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Page 2 • Faith Today
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Faith Today • Page 3
When, how and how much to soy?
FOOD...
By Cindy Liebhart
NC News Service
Six-year-old Shelley and her
father had just finished watching
“The Bill Cosby Show” and
“Family Ties.” That evening both
programs featured expectant
mothers and discussions of
childbirth.
Shelley’s father suspected the
programs might spark his
daughter’s curiosity. So he talked
about the episodes with her and
asked whether she had any
questions.
She did. “How do babies get in
there?” Shelley inquired.
Her father responded honestly in
a way he felt his young daughter
would understand.
human appetite to be fulfilled —
as if it doesn’t matter how you
handle it as long as no one gets
hurt.”
Father Thomas Lynch, family life
representative for the U.S. Catholic
adventure movie
Stone on a
said the media often realistically
capture patterns in human relation
ships. Sometimes, though, movies
and TV programs “get obsessed
with the genital aspect of sexuali
ty,” he observed.
Neither Mr. McNulty nor Father
Lynch believe it is realistic for
parents to expect to shelter
children from all media exposure
to sexual values that contradict the
parents’ own values.
But parents can help children
wade through conflicting messages
and form Christian values about
sexuality. In some ways, television
can make it easier for parents by
McNulty said.
So it is important for parents to
take an active leadership role in
what their children see, to view
TV programs and movies with
their children and discuss them
afterward.
One approach is for parents to
raise ethical or theological ques
tions about the issues a program
raises and the characters’ behavior,
both Father Lynch and Mr. McNul
ty suggested.
It is important that parents ex
press their own views, without
lecturing their children. It can
even be explained that while some
characters are “basically likable,”
the parents do not agree w ith cer
tain of their values.
When it comes to presenting
not
recite moral laws without explana
tion. Parents need to understand
why the church teaches what it
does about sex and human love.
Both said parents should try to
be open to questions their children
raise in
in Colombia.
about, admit you’re uncomfor
table,” Mr. McNulty said. Parents
shouldn't “be afraid to admit they
don't know' the answer” to a ques
tion. but should be willing to find
out what it is.
Father Lynch believes spouses
must develop the ability to talk
comfortably with each other about
sex. “If parents haven't
done that, they can't
sit down with their
kids and talk about
it,” he said.
“They’ll either
avoid it altogether
or get into a
preachy mode.”
mediately they head for a
flinched. What message would this
casual presentation of sex com
municate to their children, they
wondered.
Television programs,
movies and popular music
transmit many messages about
sexuality to young people,
said the Rev. Edward McNul-
for NC News
Service.)
By Katharine Bird
NC News Service
Many parents feel uncomfor
table when it comes to discussing
human sexuality with children,
said pastoral counselor Ann
Newland in an interview in her
office. She works in marriage and
family couriseling in the
Washington, D C., metropolitan
area.
“We get much more nervous
and uptight” than children do,
she added, sometimes because
their questions about sexuality
“raise embarrassing issues from
our own experience.”
“But, if a parent feels uncom
fortable, in my experience it’s bet
ter” to tell the child so, Mrs.
Newland thinks. A parent can say,
“I get uncomfortable in talking
about this,” she suggested.
This lets the child know the
topic they will discuss is delicate
and serious and not to be taken
lightly, she explained.
“It’s helpful for the child to
have a parent acknowledge these
feelings,” she added, since embar
rassment is something every child
has some experience with.
Asked what sorts of questions
parents ask about discussing sex
uality with children, Mrs.
Newland listed the following:
—When is the appropriate time
to discuss it?
—How much should I tell
children?
—How explicit should I be?
—Should I tell them the truth?
“Parents get in a real dilemma”
~Zt times, Mrs. Newland said.
Children will ask an innocent
question and parents will respond
with too much information, much
more than the child really wants.
The counselor recommended
that in most cases parents can let
the child set the pace. “I’ve found
'jhildren ask questions when they
are ready” and will absorb only as
much information as they can
handle, she explained.
She and her Episcopal minister
husband practiced that approach
with their three sons, now 26, 23
and 20. Often, Mrs. Newland said,
something about sexuality came
#p in school or in peer groups
and the boys would bring their
questions home and “talk it over
here.”
It’s important not to “scare
children, to make them feel they
are bad people to have curiosity
or questions about human sexuali
ty,” Mrs. Newland added.
She also thinks “it’s far
preferable to open up communica
tion with children and talk about
sexuality so they can get their
curiosity satisfied” at home. A
child who can talk with parents
about sexuality is less likely to
“get into situations that are con
fusing and upsetting” later on, she
5a id.
Father Michael Hartwig, vice
rector of Holy Trinity Seminary in
Irving, Texas, agrees that it’s im
portant for young people to talk
about sexuality with parents and
other trusted adults.
Shunting discussion of sexuality
to the side can lead students to
develop a “distorted view,” to sec-
sexuality as a taboo topic, he said.
Students will identify with a
Christian “vision of human sex
uality that makes sense,” he
added.
For three years Father Hartwig
was involved in presenting a short
course on human sexuality to
eighth-graders in Tyler, Texas.
The segment was taught by a team
of three teachers as part of a
religious education class. To build
trust, parents were consulted ex
tensively throughout, he
explained.
His experience with youths has
convinced Father Hartwig that
dealing with human sexuality is “a
central issue for an authentic
Christian life.”
Sexuality involves much more
than how we use our reproductive
organs, he indicated. “Sexuality is
an integrating dimension of a per
son.” “The way we understand
our sexuality, live it and integrate
it are pivotal for growth and
maturity.”
(Ms. Bird is associate editor of
Faith Today.)
Who taught children in biblical times?
By Father John J. Castelot
NC News Service
Who taught children about sex
uality in Old Testament days? This
was not really much of a problem
in a culture which accepted sex
uality precisely as a fact of life.
People who lived close to
nature, with the birthing of cows
and sheep as much a part of life
as the ripening of grain in the
fields, did not view sex as
something to snicker about or to
be ashamed of.
Certainly the God who created
them male and female and who in
the very act of creation “blessed
them, saying Be fertile and mul
tiply’” (Gn. 1-27-28) — certainly
such a God did not frown on
love between a man and a woman.
Neither did that same God who
declared: “It is not good for the
man to be alone. I will make a
suitable partner for him.” (Gn.
2:18).
Still, human beings are not like
the other animals. They possess in
telligence and free will, with the
power to use their sexuality for
good or for evil. Human lives are
not governed by instinct; the
responsibility of ordering those
lives, including their sexuality, is
real and serious.
As a result, there was need to
teach children the basic goodness
of sex and the importance of
respecting it and using it rightly.
This instruction, like all early in
struction, was the province of the
parents.
In biblical times, in the early
years — and often into
adolescence — the mother was the
teacher. “Hear, my son, your
father’s instruction, and reject not
your mother’s teaching” (Prv. 1:8).
Once they grew up, education
of the boys passed to the father,
that of girls to their mother.
One of the most serious parental
duties was to teach the truths of
religion, and this would have in
cluded instruction about sex.
I^iven the stern strictures of the
law with regard to extramarital
sex, this was not a matter to be
taken lightly. Parents would have
been very attentive here.
Fathers, representatives of the
family and fiercely jealous of its
reputation, instructed the boys.
In ancient Israel girls moved
fbout quite freely, shepherding,
drawing water from the village
well which was the center of
social life, harvesting in the fields.
The law had certain safeguards
built in to protect women. In Old
Testament times a seducer had to
marry his victim, pay a higher
than usual dowry and relinquish
his right to divorce her (Ex.
22:15; Dt. 22:28-29).
In Jesus’ day restrictions on
women were somewhat tighter.
When they appeared in public they
were expected to be veiled and
segregation of the sexes was rather
rigidly enforced. It is significant
that in the New Testament account
of the meeting between Jesus and
the woman at the well, the
disciples were surprised not so
much at Jesus’ talking with a
Samaritan as at his talking with a
woman (John 4:27).
But by this time the disciples
should have been accustomed to
having Jesus treat women on the
basis of respect for them as
persons.
(Father Castelot teaches at St.
John’s Seminary, Plymouth, Mich.)
How do parents teach their
children?
“They're doing it all the time
and in ways they don’t realize,”
said Theodore Hengesbach, an
educator at Indiana University at
South Bend, Ind.
Recently, Hengesbach noticed
that his daughter, Heidi, routine
ly cooks with her left hand on
her hip. After a while it occurred
to him, “She cooks just like
me.”
The realization was
“disconcerting,” the theologian
admitted. “It means I’m always
on display.”
Rose Marie Hengesbach, a
career counselor at Indiana
University and former teacher,
agreed that most teaching by
parents is done on an informal
basis and “it’s fun.”
Ms. Hengesbach said her
daughter recently told her that a
psychological test she had taken
in school “showed she had some
ability to be sensitive to nature.”
Her teen-ager then commented:
“It’s natural enough because you
and dad were always pointing
things out to us,” Ms.
Hengesbach reported.
The Hengesbachs think parents
are most likely to feel uneasy
when faced with more formal
teaching in such areas as sexuali
ty or religious doctrine.
One reason for anxiety, they
think, is the difficulty of know
ing if the point is getting across.
...for discussion
1. How do parents teach their
children — not just about sex
uality, but about anything at all?
What are some occasions when
parents are “teaching”?
2. Taken in its broadest sense,
what does the word “sexuality”
mean?
3. Do you think it is difficult
to speak with children about sex
uality? Why?
4. What sorts of attitudes and
values do you hope your
children will learn from you con
cerning sexuality?
5. Children today receive
many conflicting messages about
sexuality, human love and mar
riage from friends, movies, TV
programs and popular songs. Can
you help your children sort
through these conflicting
messages? How?
...fo< thought
And parents worry because
they aren't professional
educators. It’s difficult for
parents to realize they “don't
need to be experts who are
perfectly right all the time,” Ms.
Hengesbach said. If a mistake is
made, it can be corrected — and
part of teaching children is »
showing them this.
What’s vital, she added, is for
parents to communicate “the
things they think are important
— their attitudes about values,
about people. You need to put it
into words or children won’t
know” what their parents value,
Ms. Hengesbach said.
She and her husband
sometimes used games as
teaching tools. She explained
how they would draw up an im
aginary case, perhaps involving
an incident of stealing. Then
they’d ask their children. “What
would you do if you saw...”
The advantage of such a game
is that “it gives parents an op
portunity to talk about the think
ing process that goes into deci
sions,” Ms. Hengesbach said.
Children need to know that mak
ing decisions is “a step-by-step
process.”
Ms. Hengesbach suggests that
people should “approach paren
ting with a sense of humor and
with humility.”
Why humility? Because “you
don’t know how children are go
ing to turn out,” she said.
SECOND HELPINGS
“Parents Talk Love: The
Catholic Family Handbook
About Sexuality” by Susan
Sullivan and Father Matthew
Kawiak. “Parents who encour
age attitudes of respect, digni
ty and responsibility in sexual
relationships give their children
a precious gift,” the authors
write in this information-packed
book. The single most impor
tant step “in talking about sex
with anyone, young children,
teens or young adults, is simp
ly to open one’s mouth to begin
the process," they add. The
authors have developed pro
grams and lea numerous work
shops on sexuality. The book is
designed for use by individuals,
couples or parish groups.
Chapters include a discussion
of common myths about sex
uality, how parents can use
television to talk about values,
the importance of intimacy in
sexual learning and how to talk
about sex with children at dif
ferent ages. (Paulist Press, 997
Macarthur Blvd., Mahwah, N.J.
07430. 1985. $7.95.)