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Did you know that the language we use, or neglect to use, to educate our children about their bodies can directly affect the safety of our young ones? It was a harsh lesson learned through a sobering story of a young girl who suffered prolonged abuse, a situation that could have been detected earlier had she known the proper names for her anatomy. In this episode of All Our Little Messes, we challenge the dangerous implications of purity culture on sex education and confront the negligence of withholding crucial, age-appropriate conversations about sex and anatomy from our children.
Devoting time to the distortion in perceptions of Christian and Catholic sexuality, we highlight how culture, the internet, and even religion, are culprits. These influences can often warp our concept of sexuality, leading to confusion and shame, especially in our kids. We passionately advocate for parents to address the taboo and open up the conversation about bodies and sexuality with their children. The episode tackles hard topics but underscores a critical point: an informed child is an empowered child, less likely to fall prey to misinformation from potentially harmful sources.
In the spirit of fostering a positive body image and promoting well-being, we stress the significance of using correct anatomical terms while educating our children. It's not just about anatomy, though. Our approach to the conversation can instill confidence in our children to open up with their concerns. Our final segment delves into exploring resources for age-appropriate sex education and the potential dangers of an inadequate understanding of biblical sexuality. Let's drop the shame and bring light to the conversation about sexuality. Your kids are worth it!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello and welcome to All Our Little Messes, a podcast
focused on healing throughintentional conversations about
parenting, relationships,religion and more.
I am your host, veronica Winrod, and I'm so happy to have you
here listening in on my thoughtstoday.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hello and welcome back to AllOur Little Messes.
(00:32):
This is episode 9, and todaywe'll be continuing our short
series on purity culture and theimpacts it's had on society.
Today I wanted to talk aboutthe impacts it's had on sex
education and how that'saffected our youth, and I wanted
to start off by just brieflytouching on the importance of
(01:00):
open conversation about sex andanatomy for kids.
I mean, I'm sure you're allaware of how today's culture is
and how it's affected.
You know Christian sexuality,we have the effects of
pornography and you knowtechnology has really spread
(01:23):
those effects really far, farand wide and, as a result of you
know technology and pornographyand stuff, we also have the
increased danger of our kidspotentially being molested, and
(01:44):
so, to my mind, that is probablythe biggest reason why we need
to focus on teaching our kidsthe correct terms for their
anatomy.
I have heard way too manystories and I know way too many
people personally and what I'veheard people tell me is just
(02:11):
absolutely appalling, like thenames they teach their children
to associate with their anatomyand just instead of just
actually calling it by their youknow their actual, correct
anatomical terms.
And I mean, I'm sure most ofyou have heard this story about.
(02:32):
You know the young girl she was, oh goodness, I think she was
in preschool or no, maybe shewas old, I think she might have
even been as old as elementaryschool age, but anyways, she
told this story to her teacher.
About you know how her unclekept licking her cookie and the
(02:59):
teacher didn't think anything ofit and just told the student to
you know, please tell youruncle, don't do that.
If you don't like it, just askhim to please stop.
And it later came out, after adiscussion with the girl's
mother about how her cookie wasitchy, that the teacher finally
(03:21):
like put two and two togetherand realized what was going on.
But at that point the abuse hadalready been happening for
months and months and months andit likely would never have
happened in the first place ifthe student, if the daughter,
had been taught correctanatomical terms for her anatomy
(03:43):
, like if she had been taughtboundaries.
And you know, this is what it'scalled, this is what is an
isn't allowed to happen there,and on and on and on, and then
like situations like that wouldnever have happened.
And so that's like a hugereason why, like my husband and
(04:06):
I chose to teach our kids thenames for their anatomy.
And I mean, I have, I have ayoung toddler, just over two
years old, and he knows his thenames for his anatomy.
He knows, he knows them all.
He's two years old and he he'lllist them all.
You know my butt, my penis, mytesticles.
(04:28):
He'll, like, he'll listeverything down for me, and
there is nothing sexual attachedto what he's saying, because
for him I'm just peeing and I'mpooping and these are my body
parts, this is my hand, this ismy arm, this is my foot and this
is my penis, moving on with mylife.
He doesn't attach any shame tothat.
(04:53):
And so I feel like it's veryimportant to teach kids early on
to you know, know the names oftheir body parts and to not hide
them.
Because when we hide and thisis something that I I it kind of
(05:15):
struck me a couple of years ago, before I even had kids, I was
kind of thinking about it and Iwas like, you know, we don't.
We don't hide the names for ourarms or our legs or our nose,
but we will try to hide thenames of our you know, our, our
(05:38):
anatomy and other areas from ourkids, and we try to attach
shame, like sexual shame, to itin a, you know, in a toddler.
And that is just so concerningto me because one, you know,
we're all made in the image andlikeness of God and in the
(05:59):
beginning there was no shameattached to our bodies.
And a little child is, I mean,I feel is, as close to that
innocence in, you know, theGarden of Eden that we will ever
get.
And so the first steps that achild takes towards being
(06:21):
ashamed of their bodies are thesteps we put them out on.
So by teaching them oh, youcan't say, penis, that's a bad
word, yes, that's attached tothat body part, that's a bad
word they're subconsciouslygoing to take the shame attached
to that word and attach it tothat body part, and there is
absolutely nothing to be ashamedof, zero.
(06:42):
The only shame there is is theshame that we give them.
And so it is very importantthat we don't start that cycle
with our kids, because, again,it is.
It is.
We are all made in the imageand likeness of God and he made
these parts for a very holy andsacred purpose and there is no,
(07:08):
absolutely zero, absolutely zeroshame in that and we have no
right to be starting our kidsoff on that path.
So I, yeah, I teach my kids thenames of their, of their body
parts and things like that.
And you know, by teaching themthe names of their anatomy, like
(07:31):
the proper terms and things, Imean there's like a lot of
benefits to that.
I mean you have, of course youyou can help guard against not
completely, but you candefinitely help alleviate
concerns when it comes to apotential abuse situation.
So if something were to happen,then you know your kid will
(07:53):
feel like they can actuallydescribe what happened to them.
Instead of my uncle licked mycookie, she would actually be
able to say my uncle touched myvulva or whatever happened, and
that would have I mean, thatwould have stopped everything
right there.
(08:13):
If that little girl had knownthe proper way to describe what
had happened, it would havestopped the situation right in
its tracks.
But instead she wasn't taughtwhat to say, what her body parts
were actually called, and thesituation continued on for
months.
And so those conversations arevery important because you know,
(08:35):
again, it stops, you know itcan stop potential abuse
situations from happening.
And then you know, also it kindof opens the door to age
appropriate conversations aboutsexuality, and my oldest is
almost five, so I haven't reallyrun into too many conversations
(08:58):
in that area.
I mean, he's asked somequestions that I was a little
bit.
I mean I wasn't shocked that heasked them because he's, you
know, he's a smart five-year-oldand he's very observant and
there was nothing overly sexualor anything in the questions he
asked.
It was, you know, about body,hair why is there hair on your
(09:21):
legs, kind of thing.
And the questions just kind of,you know, escalated into am I
going to have hair, am I goingto have hair all over?
And then it just yeah.
So I mean those conversationslike when your kid feels
comfortable discussing his orher body to their parents, like
(09:43):
these kinds of conversationsthat you know I had on my couch
with my four-year-old.
They're very organic and theyjust kind of happened naturally
and there was no shame attached.
He didn't feel like he was introuble, he didn't feel like,
you know, there was somethinghorrible or bad or anything in
the questions he was asking.
He just genuinely wanted toknow and there was no.
(10:04):
I mean, I experienced thisgrowing up Like I would ask a
question and the automaticresponse I received was where
did you hear about this?
Who told you about this?
And at that point I was in mymid teens and so, like I, in my
(10:27):
opinion, I should have alreadyknown about these things.
Like these conversations needto be happening by like nine
years old.
In my opinion, by the timeyou're 15, 16 years old, you
should know everything thatthere is to know.
And so you know I was askingquestions and the response was
(10:49):
who told you these things?
Who have you been talking to?
And so I learned very quicklydon't talk about these things,
don't bring anything up.
And so, yeah, it was shameful.
You know, these questions wereshameful, something to be hidden
.
I wasn't supposed to askquestions, but at the same time
(11:12):
I was.
You know, I was still curious,obviously.
So I would learn things fromfriends and from you know, books
I would find at the library andthings like that.
And from the internet.
Later on, I would find thingsfrom the internet.
And so you know the and itdefinitely in the beginning.
(11:33):
It definitely warped my conceptof what Christian and Catholic
sexuality was, because, you know, the world tends to portray sex
as something very, verytransactional.
And it's not.
It's not a big deal.
(11:54):
You can give it to whoever it's.
No, it's no thing.
It's, you know, it's no problem.
And you know the statisticsshow that that is not true.
I mean just the rates in sexualdisease and the way, you know,
aids has skyrocketed through theroof and the rates of, you know
, children born out of wedlockand you know our abortion rates
(12:17):
just very simple.
Things like that show that weshould not, we should not be
looking to the internet andthings like that for sex
education, obviously because,again, it warped my concept of
sexuality.
So that, again, is a veryimportant reason why we need to
(12:39):
start having age appropriateconversations with our kids
about their bodies and aboutsexuality.
And it was actually someone Iknow, who you know, mentioned
this to me.
He said what was it?
He said better a day too earlythan years too late, and that is
(13:04):
very true.
Like children's, innocence isvery powerful and if their minds
don't have the ability toabsorb information, it tends to
just go right over their headsand so like when you're having a
conversation with them and theydon't grasp the concept of
something.
Oftentimes it just you knowthey may misunderstand it and
(13:28):
that's always a risk that youwould take and take.
You know, having thisconversation with them, you know
, a day too early.
But again, better a day tooearly than you know years too
late, because then again they'regoing to learn.
They're going to learn abouttheir bodies, they're going to
(13:49):
learn about sex.
They're not.
I mean, kids are not stupid.
They know that something'sgoing on.
You know when they startexperiencing puberty and things
like that, and so you want themto learn from you and you want
them to learn, you know, from ahealthy standpoint.
You don't want them learningfrom the internet, which has its
(14:12):
own risks.
I mean, a lot of people I knowwho learned sex education from
the internet and from friendslater on went on to have
pornography addictions.
And it's because you know whenyou go to the internet, the
(14:33):
first place you're going to findsex education is porn sites.
That's just where you're goingto learn about sex is porn sites
on the internet.
And so it's extremely, it'svital.
It's absolutely vital andimportant that we teach our kids
at home and we teach them,start teaching them from a young
(14:53):
age and we also impress uponthem, you know the fact that
there is nothing shameful,there's nothing shameful in
sexuality.
There's nothing that they needto hide from themselves or from
us, like if they have a question, encourage them, tell them.
You know you tell them thatit's natural, tell them that
(15:14):
it's healthy that have questions.
They're going to be curious andthere's nothing wrong with
being curious about their bodies.
Their bodies are constantlychanging and they're going to
want to know why.
And our job is to teach themwhy.
I mean it even says that in theBible to raise them up in the
ways of the Lord, like raisethem up in the way that they
should go.
(15:35):
And so if we don't do that,then we have failed in our job.
And so, again, teach them thatthere is nothing shameful about
their bodies and the naturalprocesses it goes through, and
encourage them to come to youwith questions.
And I think one of the firstthings we can do to kind of help
(15:58):
our kids not attach shame totheir bodies is, you know, when
kids are very, very young andI'm talking like six months to
like two years old, duringdiaper changes, I'm sure, like
all parents and caregivers havenoticed this, kids have a
tendency to grab themselves andit is the most annoying thing
ever because you're like tryingso hard to hurry up, finish that
(16:20):
diaper change, so you know itdoesn't get messy.
And this little kid is tryingto, you know, grab themselves.
And I like when I first, when Ifirst had my oldest, I would
tell him oh don't, we, don'ttouch our wee-wees.
And my husband heard me afterabout a month of me doing it my
(16:41):
son was like seven months old atthis point.
He heard me say wee-wee and hekind of looked at me, funny,
he's like wee-wee, where didthat come from?
I was just like I don't knowwhat else to call it.
He's like why don't you justcall it a penis?
And I was just like, but that'sweird, babe, we don't say that,
that's a weird word.
And he just kind of looked atme and he's like why?
(17:02):
Why is it a weird word for you?
And so I I mean like I hadalready kind of thought, like
before I get married, gotmarried like I mentioned, like I
had already kind of thoughtabout the whole, like why do we
attach so much shame to ourbodies?
And, like you know, it's theadults that do that to the kids.
These innocent little babiesare programmed.
(17:25):
These innocent little babiesare being programmed by adults
to attach shame to their bodies,often before they can even walk
or talk.
And it's just, it's horrific.
But like I'd never.
I'd never thought about likeactually teaching my kids you
know proper anatomical terms,because everybody knows what a
wee wee is right, like it's.
(17:47):
It's not it's.
It's a very common, it's a verycommon term for that.
But at the same time I'm like Iam still in a sense attaching
shame to that because I amashamed and too scared to say
the word penis.
It's not a bad word.
It's not a bad word, it is abody part.
(18:09):
Why are we so scared of it?
And so I just was like okay.
So it took me, it took me acouple weeks to finally say the
word out loud.
I had never said the word.
I don't think I'd ever said theword before in my life until
that point.
And I was oh goodness, I waslike 24 years old, I had never
(18:29):
said the word before and Ifinally said it out loud and I
felt so awkward saying it.
But he was, I was again, I waschanging his diaper he was
trying to grab himself.
I said, oh no, we don't grabour penis while I'm changing you
, we'll get poop everywhere.
And that was it Like and thatwas kind of how I introduced the
(18:51):
word into, like, my sense ofvocabulary.
It's we don't grab our peniswhile I'm changing diapers,
that's, you know, we don't touchthat.
And so Now my son is very, verycomfortable talking about it,
like saying the word, nottalking about it saying the
(19:11):
words.
And it's actually turned out tobe a very good thing because,
you know, for health reasons, Imean, he's had, he had a health
problem, just you know, a coupleof months ago, and he was able
to actually come up to me andsay, hey, mommy, my penis, et
cetera, et cetera, and actuallytell me what was going on, using
(19:33):
actual terms and explainingwhere it hurt and why it hurt
and things like that.
And if I hadn't taught himthose terms, he wouldn't have
been able to describe what was,you know, actually going on.
And so, also because he's he'svery comfortable with his
anatomy too, I mean I've, and asa result of being a boy, mom,
(19:57):
you know, you come into thosethe situations where you all
kinds of things happen that Iwon't get into, but I'm sure all
boy moms out there can, youknow, stand in solidarity with
me.
Boys, am I right?
But yes, it's.
It's a good thing to normalizeconversations about your kids
(20:24):
anatomy because they're going tohave questions why is my body
doing this?
And even at three or four yearsold, your kids bodies are going
through huge changes, even eventhen in those areas, and so you
want your kids to to becomfortable coming to you with
questions.
Why is this happening?
Why is this happening?
(20:44):
Hey mommy, look what I you know, look what I can do, look what
just happened.
And that's that's good, that'shealthy, because you need to
know at one as their parent,what is going on, what is
happening, and that's good too.
I mean, later in life, ifsomething does happen, that is
is difficult and and hard to getthrough for both of you.
(21:06):
The fact that you establishedtrust and took away the shame
associated with thoseconversations is going to help
you get through those and it'sgoing to make it easier for your
child to actually come to youwhen there's an actual
legitimate problem.
And that, again, is like I meanteaching them the correct terms
(21:30):
early on in life and justintroducing it into you know
conversations again while you'relike you're changing them and
things like that or or bathtimes or things are just
whenever you know it would comeup organically again is going to
also establish trust andcommunication with your kids and
(21:53):
that would be that.
That's a huge, that's extremelyimportant later on in life when
, again, you might have problems.
You know, if your teenagedaughter you know happens to to
have sex, you know, beforemarriage, or or your son has
again he has sex before marriageor anything happens or somebody
(22:16):
unfortunately you know Godforbid is abused or something
happens, then they're going tobe, they're going to trust you
enough to come to you and havethose difficult conversations
that they might not want to helpwith anybody else, and they'll
also be able to accuratelydescribe what happened to them,
which is huge, because Ipersonally know teenagers that
(22:39):
do not know what their bodyparts are called and like.
When I found out that thesekids don't know what their body
parts are called, I was shocked.
I could not believe that thiswas even a thing anymore.
But they didn't.
They didn't know and it was, itwas.
It was very strange to me tofind that out, but you know it
(23:03):
should be also theseconversations that you have with
your toddlers about you know,correct anatomical terms.
They generally they're going togradually morph into
conversations about, about sex.
So this is really just like thegateway to that and it's just a
gradual leading up.
And we're I'm not quite sure Imean my husband and I are, you
(23:33):
know, we're still because Istill consider us infants and
our whole parenting journey, sowe're still starting out.
But we, we definitely want tostart teaching our kids from a
younger age about, you know,about general sex education.
And when Christians think sexeducation, they think that it
means you know the nitty-grittyof it all.
(23:55):
And to me, sex education is somuch more than that.
It is describing puberty, it isdescribing childbirth, it is
describing breastfeeding.
It could be describing thepostpartum period.
I mean it can be describingchild development within the
uterus.
It could be describing how theuterus works.
It can be describing periods,it can be describing the women's
(24:16):
menstrual cycle.
It is everything.
And there are so many places tostart without actually
discussing sex.
And you can start as young assix years old, in my mind, I
mean, because why can't youdescribe how a baby grows inside
of its mother's belly to a sixyear old.
Why can't you describe theplacenta and the uterus and go
(24:39):
through the whole process ofchildbirth and how sacred and
how beautiful it is to a sixyear old.
Why can't you describe that?
And so I feel like, again, theyounger you start, it's better
to start a day too early thanyears too late.
And so it's an ongoing process.
(25:00):
It's not just a one-timeconversation where you sit your
kid down and you just show thebook at them, or you just unload
all this information on your10-year-old, your 12-year-old,
your 14-year-old, however old.
You end up having thisconversation with them and just
unload all this information,because that in itself can be so
traumatizing, like again.
I know parents have put it offfor so long and then they were
(25:23):
like, oh shoot, my daughter'sabout to go through puberty and
they just unloaded all of thisinformation on their daughters
and I, oh goodness, I can thinkof half a dozen girls that this
happened to and they were justabsolutely traumatized.
I had a friend tell me that shecried and then she told me that
(25:45):
it was disgusting.
She was 14 at the time when shefound out and she told me that
it was disgusting and she wasnever going to do it, and that
was actually my initial reactionwhen I found out.
I was like 15 or 16 and I hadto like blatantly ask my mom, is
it?
We had puppies and I was like,is it like the dogs do it?
(26:07):
And when she was like, yeah,sort of, I was like ew, gross,
I'm never going to do that.
And because that was I hadnever.
I didn't have that gradualintroduction into it and I also
didn't have that aspect of howbeautiful and sacred it is and
how it's such a God.
It's a God-given gift.
(26:29):
Our sexuality is a God-givengift.
Another thing that I'vediscovered in I've been studying
my faith more over the past twoyears and, like so many things
that I have learned aboutsexuality within Catholic
teaching is just absolutelybeautiful, and it is so sad to
(26:52):
me that I didn't grow up withthis, this introduction to
Catholic sexuality.
Something that always stuckwith me was for the Catholics
out there.
I'm sure you'll know what I'mtalking about, but Pope John
Paul II wrote this series ofletters that were later compiled
into a book called Theology ofthe Body and within.
(27:13):
When you are reading Theology ofthe Body within like the first
chapter or second chaptersomewhere in there I can't
remember.
It talks about the unionbetween a man and a woman and
the fruits of that union beinglike the fruit of the union
between God, the Father, god theSon and the fruit they produced
(27:35):
of their love, god, the HolyGhost.
And that just struck me asbeing so beautiful and I was
moved to tears because, again,like sex education for me
growing up had always beenshameful and hidden and I was
always so confused afterdiscussion, and I learned about
(27:58):
it from friends and from theinternet and you know, books at
the library and my idea ofsexuality was warped.
And so when I read that and Ijust it kind of just, even after
being married for a coupleyears, at that point it struck
me how beautiful and sacred itis.
And it really is like.
You know, when you get marriedyou take a vow of commitment and
(28:22):
love and you know to honor andrespect your spouse until death
do you part and like every time.
And within Catholic teachingit's actually it's a general
belief that every time youengage in the sexual union with
your spouse you aresacramentally renewing those
(28:45):
vows to your spouse every time.
And so to read that in theologyof the body, like that our
union mirrored the union betweenGod the Father and God the Holy
Ghost.
God the Father and God the Sonwas just, it was beautiful.
It was so moving, and I neverthought of sexuality in that way
before, and so that's anotherreason why, like these ongoing
(29:09):
conversations with your childare so important because you can
introduce that kind of thing tothem, you can show them how
beautiful and how sacred sexshould be and that there's
nothing to be ashamed in it.
There's nothing to be ashamed inour sexual natures.
They're a God given gift.
I mean, the whole point of oursexual natures is to, you know,
(29:33):
is one union with our spouseswithin the context of marriage.
That is the primary purpose ofsex, and the secondary purpose
was procreation of children, andso, like having those
conversations and helping themto understand how beautiful and
sacred it is and that it'ssomething to be cherished and
(29:58):
not something just to be for one, not something to be thrown
away, but also not something tobe ashamed of.
There's no shame in oursexuality.
It is one of the greatest giftsthat God has given us and it's
something that we shouldtreasure and be proud of.
Honestly.
We should be proud of it and weshould guard it and you know
this whole culture and in a lotof Christian and Catholic
(30:21):
circles now, of hiding oursexuality and guarding it as
like a shameful secret that wedon't talk to our kids about,
because if we talk to our kidsabout it then they're going to
want to go have sex.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
If we introduce our kids to sexearly on as something beautiful
(30:41):
and sacred and holy and a Godgiven gift, why is that
considered dangerous?
And I don't understand whyparents would see it that way.
Like kids are not gonna justrun off and go have sex because
you had the sex talk with them.
Hiding it from them is gonnamake them curious and then
(31:05):
they're gonna go run off into itbecause they're gonna want to
know what it's all about.
If you introduce it to them athome in a safe setting, you tell
them what's going on, you showthem how sacred it is, you teach
them a biblical foundation forsexuality, they're not gonna run
off and go have sex becausetheir curiosity will have
(31:31):
already been satisfiedessentially within the safe
context of your home and withinthe same context of your faith
and the Bible, it's not going tobe a problem.
If it is a problem, then again,you need to be that safe place
and that place where they cancommunicate to you about what
happened, a place where they canland after their mistake.
(31:56):
Then we shouldn't shame themfor that mistake because, trust
me, they're already going to beashamed enough.
They don't need more shame.
We need to help them getthrough that and show them the
love and forgiveness that Jesusgave to sexual sinners within
the Bible the woman at the well,mary Magdalene.
(32:17):
He did not shame them for theirsexual sin.
He said to give up your sin andfollow me, and that is
something that we need to bottlefor our kids if all else fells
and they do fall.
That is something that I feellike we should definitely try to
(32:39):
focus on.
I personally don't have anyresources.
I'm still trying to compile alist of resources for parents or
, honestly, just for myself.
I have a couple of books thatI'm going through reading right
(33:00):
now.
I've heard kind of iffy thingsabout some of the books that I'm
looking at purchasing and oneof the books in particular I
forget the name of the series.
I'm going to see if I can pullit up for you guys.
(33:20):
I know another series that I'mdefinitely interested in reading
and if any of you have alreadyread this book or this series of
books, then please let me knowhow you liked it.
It was a series of books writtenby Luke and Trisha Gilcherson.
I guess Luke Gilcherson used towork for Covenant Eyes, which
(33:43):
is the internet filter that isvery commonly used in Christian
Catholic circles.
It's a three part series.
He has a book called the TalkSeven Lessons to Introduce your
Child to Biblical Sexuality.
He has a book called the TalkChanges, which is seven biblical
lessons to make sense of purity, and then he also has one on
(34:07):
relationships eleven lessons togive kids a greater
understanding of biblicalsexuality.
So if any of you actually haveread that, then please let me
know.
You can either email me, Ibelieve, on Apple or Spotify.
You can actually leave acomment on the episode.
And, yeah, please let me knowif you've read these books and
(34:31):
if you liked them.
There's also another series ofbooks called God's Design for
Sex.
Now, this one I was a littleiffy about.
I ordered it, I haven't startedreading it, but it's a six part
series of books starting at theage of three years old, going
(34:56):
through the ages of sixteen, Iguess it's supposed to.
It covers everything.
It even goes into.
I guess their updated versions,their updated editions,
actually also cover same sexmarriage and sexual diseases and
(35:16):
things like that within thecontext of the Bible.
So I have heard some rather iffythings about that.
I had one parent tell me thatthey read I believe it was book
number four and they weretalking about the risks of
having sex before marriage andone of the things that the
(35:41):
author suggested was that ifthey did have a baby before
marriage then they were going tobe abandoned by all their
friends and they were going tolive a life of poverty and the
dad was going to abandon themand life was going to suck.
They were never going to find agood husband and she was really
(36:01):
bothered by that,understandably and basically
saying, because you've had thiskid, your life is over and which
is so damaging not only to themother but also to the baby, to
attach all of this blame on tothe baby.
If only I didn't have you, thenmy life wouldn't suck and
that's just so sad to do that.
(36:24):
So, yeah, there were somethings in those books she didn't
like.
That was just one of them.
So again, it's a six partseries of books, so it's going
to take me a while.
I guess four or five of thebooks are for the kids to read
along with the parents and thenone of the books is a parent's
(36:46):
guide to the series on basicallyjust how to get through the
series.
So those are two series ofbooks I have been personally
looking into.
Again, I'm reading the GodsDesign for Sex series and if
it's any good I'll probably do ablog review, blog post review
(37:11):
and post that for you guys tolook at.
But yeah, those are the twobooks, the two series that I'm
currently looking into for SexEducation for my kids.
Thank you very much forlistening to this episode on sex
(37:33):
education within the context ofpurity culture.
Just a couple of key takeawaysfor all of you listeners today.
I would really encourage youguys to really take action in
you know promotingage-appropriate sex education
(37:55):
and you know teaching your kidsproper anatomical terms and
really you know studying and ifyou have a hard time with you
know calling a body part by, youknow it's name, really
examining within yourselves whyyou have such a hard time, you
know attaching that name to thatbody part and why it's such a
(38:18):
problem for you.
I mean because a lot of us, weattach shame to different things
for different reasons that makefor much childhood from trauma
or you know, for we honestlywould have no reason why.
So I would definitely try to, Iwould definitely encourage
parents and you know, andeducators and caregivers to
(38:38):
really examine the reasons whythey would not want to, you know
, attach proper terms to theiranatomy and to not teach kids
about, about sex until you know,basically until it's too late,
which is it's becoming anepidemic in Christian circles.
I mean, I know way too many,like I mentioned before.
(39:00):
I know way too many teenagegirls that know nothing about
sex.
I personally know of a girl whodid not know about sex until
the night before she got marriedand I cannot even imagine how
traumatizing that must have beenfor her.
So yeah, I would definitely, Iwould definitely encourage
(39:21):
parents to to reexamine thosebeliefs, if they have them, and
then also to to look intodifferent.
You know books and you knoworganizations that can, that can
help support you in, you know,having biblical, biblically
based conversations with yourkids, and you know books and you
(39:45):
know organizations, websitesthat can, you know, guide you in
that process, because it isvery difficult.
I I know I mean just frompersonal experience.
It's very difficult to havethose conversations, especially
when you haven't even reallythought of or been used to, you
know, having to have thoseconversations or thought that it
(40:07):
would never happen or you wouldnever have to get explicit
because it wasn't something youshould do.
We like we shouldn't beexplicit with our kids, kind of
thing.
So, yeah, I would definitely, Iwould definitely encourage you
to, you know, look up resourcesand as I, as I get more
resources and more books andthings together, I will.
(40:31):
I will actually be writing ablog post for that and if you
follow me on Facebook orInstagram, I post about two to
three blog posts per week on ondifferent subjects, and so if
you follow me, you'll be sure toget that blog post posted on
one of those two places.
So, yeah, just just let's keepan eye out for that.
(40:57):
But anyways, thank you guys verymuch for listening to this
episode and I will see you guysall next week.
Thank you for tuning in to thisepisode of All Our Little
Messes.
Please let us know how much youenjoyed it below and add any
questions you have about thisepisode.
Also, don't forget to follow uson Patreon for amazing
(41:21):
exclusive perks, including earlyaccess to podcast episodes and
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updates and insights thatmirror podcast topics.
Thank you for listening andwe'll see you next week.
Hello and welcome to All Our Little Messes, a podcast
focused on healing throughintentional conversations about
parenting, relationships,religion and more.
I am your host, veronica Winrod, and I'm so happy to have you
here listening in on my thoughtstoday.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hello and welcome back to AllOur Little Messes.
(00:32):
This is episode 9, and todaywe'll be continuing our short
series on purity culture and theimpacts it's had on society.
Today I wanted to talk aboutthe impacts it's had on sex
education and how that'saffected our youth, and I wanted
to start off by just brieflytouching on the importance of
(01:00):
open conversation about sex andanatomy for kids.
I mean, I'm sure you're allaware of how today's culture is
and how it's affected.
You know Christian sexuality,we have the effects of
pornography and you knowtechnology has really spread
(01:23):
those effects really far, farand wide and, as a result of you
know technology and pornographyand stuff, we also have the
increased danger of our kidspotentially being molested, and
(01:44):
so, to my mind, that is probablythe biggest reason why we need
to focus on teaching our kidsthe correct terms for their
anatomy.
I have heard way too manystories and I know way too many
people personally and what I'veheard people tell me is just
(02:11):
absolutely appalling, like thenames they teach their children
to associate with their anatomyand just instead of just
actually calling it by their youknow their actual, correct
anatomical terms.
And I mean, I'm sure most ofyou have heard this story about.
(02:32):
You know the young girl she was, oh goodness, I think she was
in preschool or no, maybe shewas old, I think she might have
even been as old as elementaryschool age, but anyways, she
told this story to her teacher.
About you know how her unclekept licking her cookie and the
(02:59):
teacher didn't think anything ofit and just told the student to
you know, please tell youruncle, don't do that.
If you don't like it, just askhim to please stop.
And it later came out, after adiscussion with the girl's
mother about how her cookie wasitchy, that the teacher finally
(03:21):
like put two and two togetherand realized what was going on.
But at that point the abuse hadalready been happening for
months and months and months andit likely would never have
happened in the first place ifthe student, if the daughter,
had been taught correctanatomical terms for her anatomy
(03:43):
, like if she had been taughtboundaries.
And you know, this is what it'scalled, this is what is an
isn't allowed to happen there,and on and on and on, and then
like situations like that wouldnever have happened.
And so that's like a hugereason why, like my husband and
(04:06):
I chose to teach our kids thenames for their anatomy.
And I mean, I have, I have ayoung toddler, just over two
years old, and he knows his thenames for his anatomy.
He knows, he knows them all.
He's two years old and he he'lllist them all.
You know my butt, my penis, mytesticles.
(04:28):
He'll, like, he'll listeverything down for me, and
there is nothing sexual attachedto what he's saying, because
for him I'm just peeing and I'mpooping and these are my body
parts, this is my hand, this ismy arm, this is my foot and this
is my penis, moving on with mylife.
He doesn't attach any shame tothat.
(04:53):
And so I feel like it's veryimportant to teach kids early on
to you know, know the names oftheir body parts and to not hide
them.
Because when we hide and thisis something that I I it kind of
(05:15):
struck me a couple of years ago, before I even had kids, I was
kind of thinking about it and Iwas like, you know, we don't.
We don't hide the names for ourarms or our legs or our nose,
but we will try to hide thenames of our you know, our, our
(05:38):
anatomy and other areas from ourkids, and we try to attach
shame, like sexual shame, to itin a, you know, in a toddler.
And that is just so concerningto me because one, you know,
we're all made in the image andlikeness of God and in the
(05:59):
beginning there was no shameattached to our bodies.
And a little child is, I mean,I feel is, as close to that
innocence in, you know, theGarden of Eden that we will ever
get.
And so the first steps that achild takes towards being
(06:21):
ashamed of their bodies are thesteps we put them out on.
So by teaching them oh, youcan't say, penis, that's a bad
word, yes, that's attached tothat body part, that's a bad
word they're subconsciouslygoing to take the shame attached
to that word and attach it tothat body part, and there is
absolutely nothing to be ashamedof, zero.
(06:42):
The only shame there is is theshame that we give them.
And so it is very importantthat we don't start that cycle
with our kids, because, again,it is.
It is.
We are all made in the imageand likeness of God and he made
these parts for a very holy andsacred purpose and there is no,
(07:08):
absolutely zero, absolutely zeroshame in that and we have no
right to be starting our kidsoff on that path.
So I, yeah, I teach my kids thenames of their, of their body
parts and things like that.
And you know, by teaching themthe names of their anatomy, like
(07:31):
the proper terms and things, Imean there's like a lot of
benefits to that.
I mean you have, of course youyou can help guard against not
completely, but you candefinitely help alleviate
concerns when it comes to apotential abuse situation.
So if something were to happen,then you know your kid will
(07:53):
feel like they can actuallydescribe what happened to them.
Instead of my uncle licked mycookie, she would actually be
able to say my uncle touched myvulva or whatever happened, and
that would have I mean, thatwould have stopped everything
right there.
(08:13):
If that little girl had knownthe proper way to describe what
had happened, it would havestopped the situation right in
its tracks.
But instead she wasn't taughtwhat to say, what her body parts
were actually called, and thesituation continued on for
months.
And so those conversations arevery important because you know,
(08:35):
again, it stops, you know itcan stop potential abuse
situations from happening.
And then you know, also it kindof opens the door to age
appropriate conversations aboutsexuality, and my oldest is
almost five, so I haven't reallyrun into too many conversations
(08:58):
in that area.
I mean, he's asked somequestions that I was a little
bit.
I mean I wasn't shocked that heasked them because he's, you
know, he's a smart five-year-oldand he's very observant and
there was nothing overly sexualor anything in the questions he
asked.
It was, you know, about body,hair why is there hair on your
(09:21):
legs, kind of thing.
And the questions just kind of,you know, escalated into am I
going to have hair, am I goingto have hair all over?
And then it just yeah.
So I mean those conversationslike when your kid feels
comfortable discussing his orher body to their parents, like
(09:43):
these kinds of conversationsthat you know I had on my couch
with my four-year-old.
They're very organic and theyjust kind of happened naturally
and there was no shame attached.
He didn't feel like he was introuble, he didn't feel like,
you know, there was somethinghorrible or bad or anything in
the questions he was asking.
He just genuinely wanted toknow and there was no.
(10:04):
I mean, I experienced thisgrowing up Like I would ask a
question and the automaticresponse I received was where
did you hear about this?
Who told you about this?
And at that point I was in mymid teens and so, like I, in my
(10:27):
opinion, I should have alreadyknown about these things.
Like these conversations needto be happening by like nine
years old.
In my opinion, by the timeyou're 15, 16 years old, you
should know everything thatthere is to know.
And so you know I was askingquestions and the response was
(10:49):
who told you these things?
Who have you been talking to?
And so I learned very quicklydon't talk about these things,
don't bring anything up.
And so, yeah, it was shameful.
You know, these questions wereshameful, something to be hidden
.
I wasn't supposed to askquestions, but at the same time
(11:12):
I was.
You know, I was still curious,obviously.
So I would learn things fromfriends and from you know, books
I would find at the library andthings like that.
And from the internet.
Later on, I would find thingsfrom the internet.
And so you know the and itdefinitely in the beginning.
(11:33):
It definitely warped my conceptof what Christian and Catholic
sexuality was, because, you know, the world tends to portray sex
as something very, verytransactional.
And it's not.
It's not a big deal.
(11:54):
You can give it to whoever it's.
No, it's no thing.
It's, you know, it's no problem.
And you know the statisticsshow that that is not true.
I mean just the rates in sexualdisease and the way, you know,
aids has skyrocketed through theroof and the rates of, you know
, children born out of wedlockand you know our abortion rates
(12:17):
just very simple.
Things like that show that weshould not, we should not be
looking to the internet andthings like that for sex
education, obviously because,again, it warped my concept of
sexuality.
So that, again, is a veryimportant reason why we need to
(12:39):
start having age appropriateconversations with our kids
about their bodies and aboutsexuality.
And it was actually someone Iknow, who you know, mentioned
this to me.
He said what was it?
He said better a day too earlythan years too late, and that is
(13:04):
very true.
Like children's, innocence isvery powerful and if their minds
don't have the ability toabsorb information, it tends to
just go right over their headsand so like when you're having a
conversation with them and theydon't grasp the concept of
something.
Oftentimes it just you knowthey may misunderstand it and
(13:28):
that's always a risk that youwould take and take.
You know, having thisconversation with them, you know
, a day too early.
But again, better a day tooearly than you know years too
late, because then again they'regoing to learn.
They're going to learn abouttheir bodies, they're going to
(13:49):
learn about sex.
They're not.
I mean, kids are not stupid.
They know that something'sgoing on.
You know when they startexperiencing puberty and things
like that, and so you want themto learn from you and you want
them to learn, you know, from ahealthy standpoint.
You don't want them learningfrom the internet, which has its
(14:12):
own risks.
I mean, a lot of people I knowwho learned sex education from
the internet and from friendslater on went on to have
pornography addictions.
And it's because you know whenyou go to the internet, the
(14:33):
first place you're going to findsex education is porn sites.
That's just where you're goingto learn about sex is porn sites
on the internet.
And so it's extremely, it'svital.
It's absolutely vital andimportant that we teach our kids
at home and we teach them,start teaching them from a young
(14:53):
age and we also impress uponthem, you know the fact that
there is nothing shameful,there's nothing shameful in
sexuality.
There's nothing that they needto hide from themselves or from
us, like if they have a question, encourage them, tell them.
You know you tell them thatit's natural, tell them that
(15:14):
it's healthy that have questions.
They're going to be curious andthere's nothing wrong with
being curious about their bodies.
Their bodies are constantlychanging and they're going to
want to know why.
And our job is to teach themwhy.
I mean it even says that in theBible to raise them up in the
ways of the Lord, like raisethem up in the way that they
should go.
(15:35):
And so if we don't do that,then we have failed in our job.
And so, again, teach them thatthere is nothing shameful about
their bodies and the naturalprocesses it goes through, and
encourage them to come to youwith questions.
And I think one of the firstthings we can do to kind of help
(15:58):
our kids not attach shame totheir bodies is, you know, when
kids are very, very young andI'm talking like six months to
like two years old, duringdiaper changes, I'm sure, like
all parents and caregivers havenoticed this, kids have a
tendency to grab themselves andit is the most annoying thing
ever because you're like tryingso hard to hurry up, finish that
(16:20):
diaper change, so you know itdoesn't get messy.
And this little kid is tryingto, you know, grab themselves.
And I like when I first, when Ifirst had my oldest, I would
tell him oh don't, we, don'ttouch our wee-wees.
And my husband heard me afterabout a month of me doing it my
(16:41):
son was like seven months old atthis point.
He heard me say wee-wee and hekind of looked at me, funny,
he's like wee-wee, where didthat come from?
I was just like I don't knowwhat else to call it.
He's like why don't you justcall it a penis?
And I was just like, but that'sweird, babe, we don't say that,
that's a weird word.
And he just kind of looked atme and he's like why?
(17:02):
Why is it a weird word for you?
And so I I mean like I hadalready kind of thought, like
before I get married, gotmarried like I mentioned, like I
had already kind of thoughtabout the whole, like why do we
attach so much shame to ourbodies?
And, like you know, it's theadults that do that to the kids.
These innocent little babiesare programmed.
(17:25):
These innocent little babiesare being programmed by adults
to attach shame to their bodies,often before they can even walk
or talk.
And it's just, it's horrific.
But like I'd never.
I'd never thought about likeactually teaching my kids you
know proper anatomical terms,because everybody knows what a
wee wee is right, like it's.
(17:47):
It's not it's.
It's a very common, it's a verycommon term for that.
But at the same time I'm like Iam still in a sense attaching
shame to that because I amashamed and too scared to say
the word penis.
It's not a bad word.
It's not a bad word, it is abody part.
(18:09):
Why are we so scared of it?
And so I just was like okay.
So it took me, it took me acouple weeks to finally say the
word out loud.
I had never said the word.
I don't think I'd ever said theword before in my life until
that point.
And I was oh goodness, I waslike 24 years old, I had never
(18:29):
said the word before and Ifinally said it out loud and I
felt so awkward saying it.
But he was, I was again, I waschanging his diaper he was
trying to grab himself.
I said, oh no, we don't grabour penis while I'm changing you
, we'll get poop everywhere.
And that was it Like and thatwas kind of how I introduced the
(18:51):
word into, like, my sense ofvocabulary.
It's we don't grab our peniswhile I'm changing diapers,
that's, you know, we don't touchthat.
And so Now my son is very, verycomfortable talking about it,
like saying the word, nottalking about it saying the
(19:11):
words.
And it's actually turned out tobe a very good thing because,
you know, for health reasons, Imean, he's had, he had a health
problem, just you know, a coupleof months ago, and he was able
to actually come up to me andsay, hey, mommy, my penis, et
cetera, et cetera, and actuallytell me what was going on, using
(19:33):
actual terms and explainingwhere it hurt and why it hurt
and things like that.
And if I hadn't taught himthose terms, he wouldn't have
been able to describe what was,you know, actually going on.
And so, also because he's he'svery comfortable with his
anatomy too, I mean I've, and asa result of being a boy, mom,
(19:57):
you know, you come into thosethe situations where you all
kinds of things happen that Iwon't get into, but I'm sure all
boy moms out there can, youknow, stand in solidarity with
me.
Boys, am I right?
But yes, it's.
It's a good thing to normalizeconversations about your kids
(20:24):
anatomy because they're going tohave questions why is my body
doing this?
And even at three or four yearsold, your kids bodies are going
through huge changes, even eventhen in those areas, and so you
want your kids to to becomfortable coming to you with
questions.
Why is this happening?
Why is this happening?
(20:44):
Hey mommy, look what I you know, look what I can do, look what
just happened.
And that's that's good, that'shealthy, because you need to
know at one as their parent,what is going on, what is
happening, and that's good too.
I mean, later in life, ifsomething does happen, that is
is difficult and and hard to getthrough for both of you.
(21:06):
The fact that you establishedtrust and took away the shame
associated with thoseconversations is going to help
you get through those and it'sgoing to make it easier for your
child to actually come to youwhen there's an actual
legitimate problem.
And that, again, is like I meanteaching them the correct terms
(21:30):
early on in life and justintroducing it into you know
conversations again while you'relike you're changing them and
things like that or or bathtimes or things are just
whenever you know it would comeup organically again is going to
also establish trust andcommunication with your kids and
(21:53):
that would be that.
That's a huge, that's extremelyimportant later on in life when
, again, you might have problems.
You know, if your teenagedaughter you know happens to to
have sex, you know, beforemarriage, or or your son has
again he has sex before marriageor anything happens or somebody
(22:16):
unfortunately you know Godforbid is abused or something
happens, then they're going tobe, they're going to trust you
enough to come to you and havethose difficult conversations
that they might not want to helpwith anybody else, and they'll
also be able to accuratelydescribe what happened to them,
which is huge, because Ipersonally know teenagers that
(22:39):
do not know what their bodyparts are called and like.
When I found out that thesekids don't know what their body
parts are called, I was shocked.
I could not believe that thiswas even a thing anymore.
But they didn't.
They didn't know and it was, itwas.
It was very strange to me tofind that out, but you know it
(23:03):
should be also theseconversations that you have with
your toddlers about you know,correct anatomical terms.
They generally they're going togradually morph into
conversations about, about sex.
So this is really just like thegateway to that and it's just a
gradual leading up.
And we're I'm not quite sure Imean my husband and I are, you
(23:33):
know, we're still because Istill consider us infants and
our whole parenting journey, sowe're still starting out.
But we, we definitely want tostart teaching our kids from a
younger age about, you know,about general sex education.
And when Christians think sexeducation, they think that it
means you know the nitty-grittyof it all.
(23:55):
And to me, sex education is somuch more than that.
It is describing puberty, it isdescribing childbirth, it is
describing breastfeeding.
It could be describing thepostpartum period.
I mean it can be describingchild development within the
uterus.
It could be describing how theuterus works.
It can be describing periods,it can be describing the women's
(24:16):
menstrual cycle.
It is everything.
And there are so many places tostart without actually
discussing sex.
And you can start as young assix years old, in my mind, I
mean, because why can't youdescribe how a baby grows inside
of its mother's belly to a sixyear old.
Why can't you describe theplacenta and the uterus and go
(24:39):
through the whole process ofchildbirth and how sacred and
how beautiful it is to a sixyear old.
Why can't you describe that?
And so I feel like, again, theyounger you start, it's better
to start a day too early thanyears too late.
And so it's an ongoing process.
(25:00):
It's not just a one-timeconversation where you sit your
kid down and you just show thebook at them, or you just unload
all this information on your10-year-old, your 12-year-old,
your 14-year-old, however old.
You end up having thisconversation with them and just
unload all this information,because that in itself can be so
traumatizing, like again.
I know parents have put it offfor so long and then they were
(25:23):
like, oh shoot, my daughter'sabout to go through puberty and
they just unloaded all of thisinformation on their daughters
and I, oh goodness, I can thinkof half a dozen girls that this
happened to and they were justabsolutely traumatized.
I had a friend tell me that shecried and then she told me that
(25:45):
it was disgusting.
She was 14 at the time when shefound out and she told me that
it was disgusting and she wasnever going to do it, and that
was actually my initial reactionwhen I found out.
I was like 15 or 16 and I hadto like blatantly ask my mom, is
it?
We had puppies and I was like,is it like the dogs do it?
(26:07):
And when she was like, yeah,sort of, I was like ew, gross,
I'm never going to do that.
And because that was I hadnever.
I didn't have that gradualintroduction into it and I also
didn't have that aspect of howbeautiful and sacred it is and
how it's such a God.
It's a God-given gift.
(26:29):
Our sexuality is a God-givengift.
Another thing that I'vediscovered in I've been studying
my faith more over the past twoyears and, like so many things
that I have learned aboutsexuality within Catholic
teaching is just absolutelybeautiful, and it is so sad to
(26:52):
me that I didn't grow up withthis, this introduction to
Catholic sexuality.
Something that always stuckwith me was for the Catholics
out there.
I'm sure you'll know what I'mtalking about, but Pope John
Paul II wrote this series ofletters that were later compiled
into a book called Theology ofthe Body and within.
(27:13):
When you are reading Theology ofthe Body within like the first
chapter or second chaptersomewhere in there I can't
remember.
It talks about the unionbetween a man and a woman and
the fruits of that union beinglike the fruit of the union
between God, the Father, god theSon and the fruit they produced
(27:35):
of their love, god, the HolyGhost.
And that just struck me asbeing so beautiful and I was
moved to tears because, again,like sex education for me
growing up had always beenshameful and hidden and I was
always so confused afterdiscussion, and I learned about
(27:58):
it from friends and from theinternet and you know, books at
the library and my idea ofsexuality was warped.
And so when I read that and Ijust it kind of just, even after
being married for a coupleyears, at that point it struck
me how beautiful and sacred itis.
And it really is like.
You know, when you get marriedyou take a vow of commitment and
(28:22):
love and you know to honor andrespect your spouse until death
do you part and like every time.
And within Catholic teachingit's actually it's a general
belief that every time youengage in the sexual union with
your spouse you aresacramentally renewing those
(28:45):
vows to your spouse every time.
And so to read that in theologyof the body, like that our
union mirrored the union betweenGod the Father and God the Holy
Ghost.
God the Father and God the Sonwas just, it was beautiful.
It was so moving, and I neverthought of sexuality in that way
before, and so that's anotherreason why, like these ongoing
(29:09):
conversations with your childare so important because you can
introduce that kind of thing tothem, you can show them how
beautiful and how sacred sexshould be and that there's
nothing to be ashamed in it.
There's nothing to be ashamed inour sexual natures.
They're a God given gift.
I mean, the whole point of oursexual natures is to, you know,
(29:33):
is one union with our spouseswithin the context of marriage.
That is the primary purpose ofsex, and the secondary purpose
was procreation of children, andso, like having those
conversations and helping themto understand how beautiful and
sacred it is and that it'ssomething to be cherished and
(29:58):
not something just to be for one, not something to be thrown
away, but also not something tobe ashamed of.
There's no shame in oursexuality.
It is one of the greatest giftsthat God has given us and it's
something that we shouldtreasure and be proud of.
Honestly.
We should be proud of it and weshould guard it and you know
this whole culture and in a lotof Christian and Catholic
(30:21):
circles now, of hiding oursexuality and guarding it as
like a shameful secret that wedon't talk to our kids about,
because if we talk to our kidsabout it then they're going to
want to go have sex.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
If we introduce our kids to sexearly on as something beautiful
(30:41):
and sacred and holy and a Godgiven gift, why is that
considered dangerous?
And I don't understand whyparents would see it that way.
Like kids are not gonna justrun off and go have sex because
you had the sex talk with them.
Hiding it from them is gonnamake them curious and then
(31:05):
they're gonna go run off into itbecause they're gonna want to
know what it's all about.
If you introduce it to them athome in a safe setting, you tell
them what's going on, you showthem how sacred it is, you teach
them a biblical foundation forsexuality, they're not gonna run
off and go have sex becausetheir curiosity will have
(31:31):
already been satisfiedessentially within the safe
context of your home and withinthe same context of your faith
and the Bible, it's not going tobe a problem.
If it is a problem, then again,you need to be that safe place
and that place where they cancommunicate to you about what
happened, a place where they canland after their mistake.
(31:56):
Then we shouldn't shame themfor that mistake because, trust
me, they're already going to beashamed enough.
They don't need more shame.
We need to help them getthrough that and show them the
love and forgiveness that Jesusgave to sexual sinners within
the Bible the woman at the well,mary Magdalene.
(32:17):
He did not shame them for theirsexual sin.
He said to give up your sin andfollow me, and that is
something that we need to bottlefor our kids if all else fells
and they do fall.
That is something that I feellike we should definitely try to
(32:39):
focus on.
I personally don't have anyresources.
I'm still trying to compile alist of resources for parents or
, honestly, just for myself.
I have a couple of books thatI'm going through reading right
(33:00):
now.
I've heard kind of iffy thingsabout some of the books that I'm
looking at purchasing and oneof the books in particular I
forget the name of the series.
I'm going to see if I can pullit up for you guys.
(33:20):
I know another series that I'mdefinitely interested in reading
and if any of you have alreadyread this book or this series of
books, then please let me knowhow you liked it.
It was a series of books writtenby Luke and Trisha Gilcherson.
I guess Luke Gilcherson used towork for Covenant Eyes, which
(33:43):
is the internet filter that isvery commonly used in Christian
Catholic circles.
It's a three part series.
He has a book called the TalkSeven Lessons to Introduce your
Child to Biblical Sexuality.
He has a book called the TalkChanges, which is seven biblical
lessons to make sense of purity, and then he also has one on
(34:07):
relationships eleven lessons togive kids a greater
understanding of biblicalsexuality.
So if any of you actually haveread that, then please let me
know.
You can either email me, Ibelieve, on Apple or Spotify.
You can actually leave acomment on the episode.
And, yeah, please let me knowif you've read these books and
(34:31):
if you liked them.
There's also another series ofbooks called God's Design for
Sex.
Now, this one I was a littleiffy about.
I ordered it, I haven't startedreading it, but it's a six part
series of books starting at theage of three years old, going
(34:56):
through the ages of sixteen, Iguess it's supposed to.
It covers everything.
It even goes into.
I guess their updated versions,their updated editions,
actually also cover same sexmarriage and sexual diseases and
(35:16):
things like that within thecontext of the Bible.
So I have heard some rather iffythings about that.
I had one parent tell me thatthey read I believe it was book
number four and they weretalking about the risks of
having sex before marriage andone of the things that the
(35:41):
author suggested was that ifthey did have a baby before
marriage then they were going tobe abandoned by all their
friends and they were going tolive a life of poverty and the
dad was going to abandon themand life was going to suck.
They were never going to find agood husband and she was really
(36:01):
bothered by that,understandably and basically
saying, because you've had thiskid, your life is over and which
is so damaging not only to themother but also to the baby, to
attach all of this blame on tothe baby.
If only I didn't have you, thenmy life wouldn't suck and
that's just so sad to do that.
(36:24):
So, yeah, there were somethings in those books she didn't
like.
That was just one of them.
So again, it's a six partseries of books, so it's going
to take me a while.
I guess four or five of thebooks are for the kids to read
along with the parents and thenone of the books is a parent's
(36:46):
guide to the series on basicallyjust how to get through the
series.
So those are two series ofbooks I have been personally
looking into.
Again, I'm reading the GodsDesign for Sex series and if
it's any good I'll probably do ablog review, blog post review
(37:11):
and post that for you guys tolook at.
But yeah, those are the twobooks, the two series that I'm
currently looking into for SexEducation for my kids.
Thank you very much forlistening to this episode on sex
(37:33):
education within the context ofpurity culture.
Just a couple of key takeawaysfor all of you listeners today.
I would really encourage youguys to really take action in
you know promotingage-appropriate sex education
(37:55):
and you know teaching your kidsproper anatomical terms and
really you know studying and ifyou have a hard time with you
know calling a body part by, youknow it's name, really
examining within yourselves whyyou have such a hard time, you
know attaching that name to thatbody part and why it's such a
(38:18):
problem for you.
I mean because a lot of us, weattach shame to different things
for different reasons that makefor much childhood from trauma
or you know, for we honestlywould have no reason why.
So I would definitely try to, Iwould definitely encourage
parents and you know, andeducators and caregivers to
(38:38):
really examine the reasons whythey would not want to, you know
, attach proper terms to theiranatomy and to not teach kids
about, about sex until you know,basically until it's too late,
which is it's becoming anepidemic in Christian circles.
I mean, I know way too many,like I mentioned before.
(39:00):
I know way too many teenagegirls that know nothing about
sex.
I personally know of a girl whodid not know about sex until
the night before she got marriedand I cannot even imagine how
traumatizing that must have beenfor her.
So yeah, I would definitely, Iwould definitely encourage
(39:21):
parents to to reexamine thosebeliefs, if they have them, and
then also to to look intodifferent.
You know books and you knoworganizations that can, that can
help support you in, you know,having biblical, biblically
based conversations with yourkids, and you know books and you
(39:45):
know organizations, websitesthat can, you know, guide you in
that process, because it isvery difficult.
I I know I mean just frompersonal experience.
It's very difficult to havethose conversations, especially
when you haven't even reallythought of or been used to, you
know, having to have thoseconversations or thought that it
(40:07):
would never happen or you wouldnever have to get explicit
because it wasn't something youshould do.
We like we shouldn't beexplicit with our kids, kind of
thing.
So, yeah, I would definitely, Iwould definitely encourage you
to, you know, look up resourcesand as I, as I get more
resources and more books andthings together, I will.
(40:31):
I will actually be writing ablog post for that and if you
follow me on Facebook orInstagram, I post about two to
three blog posts per week on ondifferent subjects, and so if
you follow me, you'll be sure toget that blog post posted on
one of those two places.
So, yeah, just just let's keepan eye out for that.
(40:57):
But anyways, thank you guys verymuch for listening to this
episode and I will see you guysall next week.
Thank you for tuning in to thisepisode of All Our Little
Messes.
Please let us know how much youenjoyed it below and add any
questions you have about thisepisode.
Also, don't forget to follow uson Patreon for amazing
(41:21):
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