Sex Education

 

 

The teacher of a class of ten-year-olds is too shy to conduct the sex-education class and so she asks her class to make this a homework project.

 

Little Eddy asks his father, who mumbles something about a stork. His grandmother says he came from a cabbage patch. His great-grandmother blushes and whispers that children come from the great ocean of existence.

 

The next day Eddy gets called first to report on his project. He says, "I am afraid there is something wrong in my family. Apparently, nobody has had a good fuck for three generations!"

 

-Osho, "The Wild Geese and the Water, #4"

 

 

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Question 3:

What do you say about sex education for small children?

 

 

Truth is truth, and nobody should be debarred from it. Just because children are small, do they have to be fed on lies? Is truth only for grown-ups? Does that mean truth is dangerous for the delicate consciousness of the child?

 

Truth is never dangerous, untruth is dangerous. And if you tell an untruth to the grown-up he may be able to defend himself; it can be forgiven. But never tell an untruth to the child, because he is so helpless, so indefensible. He depends so much on you, he trusts so much in you - don't betray him.

 

This is betraying! Telling any lie means you have betrayed the child.

 

And finally you will be in trouble. Sooner or later, the child will discover that you have been telling lies. That very day, all trust in you will disappear.

 

If young people start rebelling against the parents, the responsibility is not theirs, the responsibility is of the parents. They have been telling so many lies; and now, by and by, the children start discovering that they were ALL lies. And if you have been telling so many lies, even the truth that you have told them becomes suspicious. And one thing is certain, they lose trust in you. You have betrayed them, you have deceived them: you become ugly in their consciousness. Their impression of you is no good any more. In fact they will never be able to trust anybody.

 

That's the problem I am facing every day. When you come and become sannyasins, the problem that you have with your parents starts being imposed on me. You cannot trust me either; in a subtle way I become your father-figure. And because your parents have deceived you, who knows? I am a stranger - if even your parents deceive you, if even parents cannot be relied upon, then how can you rely upon me?

 

You will never be able to trust the woman you love, the man you love. You will never be able to trust the master you surrender to. You will never in your life again be able to regain your trust. And for what has your trust been destroyed? For such foolish things.

 

What is wrong? Sex is a simple fact: tell it the way it is. And children are very very perceptive - even if you don't tell them they will discover it on their own. They are very curious people.

 

Carl was assigned to write a composition entitled, "Where I came from." When he returned home from school, he entered the kitchen where his mother was preparing dinner.

 

"Where did I come from, Mama?" he asked.

 

"The stork brought you."

 

"And where did Daddy come from?"

 

"The stork brought him, too."

 

"And what about Grandpa?"

 

"Why, the stork brought him too, darling."

 

Carl very carefully made notes on what Mama had told him, and the next day he handed in the following composition:

 

"According to my calculations, there hasn't been a natural birth in my family for the past three generations."

 

Children are very perceptive; they go on watching, they go on seeing what foolishness you are telling them. And how long can you deceive them? Life is there, and life is sexual. And they are watching life: they will see animals making love, they will see birds making love.

 

And you may go on believing that they have never seen you making love - you can go on believing it, but children know that their parents make love. In the beginning they may think they are fighting or something, but sooner or later they discover that something is going on behind their backs.

 

Why create these suspicions and doubts? Why not be true? Truth is always good, truth is always divine. Let them know things as they are.

 

I know a friend who was determined to have it out with his older boy and spent several hours painstakingly explaining sexual physiology to him. At the conclusion, feeling utterly exhausted and knowing that he did not want to go through it again with his younger son, he said, "And Billy, now that I've explained it to you, can I count on you passing it on to Bobby?"

 

"Okay Dad," said young William.

 

His elder son went out in search of his younger brother at once. "Bobby," he said when he found him, "I just had a long lecture from Dad and he wants me to pass on what he told me to you."

 

"Go ahead," said Bobby.

 

"Well, you know what you and I were doing with those girls behind the barn lat month? Dad wants me to tell you that the birds and the bees do it too!"

 

Don't be foolish, let things be as they are. Truth can never be the enemy, sexual or otherwise.

 

Befriend truth.

 

And children are very understanding, they immediately accept the fact. They have no prejudices, they have no notion of right and wrong. If you tell them the truth they understand it is so and they forget all about it. And it will create a great trust in you: you never deceived them.

 

Sex education is one of the fundamental causes of the rift between the generations. They day the child discovers that his parents have been deceiving him, he loses all roots in trust. That is the most devastating shock you can give to that delicate system.

 

Go on telling the truth as it is, and don't try to philosophize about it and don't go on round and round.

 

Tell it the way it is.

 

Why is there so much fear about it in you? Because your parents did not tell YOU. So you feel a little shaky, nervous, afraid, as if you are moving in some dangerous territory.

 

Be very simple, direct. And whenever a child enquires about anything, if you know about it, tell it.

 

If you don't know about it, say that you don't know. There are two wrongs that you can do. One is saying something which is not so - that is one danger. Another is saying something which you don't know.

 

For example, the child asks, "Who created the world?" and you say, "God." Again you are leading him into some mischief. You don't know; you are pretending that you know. Soon the child will discover that you know nothing, your God is bogus.

 

And the problem is not that YOUR God is proven bogus, the problem is that now the whole concept of God is proved bogus. You have destroyed a great possibility of enquiring into God. You should have said, "I don't know. I am trying to know; I am as ignorant as you are. If I find out before you do, I will tell you, if you find out before I do, please tell me."

 

And your son will respect you for ever for this sincerity of heart, for this equality, that you never pretended, that you never tried to show, "I know, and you don't know," that you were never egoistic.

 

Saying to the child that God created the world, without knowing it, is nothing but an ego trip. You are enjoying yourself at the cost of the child's ignorance. But how long can you enjoy this knowledge?

 

Never tell the child that which you yourself are incapable of doing. Don't tell the child, "Be truthful, always be truthful" - because once he catches you red-handed being untruthful, you have destroyed something immensely valuable. And there is nothing more precious than trust.

 

And how long can you hide the fact? One day somebody knocks on the door and you say to the child, "Tell him that Daddy is not at home." And now the child knows that to talk about truth is one thing, but it is not meant to be followed and practiced. You have created a duality in him of saying something, pretending something, and being something else quite the contrary of it. You have created the split.

 

And if you know something - if the child asks about sex or how children come into the world, and you know - then simply tell it as it is. Make it as simple as possible, because the child is not asking about the physiology or about the chemistry or about the inner mechanism of sex. He is not asking about all that nonsense; that is not his interest. Don't start telling him about physiology, because in the name of sex education what they do in schools is only teach physiology. And the child is simply bored; he is not interested.

 

He simply wants the truth: how children come, from where they come. Just tell it. And never try to give him more information than he needs and asks form, because that will be too early. That too is happening, particularly in the West where the idea has become prevalent that children have to be given sex education. So parents are in a hurry: even if the child has not enquired, they go on pouring out the knowledge that they have acquired from books. Children feel simply bored.

 

Unless the enquiry has arisen in the child there is no need to say anything. When the enquiry has arisen there is no need to HIDE anything.

 

And it is not a question of age at all, so don't ask about small children. Whom do you call small?

 

What age limit? Is seven years old small? Or is nine years old small? It is not a question of age; whenever the child enquires he is ready to be given the information. He may be four, he may be five, he may be seven. The more intelligent a child is, the earlier he will enquire, that much is certain.

 

The stupid, the mediocre, may not enquire so early; he may enquire when he is twelve or fourteen.

 

But the intelligent child is bound to enquire early, because life is such a mystery that from the very beginning the child becomes aware that something is happening. All around, life is happening, life is perpetuating itself.

 

He sees the eggs of the birds in the garden, and then one day the eggs are broken and the birds come out. He goes on seeing his mother's belly growing bigger and bigger, and he certainly becomes curious. What is happening? Is his mother ill or something?

 

And then one day she comes from the hospital with a child. And from where has the child come? It has been brought by the stork. And he sees the belly is not big anymore. Now he is puzzled: what happened to the belly?

 

Don't create unnecessary puzzles for children. Life is puzzling enough as it is. Life is so mysterious, the enquiry is bound to be there. But remember, the more intelligent a child is, the sooner he is going to enquire. So if your child enquires early, don't think that he seems to be dirty from the very beginning. He is not dirty, he is intelligent. If anybody is dirty, YOU are dirty. He is simply intelligent.

 

Tell him things as they are, and tell him the way he can understand. Don't philosophize, don't go indirectly round and round, go directly to the point. Make it as clear as two plus two is four.

 

And you will be surprised: once the fact has been told the child goes away and starts playing. He is not really interested anymore; he never brings the question up again. If you falsify things he will bring up the question again and again - from this side, from that side, any excuse and he will bring up the question - because he wants to know the fact, and unless the fact is given he is not going to be satisfied.

 

Only facts satisfy. Falsifications can postpone but they cannot satisfy.

 

-Osho, "Unio Mystica Vol 1, #6, Q3"