Childhood ought to be an innocent time free of adult cares and concerns. Christ treasured innocence in children. He never commanded children to be like adults. He commanded adults to be like children – to accept the Kingdom of God as a child does. "Amen I say to you, whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God as a little child will not enter into it" (Mk 10:15).
At increasingly younger ages, childhood innocence is being shattered. This shattering happens through the Internet, magazines, television, radio, immodest dress, and now through "sex education" even in some Catholic schools, at most tender ages.
Sex education programs may be given names like "Safe Touch" and seem to place sex safety right next bike safety as if the two were connected. Rome has warned us of the danger these programs pose in their document entitled The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality : Guidelines for Education within the Family (TMHS). The guidelines are issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Council warns us that "In some societies today, there are planned and determined attempts to impose premature sex information on children" (TMHS 83).
Rome asks us to pay attention:
Parents should…be attentive to ways in which sexual instruction can be inserted in the context of other subjects which are otherwise useful (for example health and hygiene, personal development, family life, children's literature, social and cultural studies, etc.) – TMHS 141.
The Value of Innocence
The Pontifical Council especially opposes programs which use graphic depictions of sexually explicit material through dramatized representation, mime or role playing, drawings, charts, models, and oral or written exams (TMHS 127).
Like Christ, Rome values innocence. For this reason Rome guides us to protect childhood innocence by ensuring that young children are not subjected to "direct" information about sexual topics. From about age five to puberty, a child is
in the years of innocence. This period of tranquility and serenity must never be disturbed by…unnecessary information about sex…. So as not to disturb this important natural phase of growth, parents will recognize that prudent formation in chaste love during this period should be indirect…. (TMHS 78)
What Rome called "this important natural phase of growth" is sometimes called the "latency period." It is a time of great intellectual growth during which a child learns to move from concrete operations in thinking to high levels of abstraction. It is a time during which the child's rapidly growing body becomes adept at everything from catching and jumping to making delicate stitches and hitting the right piano keys. When the innocence of this time is not disturbed and a child's talents are explored and developed, this time becomes golden, a psychic treasure that the adult person will draw upon in pleasant reverie until old age.
What about Protecting Them?
Despite the Council's teaching, some Catholic instruction has been developed to teach young children "direct" and detailed information. The logic is that direct information will enable children to "protect" themselves, even at most tender ages. It is very true that children need to be protected from predators. But children can't be expected to protect themselves. Expecting that of them would be placing adult responsibilities upon them – making them into adults and taking away their childhood.
The need to protect children from predators can not be used as a reason to sexualize young children. Rome warns us that
[A]t this [innocent] stage of development, children…cannot understand and control sexual imagery within the proper context of moral principles, and, for this reason, they cannot integrate premature sexual information with moral responsibility. Such information tends to shatter their emotional and educational development and to disturb the natural serenity of this period of life (TMHS 83).
Responsibility for this topic must be returned to the parents. Parents must be encouraged in their teaching role, because if we reject this role, then any substitute will likely fail. "The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to find an adequate substitute" (TMHS 23). Rome instructs us that the family is "suited to making acceptable without trauma the most delicate realities" of life (TMHS 64). The voice of Christ speaks through His Church. If we sincerely want to follow Christ, then in this matter – as in all matters – we ought to follow Rome.
The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, published by the Pontifical Council for the Family, can be viewed here.
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