Parents as Sex Educators

Abstract

The traditional view of parents’ responsibilities in educating their children about sex was a simple one. At some point before a child was married, the parent of the same sex was to provide the “secret” information about how to perform sexual intercourse and about the reproductive process. It was also the mother’s responsibility to inform daughters that menarche signaled the onset of “womanhood,” usually a vaguely defined concept. There was also supposed to be a background of mysterious messages emphasizing that doing anything sexual prior to marriage, especially getting pregnant, was wrong. In actual practice, the mother often waited until just before the wedding, when she might ask an embarrassed daughter, “You know what to do, don’t you?” or “Do you want to ask me any questions?” It was usually assumed that the new husband would indeed know what to do, and that was all that was important anyway. For sons, sex education was sometimes even more confusing, since the lack of information and the negative messages were accompanied by the expectation that they would know all about sex, and would understand winks from fathers and other adult men who cautioned that if they could not wait until marriage, they should at least be careful.