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One fruit of such conversation would be much-need­ ed clarification in the m atter of same-sex attraction. The spiritual m asters and the traditional manuals ofascetical theology recognized the reality, and offered tim e-tested counsels and boundaries for chaste, strong, and life-giving friendships. It is debatable w hether "sexuality” and its compound words (homosexuality, transexuality, etc.}, so current in usage, deliver conceptually as much as we who employ them think. They have come to suit the behavioral sciences, especially psychology, and (as in "sexual revolu­ tion”} are convenient to make a political point.

But in the lexicon of classical theology, m oralists

have cherished the term s "ordered” and "disordered,” implying that the human reality is under the aegis of rea­ son, and th at our nature and identity do not grow out of our em otions and inclinations. These term s, moreover, re sp ect self-control, which provides m eaning and p u r­ pose—and correction, to o —to our friendships. When the m atter of order in the conjugal act is bypassed—Hu- manae Vitae indicates it—th e repercussions ru n wide and deep. ♦

Msgr. John Williams is Vicar for Priests in the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Little Birds & Bees Kristen Gregory on Talking to Young Children A bout Sex

W hen we f i r s t cradle our new born ba­ bies in our arm s, we desperately w an t to shelter and protect them from everything. From sin, from death, from the pow er of

the devil. And, maybe more urgently, from s-e-x. After all, modern American culture tre a ts it so lightly and frivo­ lously th a t they will be exposed to it soon enough. Just go through the grocery line with your kids. The images on the magazines are shocking enough, but if your kids can read, they will learn a lot more than you w ant them to. Walking past Victoria’s Secret isn’t even possible once they can see past the end of th eir noses: girls and boys alike are forced to confront a hypersexualized standard of "beauty" with larger-than-life images th at will arouse and never completely leave their minds.

As parents, my husband and I initially set out to pro­ tect our kids from all thoughts and knowledge of sex until as late as possible. Age 20 sounded good. But as we have been raising them, we’ve come to realize th a t we don't w ant to shelter them from it completely, but instead to give them som ething better: a beautiful, true, and good view of sex, p resented as is appropriate for each child's age and level of curiosity.

As I write, we have three girls and two boys, all under age ten, so we adm ittedly have a long way to go in the parenting journey. My own parents wisely held me out of the sex education class taught to fifth-graders in my public school, but they didn't discuss the topic w ith me either, which was fine by me because I obtained the necessary facts from my friends that day at recess anyway. (And then

felt compelled to tell my first-grade sister later th at week so she wouldn’t be in the dark.}

As an adult, my first basic "sex talk" with a child was with a five-year-old who wasn't mine. She peered over my shoulder as I was breastfeeding my newborn, and gasped, "W hat is she doing to you? Why are you letting her do that?”

"She's nursing. This is how she gets her food." "That's disgusting.” I received an email later th a t night from the girl's

mother, angrily "thanking" me for having to explain to her daughter w hat breasts are for. She had hoped to avoid th a t one. When my next child came along, th at same girl caught me breastfeeding in the church bathroom. She had apparently forgotten the previous conversation. As she opened her mouth to ask a question, I interrupted with, "Just go ask your m other.” These situations showed me th at I w anted to be honest and proactive in teaching my children about why God made our bodies the way he did.

Teaching Our Children I've been surprised th at w ith our own children (well be­ fore fifth grade}, the topic has naturally come up from time to time. "What are those turtles doing?” or "Where

To u c h s t o n e : A Journal of Mere Chr i s t i a ni t y 21

Vi ews

do babies come from?" are ju st norm al p a rts of weekly conversations. Our family has spent enough time outdoors and read enough books that the topic is a natural one. How did my husband and I answer the questions? At first, it was enough to explain th at God brings together a cell from a man and a cell from a woman and from them he creates a new person. Until one day when my husband had all the kids in the mini-van and my four-year-old piped up from the back seat, "Dad, Mom told me how babies are made." My husband tried not to appear shocked.

"Oh, interesting, honey. What exactly did Mommy tell you?"

"Well, she said a man walks past a woman and hands her a cell."

Big sigh from my husband. A bullet was dodged for the time being, but th at conversation made us realize we need to be more precise. Was she imagining a man walking down the stre e t and handing his cell phone to a random woman? So the next time the topic arose, we began to refer to the cells as "sperm" and "egg" and explained th at this is something th at happens between m arried people, not strangers. Since then, it's also seemed fitting to use precise and proper names for body parts, which adm ittedly can make for some odd situations.

One Sunday in church, that same daughter turned over her toy horse to examine it and (children not being known for their ability to whisper) shouted, "Mom! This horse has a penis! It’s a boy!”

But then it became a more serious matter. Our other daughter, around age three at the time, glared at me one morning at breakfast. We were expecting another baby,

and she suspected we were holding out on her w ith the details. She pointed to my belly and said in a very accusa­ tory manner, "How did that baby get in there?"

The last nail in the coffin: the neighbor's goats had ba­ bies. My husband was gone for the week, and I had all the kids sitting around the table. I was exhausted. My seven- year-old was beside herself trying to figure it out. "What, Mom? What! How did that goat get pregnant? How does it happen? I don’t understand. How does the sperm from the man get to the egg from the woman? Does it shoot through his fingertips? Does it fly through the air? What?"

It was dead silent. All heads tu rn ed to me. I could dodge the question, which was w hat I w anted to do in th at moment, or I could address it. "You all really want to know?”

"Tell us! Tell us!" they all began to chant together. "It’s like this ..." I took a deep breath, said a silent

prayer, and went for it. I’ll admit, there was an initial cho­ rus of chuckles, and food did fly out of som eone’s nose, but it turned out to be one of the most beautiful moments with my children. The ones who weren't able to process it went back to eating their mac-n-cheese and never thought more about it. But the ones who were curious had more questions, then and in the days and weeks to come.

Proper Protection It was about this time th at I began to realize something. We shouldn't be protecting our children from the fa cts about sex but from the perversions surrounding it. We are, after all, designed this way by God! Sex is a beautiful

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Lit t l e Birds & Bees by Kristen Gregory

gift, but like anything lovely, it can be perverted. We’d al­ ways talked to our kids about modesty and safety (such as dressing appropriately, changing in private, not being alone in a room with someone else, your private parts are not for anyone else to touch, and so on) but they had no context for these things.

In that same conversation, I explained in response to a more specific question, "God designed the female body to be attractive to a man, which makes him desire her," which led to an explanation about erections and how the husband released the sperm and where. Suddenly, there was a context for modesty. "When we dress inappropri­ ately, we are inviting a man who is not our husband to look at us in that way that only spouses should.” We began the practice of tu rn ­ ing our eyes away from magazines and billboards with obscene images, so that it would become a habit as they got older. If we don’t help train their desires now, how can we expect them to start suddenly when they are fif­ teen? Would that I had done that as a child myself, instead of falling for the lie that the images on the cover of Cosmo were how a woman was supposed to look or act.

My children trusted me enough to come to me with their questions. But 1 needed to give them the answers they were looking for, or they would stop seeking me out and find another source. After that big conversation, one child came to me and asked, "Does it feel good?” It seemed appropriate to answer, "Oh, yes! It’s actually a good gift God gives you in marriage. I’m excited for that day for you!" Just because the culture hypersexualizes everything doesn’t mean we need to react with prudery. The truth is the truth.

Being proactive about discussing sex—both the me­ chanics and purpose—also gives us a chance to deal with pornography when our kids encounter it. I've noticed a trend—the kids I know who are addicted to porn are gen­ erally the ones who never talk about sex. They blush when proper terminology is given to body parts. And yet they can't go to their parents to talk about this new and tempt­ ing world they have discovered; they don't even have the language to do that. How can we expect our kids to come to us for help with this sin when we won’t acknowledge the more basic topic of sex with them?

A Family-Only Discussion "The Talk" with our children hasn’t been the awkward one-time deal we originally expected it to be. Every few months, there are more little questions. We've tried to make clear that while this is an open topic within our

We shouldn't be protecting our children from the facts about sex b u t from the perversions

su rrounding it. We are, after all, designed this way by God!

family, it isn’t appropriate to discuss it with friends. They need to find out about it from their own parents, just as our kids do from us.

Sometimes the questions are about abnormalities. "Wait a minute, Mom. You said it takes a husband and a wife to make a baby, but our neighbor isn't married and she has a baby.” I knew that question would eventually arise, but I wanted them to sta rt with what God intended and work out from there. If you've ever studied the Ten Com­ mandments with kids, you’ve had to explain adultery to

some degree. And same-sex attraction was a no-brainer for one daughter when she was five: "Wait a minute, Mom; two girls can’t make a baby."

This isn’t a prescription for how all parents should handle the topic of sex with their own children, but a pic­ ture of how it has worked so

far for us. One friend, whose oldest two children are boys, hasn’t had the topic come up at all. The kids initiated noth­ ing and never asked about it, so the father finally drove the oldest son to a Lowe’s parking lot, and proceeded to explain. After he gave the talk, his son said, "Uh, gross, Dad,” and then quickly changed the subject. "Do you think Costco has any samples today?" The father backed off and decided to wait until they are more curious. Their children are different from ours and have a different timeline. We are each called as parents to know our kids and meet their individual needs accordingly.

The Right Track For our family, teaching our children directly and simply has helped them make the connection between sex and ba­ bies. (We are careful not to assume that sex always leads to babies. We have many friends who are barren, and we pray for them often. God truly must bring it about.) We desire and pray for our children and their future spouses to enter into marriage knowing that sex is given for procreation. That is a lovely vision for them to have early. Sex within marriage isn't just about "feeling good” (though that is a wonderful part of it, too!) but about making something beautiful beyond themselves.

This year for Mothers' Day, my daughter made me a little plaque out of clay that said “Family.” The note that accompanied it simply said, "And the two shall become one flesh." Seems like she’s on the right track. #>

Kristen Gregory is the wife of a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor and a homeschooling mom in Westminster, Mas­ sachusetts. She is a graduate of Hillsdale College and has been reading Touchstone/or over half her life.

To u c h s t o n e : A Journal of Mere Chr i s t i a ni t y 23

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