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When and how did you first learn where babies came from? Was it from an elder sibling who let it slip? Was it from a National Geographic that fell into your lap? Or was it from a whisper under the mango tree in school? You surely remember that horror and fascination on learning that babies did not pop out from belly buttons or arrive via the stork. That is the thing about children and childhood — the willing suspension of disbelief. Nothing is good or bad, clean or dirty — till it is deemed so by ‘adults’.
When the health minister of a country of a billion people writes in his mandate for education, “So-called ‘sex education’ to be banned. Yoga to be made compulsory,” we need to worry.
Nothing is more dangerous than ignorance or incomplete knowledge. It is in that space that falsehoods are rife and superstitions arise. Our ruling party needs to realise that sex education is not a manual for how men and women get it on. Maybe for their benefit it should be called ‘safe sex education’; because when taught the right way, that is what it is. It is a way for generations of boys and girls to understand their own bodies and its workings. It is the knowledge that will ease the rocky and alien path of puberty.
Boys need to understand the cycle of menstruation just as much as girls need to. Boys and girls need to distinguish between safe touches and not-safe touches.
These are lessons that should be learned in the safe environment of a classroom under the guidance of a sensitive teacher. If they do not learn these lessons in school, they will find out from the grapevine or Google — both perilous sources. A classroom ensures guidance and discussion. Google simply throws you into the deep end of porn.
Dear Minister, you cannot stanch puberty. What you can do is reassure teenagers that this is a natural stage, allow them to ask questions and be adult enough to be honest with them. Yoga will help them with pranayam and sirsasan , important lessons in themselves. But not enough to keep them safe.
Assistant Editor
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