Just hugging, kissing, giving warmth, somehow the child feels nourished, accepted, loved, needed. The child starts feeling worthy; the child starts feeling a certain meaning in his life.

 

Now, from the very childhood, we starve them: we don't give love as much as is needed. Then we force the young men and young women not to fall in love unless they get married. By the age of fourteen, they become sexually mature. But the education may take more time -- ten years more, twenty-four, twenty-five years -- then they will be getting their M.A.'s, or Ph.D.'s, or M.D.'s so we have to force them not to love.

 

Sexual energy comes to its climax near about the age of eighteen. Never again will a man be so potent, and never again will a woman be able to have a greater orgasm than she will be able to near the age of eighteen. But we force them not to make love. We force boys to have their separate dormitories. Girls and boys are kept separate -- and just between the two stands the whole mechanism of police, magistrates, vice-chancellors, principals, head masters. They are all standing there, just in between, just holding the boys back from moving to the girls, holding the girls back from moving to the boys. Why? Why is so much care taken'? They are trying to kill the bull and create an ox.

 

By the time you are eighteen you are at the peak of your sexual energy, your love energy. By the time you get married twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven... and the age has been going up and up. The more cultured a country, the more you wait, because more has to be learnt, the job has to be found -- this and that. By the time you get married you are almost declining in your powers.

 

Then you love, but the love never becomes really hot, it never comes to the point where people evaporate; it remains lukewarm. And when you have not been able to love totally, you cannot love your children because you don't know how. When you have not been able to know the peaks of it, how can you teach your children? How can you help your children to have the peaks of it?

 

So down the ages man has been denied love so that he should remain weak.

 

-Osho, “The Tantra Vision, Vol 2, #4, Q6”

 

 

 

 

Question 8

Osho,

Should children be told all the facts of life, irrespective of their age?

 

 

IT HAS always been a problem down the ages -- what to tell children and what not to tell. Parents have been very much concerned. In the past the strategy was not to tell about the facts of life, to avoid it as far as possible, because people were very much afraid about the facts of life.

 

The very phrase 'facts of life' is a euphemism; it simply hides a simple thing. Not to say anything about sex, even to avoid the word 'sex' they have made this metaphor, 'facts of life'. What facts of life? -- it is just not to say anything about sex.

 

The whole past of humanity has lived with that deception, but the children discover sooner or later. And in fact they discover sooner than later, and they discover in a very wrong way. Because no right person is ready to tell them, they have to do their work on their own. They collect, they become peeping Toms -- and you are responsible for reducing them to peeping Toms. They collect from all wrong sources, from ugly people. They will carry those wrong notions their whole lives, and you are the cause of it. Their whole sex life may be affected by that wrong information that they have gathered.

 

Now there is as much wrong information prevalent in the world about sex as is possible. Even in this twentieth century people are living with immense ignorance about sex, even people who you would think should know better. Even your doctor does not really know what sex is, does not know its complexity. He should know, but even doctors live very superstitiously; they also know things from the marketplace. In no medical college is sex taught as a separate subject -- such an immense, powerful subject and yet nothing is taught about it. Yes, the physiology of sex is known by the physician, but the physiology is not all; there are deeper layers: there is psychology, there is spirituality. There is a psychology to sex and there is a spirituality to sex; the physiology is only the surface. Much research has been done there, and in this century we know more than ever before, but the knowledge is not becoming prevalent.

 

People are afraid, because their parents were afraid and that fear has become infectious. And you are afraid, Govinddas, and you don't want to tell your children about it.

 

You have to tell your children about it, you owe it to them. And you have to be truthful. Don't shirk from truth -- in the long run truth always pays -- and don't lie.

 

"Mom, do we get our food from God?"

 

"Yes, we do, Barbara."

 

"And at Christmas time does Santa bring all our presents?"

 

"That's right."

 

"And on my birthday the good fairy brings presents?"

 

"Hmm... "

 

"And did the stork bring little brother?"

 

"True."

 

"Then what the heck does Pop hang around here for?"

 

It is better to be truthful! But I am not saying to jump upon your children and start being truthful whether they want it or not. Now that is happening -- the other extreme -- particularly in the West, because the psychologists go on saying that the truth has to be told. People go on telling the truth whether the children are enquiring about it or not. That too is wrong. Wait! If the child enquires, be truthful; if he does not enquire there is no need, he is not interested yet.

 

At the dinner table the old man almost choked when his little eight-year-old boy asked, "Daddy, where do I come from?"

 

Reddening, Pop said, "Well, I guess the time has come for you and I to have a man-to-man talk. After dinner I will tell you about the birds and the bees."

 

The kid said, "What birds and bees? Little Frankie down the block told me he came from Chicago. All I want to know is where I come from!"

 

So wait a little. They themselves will ask, you are not to be in such a hurry. And remember, whatsoever is the case, be truthful, howsoever hard it seems to you. It will be hard for you because truth was not told to you by your parents; for centuries it has not been told. Everybody gathers it from rumors, nobody ever tells it to his own children. People feel embarrassed, afraid that the children may discover.

 

Drop all these fears, and don't try in any way to deceive the children. It can be dangerous.

 

The six-year-old Luigino comes back from school where he has learned three new words without knowing their meaning, so he asks his mother, "Mom, what do prick, puss and balls mean?"

 

The mother, extremely embarrassed, answers, "Well, dear, prick means cheese, puss means chair, and balls mean boots."

 

After a few days the grandmother, a pious, prudish country lady, visits her daughter and nephew. She rings the bell and Luigino opens the door. The old woman hugs the child and Luigino, proud of his new vocabulary, says, "Granny, you must be tired. Sit down on this puss." The woman almost faints, but Luigino goes on without hesitating. "And if you are hungry eat this piece of prick."

 

Shocked and horrified the grandmother finally asks, "Luigino, where is your mum?"

 

"Ah, she is in the room polishing daddy's balls!"

 

-Osho, “The Guest, #5”