) To the extent that the child comprehends the falsehood, does he lose confidence in his parents. (3) He has learned to keep these vital matters a secret from his parents. (4) The child cannot think of his parents’ relation to the initial of his life, except in terms of vulgarity. Early images do not easily leave the mind of a child. Ugly words, impure pictures, obscene language, with all their vile suggestiveness, ofttimes remain through life. (5) He regards the organs of sex and their functions as vile and sinful. God never planned that any human being should entertain any such degrading and demoralizing views of the divinely created organs and function of human reproduction. It is impossible to estimate the evil effects of this false training. Yet, there are many people, often very religious, who estimate their modesty, refinement and culture by the degree of conscious shame they have when questions of sex are referred to. Just to the extent that we fail to see that God is the author of sex, that sex is sacred and pure, our glory and not our shame, has a false training degraded us.
Boys lose confidence in their parents.—You ask, does a child lose confidence in his parents when he has discovered that they have told him a falsehood about his origin? Certainly he does. In the past three years not fewer than seven hundred and fifty young men from eighteen to thirty-five have written me for advice in regard to their youthful indiscretions. One question I have invariably asked those young men, “Did your father ever warn you of your sexual dangers?” Only two have replied in the affirmative. Those young men were once as innocent and pure as your little boy. They first went to their parents for information about these delicate matters. They were treated as I have described. They received their information from sources and in a way that led to sexual abuse.
Girls lose confidence in mother.—While on a seven thousand-mile lecture trip, in company with twenty other lecturers, conducting purity conventions in many of the large cities in the United States and Canada, after the evening sessions were over, in company with one or two detectives and other parties of our crowd, we visited the “red light” districts and saw several thousand erring girls from twelve to twenty years old. Those girls were once as innocent, pure and sweet as yours or mine. They first went to their mothers and asked about the origin of their lives. Those were golden opportunities for safeguarding the virtue of those girls. More easily than at any other time in life could those girls have been impressed with the sacredness of sex. At no other time in life is it so true that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Much more of Christian effort is put forth to rescue the fallen than to prevent the youths from falling. More churches are open to lectures on rescue work than on preventive work. More money can be raised for rescue work than can be raised to prevent youths from falling.
Boys and girls want to know the real truth.—One morning a number of high school boys requested that I give them a lecture more advanced than the one I had given. While passing through the hall, at the close of this special lecture to the young men, I was approached by the lady principal with the request from the high school girls for a special lecture. She told me that fourteen had made the request and that several added: “We wish that Prof. Shannon was a lady lecturer. There are so many things we would like to know, but would hesitate to ask a gentleman lecturer.” Then the lady teacher added, “I said, girls, why do you not ask your mamma for such information?” With hands uplifted, a look of surprise, a gasp for breath, those girls replied: “I would not think of asking mamma such questions.” Why not? Let me tell you why. When they were little innocent girls they went to their mothers with their first questions of sex. They were treated as already indicated. Their inquiring minds and unsatisfied interests in the mysteries of life led them to go elsewhere for this information. It was at this point in their lives that a chasm started to form between themselves and their mothers. There is not one boy in twenty-five who will go voluntarily to his father for information or advice about his sex-nature. The same statement is almost as true about girls and their mothers.