Part 8

A boy of nine had a dream which he told his parents. His mother was in a shop, and a man on a bicycle, dressed as an officer came along the road; he, the little boy, rushed to the bicycle, stopped it, flung the man off, and killed him. In telling the dream the boy said, “I prevented him getting to mother.” This dream is so clear that I need not wait to interpret it beyond saying that the father of the boy was an officer. It will cause no surprise to anyone, with even a rudimentary knowledge of the emotional troubles of children, to know that this boy developed serious nervous symptoms.

It has seemed worth while to record these two instructive little stories, as a means of illustrating the kind of incident which furnishes the guide with regard to the nature of the trouble to be looked for, and shows in the first case as well the kind of help a watchful and instructed parent can give to relieve the trouble prevailing in the minds of the young. Dreams should always be noted, they throw the sharpest light on the child’s emotional conflicts. I must again urge the necessity of the parent paying the closest attention to the child’s prattle, to watching carefully his games and his behaviour, for in this way only can the clue be found to make it possible to give the kind of instruction or treatment that is wanted. I may give a few instances. Such things as the frequent childish desire to sit up with father and mother, the calling for the mother at night under the plea of fear are very certain signs of active jealousy. Again the very usual unwillingness of the child to grow up arises out of the inability to meet the necessity of separating the self from the protective tenderness of the mother. The child is always tending to turn back to safety, and, if this is encouraged by the mother, the child in after life will be unable to meet the necessities of adult action. The too fond mother perpetuates the childhood of her son or her daughter.

What the parents can do is to watch the child, and to learn themselves, in order to have the knowledge to clear up difficulties as these appear, and then it may be possible to remove obstructions to growth. Further, they can place within the child’s reach the materials—the sand and clean messy things to play with—machines to pull to pieces, swords to fight with, dolls to play with—every child will need different materials, by which, to a certain extent, liberation can be found from their primitive instincts, by giving them a free and harmless expression. In fact the real work of the parent may be likened to that of the stage scene-shifter and property manager.

Parental power guides the early years of the child like a higher controlling fate. But when the boy or girl begins to grow up there begins also the conflict between the home attachments and the need to break away in order to free the growing soul from the spell of the family. It is the war between the generations. The frequent and often very deep depression of puberty arises from this struggle. And there are the many other, and often very disturbing, symptoms, which are rooted in the difficulty of the new adjustments. The boy or girl tries often to separate himself (or herself) as much as possible from his family; he (or she) may even estrange themselves from their parents but inwardly this only binds them more firmly to the family ties. The outward break must be regarded as a dangerous sign of the inner conflict which the unselfish wisdom of the parents ought to be able to aid.

I cannot follow this important matter further. But I would wish to say that this is the time for the teacher to step forward and take up the work begun by the parent. The parents at this period are often hindrances to the child, they must push their children away from them in order to help the growing souls to gain their liberation.

The uncertain and, as I fear they may seem, unsatisfactory conclusions that must result from any honest inquiry into this difficult question of helping the young at the start of their life’s journey, is due in part to the fact that, even yet, and in spite of all the new knowledge that has been gained in the last few years, we know very little about the child’s emotional processes. Unfortunately our knowledge is not sufficient to make it possible for any dogmatic statements to be placed even tentatively before parents. There can be no ready-made prescriptions, no certain cures. We do not even know where the greatest trouble lies, whether it is in the parents and the teachers—the adults who fail to understand the child; or in the child, who fights away from the understanding that those who love and train him are able to offer. We do know, however, that the difficulties on the part of the child are very great—much greater than most of us (whether we are parents or teachers)—satisfied in an easy grown-up optimism, have cared to realise. In many ways we—the adults—the parents and the teachers, we who are a generation behind the children and already have been through the long, struggling, upward journey, by which they are now travelling, ought to manage our love and our training for them more carefully, more sympathetically, and more intelligently. I say intelligently, because the sins committed in love against children are more lastingly harmful than many of the sins committed under neglect or even under unkindness.

Thus, the final word I have to say to parents in regard to their children is this:

_Do not love your children too possessively._

Try to understand and respect them—realise their existence as individuals with interests and needs apart from yourself. If necessary send them from you. Do not love your children for your own satisfaction, but for their good, and to help them to establish, with as little disaster as possible, their own lives.

SEX INSTRUCTION

THE AGE AT WHICH KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE GIVEN

A story is recorded of a father and mother in ancient Greece, who, being concerned for the welfare of their only son, went to a renowned teacher and asked him to educate and take full charge of their child. “How old is your son?” questioned the teacher.

“Just three!”

The sage shook his head. “I am sorry but you have come to me too late: the boy’s character is decided already.”

I was reminded of this most instructive story as I read the account of the evidence given by the Rev. the Hon. Ed. Lyttelton, before the Birth Rate Commission of the National Council of Public Morals. For while I agree wholeheartedly with the late headmaster of Eton College as to the necessity of instructing the young in the facts of sex, I disagree, with his view as to the method of the teaching and, even more I disagree emphatically, as to the age at which instruction should begin.

Dr. Lyttelton holds that the first lessons should be given at the age of nine years, when the boy ought to be taught the facts of maternity, this knowledge to be supplemented by further teaching at the age of twelve or thirteen explaining the even more important (for the boy) facts of paternity.

Now it is here that I venture to disagree, and think that Dr. Lyttelton has fallen into the very common error of underestimating the child’s intelligence and boundless curiosity. It is in the very early nursery days that sex education is most urgently needed. To wait until the age of nine years has been reached is often to wait too late. In a vast number of cases, it is locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen.

In all children the activity of the intelligence begins to work at a very early age, and parents, who are not willfully blind, must know that this activity tends to manifest itself in an inquisitive desire to know many elementary facts of life, which are dependent upon sex. The primary and most universal of these desires is the desire to know where “the new baby comes from.” A child of four or even younger, may begin to ask questions on this matter quite simply and spontaneously. The degree of curiosity, as also the frankness with which it is expressed, will differ, of course, in different children, but I am certain this curiosity is present and at times active in all children. If they do not question their elders, they will certainly puzzle over the matter themselves; often they will talk with older companions, and gain the information they are seeking in the worst possible way.

Thus the first teacher of the child must be the mother, the one who is most constantly with the child, tending him in washing, undressing, and in all the daily needs of his little body. It is the mother who ought to be the child’s supreme trainer.

Few of us understand the confusion and hurt that may be caused by a mother’s stupid silence and even more stupid hints and evasions and made-up fables. The false stories of babies brought by the doctor or the stork, or a little sister or brother found under the gooseberry bush are never believed. While the fantastic ideas of birth, that the child makes up for himself, fix their untruth into the immature minds. And afterwards they cannot be checked, owing to childish concealments, which always spring up so rapidly to meet any expression of adult reticence. These birth-fantasies, though the child seems to out-grow them, are not really forgotten but remain active in the unconscious mind. In this way, trouble is often started that will be determinative of the gravest evils in the later adult life.

Parents are greatly to blame for not answering the questions of their children, and being blind to their natural curiosity. And I would emphasise again that this curiosity is present even when no questions are asked. There need be no spoken words to make the child feel that its questions are discouraged. All adults are surprisingly ignorant of the affectability of children—their quick response to every kind of influence.

In the case of the birth of another child—an usurper who takes the older child’s place—this affectability is exceedingly acute on account of the emotional disturbance, in excitement and possible jealousy. And by means of the adult attitude, the very certain interest and investigation of the child into what is happening may so easily become confused and connected with what is shameful and wrong; and the trouble is aided, and usually in the worst possible manner, by the sharpest observations and deductions made by the child _from unconsidered actions and overheard remarks_ of parents, and of servants and other adults—none of whom have any idea of the child’s watchfulness or his curiosity in this matter.

_We think little children are not interested in birth because we do not want them to be interested._ And they, with the almost uncanny sagacity which children show, understand this desire only too well and too quickly.

I had a striking illustration of this curious adult blindness quite recently. Two mothers, who were sisters, were pregnant at the same time. Each mother told me privately that _her children_ were not interested in the event or in any way curious, but that _her sister’s children_ were curious and wanting to find out what was happening. It would have been useless to tell these mothers the truth. Yet both of them were intelligent. They believed that their own children had no curiosity because _they wished to believe this, not because it was true_.

Thwarted curiosity is one of the most frequent causes of emotional disturbance in the first years of life. Do we not all know children who as they get older exhibit an unreasoning curiosity about everything, opening drawers, looking into the envelopes of other people’s letters, searching excitedly for what they do not want. We want to ask the question: Why does the child do this? What is it that urges him to act like a “Peeping Tom?” For he is urged. You will find this habit of needless prying almost impossible to check. It may persist into adult life. Do not we all know grown-ups who cannot refrain from prying, always curious, they are, on all occasions, seeking for knowledge they do not want.

This seeking action is symbolic. It implies that the search for the thing that is not wanted, the curiosity over something of no interest at all, is a substitute action for something that at one time was wanted—something about which knowledge _was desired_, and desired so much that it _would not be denied_. It was a curiosity so real that the thwarting of it has started emotional trouble of which these searching acts and persisting curiosity are the symbol or sign.

This substitute formation is one of the commonest emotional processes in children. The child pries, open drawers and letters, collects useless objects, aimlessly searches for knowledge he does not want _because there is some knowledge he wants tremendously badly, but cannot speak about_. That is why he persists in his habits of peeping and prying in spite of your scoldings and punishments. He must persist, unless you deaden his character so terribly by your ill-judged repression that even this substitute relief is closed. Your child will then, probably, find some other make-believe comfort; he will bite his nails, pick his nose, or other much worse habits may begin, or again the emotional disturbance may be so acute that it becomes impossible for the child to face, so that he fails in achieving any kind of symbolic replacement. The thwarted and emotionally over-charged curiosity is thrust back into the psyche where it remains a cause of ill-health of body and uncleanness of mind, until that time in the adult years, when the harvest of tares is reaped from the bad seed that has been sown.

The parents have the greatest responsibility, as I have said already. A child of four or even younger may begin to ask questions of its mother, simply and spontaneously. _It is the child who must guide the parent._ But again I would give warning. The mother must not be over-eager, or she will fall easily into the error of stimulating instead of quieting the child’s restless inquiring mind. The child at the age when such questions will first be asked and should be answered, will very quickly tire of any information that may be given to it. It will break off to run away and play and will interrupt the most beautiful and carefully prepared lessons. And if the mother is wise she will never go beyond the interest of the child, or the satisfying _and nothing further_, of the special curiosity which at that special time is occupying the child. If this course is pursued the child will probably continue to ask for information—though there can be no certainty that this desirable result will follow. But where such opportunities arise the right kind of sex instruction can be attempted. For the mother will be able to give answers in natural conversation, which will not force information not sought for by the child. When so treated, it will be found that children are not over-burdened by the subject, they will interrupt and break away from the answer to the question they have asked to speak about toy soldiers or dolls. This, to me, is the immense value of this form of teaching: the child has the information, and yet does not trouble about it when it is not to the point. Such a result can never be gained by means of set talks or fixed lessons, especially if these are mixed up with warnings, and much vague talk of things that the child neither cares for or understands.

I should, however, be giving a wrong impression if I left the matter here, so that this answering of children’s questions seemed to be a simple matter. It is not simple. For each child, as for each adult the problems of sex are personal problems. And the child whose problem is the hardest—who most urgently needs help, will hardly ever ask questions. Instruction in sex is not _and never can be_ like teaching the child about other things. That is what so many of the modern advocates of sex education so entirely forget.

In every child, as I have tried to show you there are hidden conflicts of jealousy, of love, of hate, which determine beforehand its response to the teaching that is given by the parents.

I cannot here treat at all adequately this difficult question; it is one on which I have written elsewhere (_Mother and Son_, _Sex Education and National Health_, _The Mind of the Naughty Child_) I can say only what I have emphasised already that from the start to the end, _sex education is an emotional education_. That, of course, is why it is so difficult.

There is, in my opinion, too firm a belief in the efficacy of formal instruction. The way is not so easy as this to discharge our debt to the young. And sometimes I fear that parental talks about sex, in particular when such talks are delayed until the boy or the girl is reaching puberty, or until the time when the dangers of school life have to be met, involving, as it must, a sudden breaking through of the silence of years, may work for harm instead of for good. That this is so in the case of some boys and girls I know to be true. You see you cannot grow flowers in a soil choked already with weeds.

THE MYTH OF THE VIRTUOUS SEX

A day or two ago I was passing one of the great London schools at the afternoon hour when the boys were released. I write “boys,” but among them were many of sixteen, seventeen, or even eighteen years who looked almost men.

On the street side, two flappers, quite young—not more, I should judge, than fifteen, stood with their faces pressed between the iron rails and watched the exit of the boys. Certainly they were not nice girls; they invited with smiles, they giggled, they ogled, they gestured. There could, I think, be no mistake as to the purpose of the girls.

I am glad to record that no single boy took the slightest notice of them.

Now this very unpleasant incident has set me thinking. I am oppressed with feelings of responsibility; yes—and also of shame. If I am to be honest I must accept here, as in all relations between the two sexes, the validity of the mans’ plea that rings—yes, and will continue to ring—through the centuries: “The woman tempted me!”

Now, though we may accept this responsibility in theory, most often we repudiate it in practice. From time to time—and the intervals are not long apart—efforts are made to pass new laws which are supported by many virtuous people—laws, whose one purpose is to increase the punishments of men for offences against young girls.

I am in whole-hearted sympathy with any changes in our law that will afford greater protection to young girls. I cannot, however, refuse to see the reverse side of the question. It is proposed to raise the age of consent for girls, while at the same time a woman is not to be held responsible for seducing a boy who is much younger than herself. This is unjust.

Why should we afford a period of protection longer for the girl than for the boy?

It may, of course, be argued that the boy is better able to look after himself. This is not true.

The girl grows up more quickly always than the boy; emotionally she is far more developed, and, therefore, should be more, and not less, responsible than he is. I have no doubt about this at all.

No boy knows very much about love until some girl or woman has taught him.

Of course, the view of the evil nature of men, and of women as always the victim, is one that can hardly fail to be pleasing to women, depending, as it does, on their moral superiority, which stamps them as Amazons of Purity, on the glorious mountain heights of virtue, from where they must send down climbing ropes and ladders, in the form of prohibitions and regulations and new laws, to pull men up out of the deep valleys of vice.

But if we inquire more honestly into this question of men’s sins, we shall find that it is not they who are wholly responsible. There is little difference between men’s virtue and women’s virtue.

Almost unceasingly in our streets women are tempting men.

Always there is the invitation near: “Come and make love to me.” To be provocative is the one simple rule of many women’s lives. Men’s admiration is a necessity to their very existence.

True, in the after results, the woman may be, and, indeed, often is, the victim—has to pay the heavier price; but at the start she is the leader of the assault.

The essential fact in every relationship of the sexes is the woman’s power over the man, and it is the misuse of this power that is the beginning of sin.

Do not think I am unfair. Most men, I know, are not only tolerant of women’s wiles; they like them. But most men succumb, I believe, against their will, and often against their inclination, to the tyranny of their own aroused passions.

Men’s chivalry, as well as their pride, has woven a cloak of silence on this question of the temptation they are so frequently called upon to resist and this silence has protected women—even the worst.

Let us alter our laws to help girls by all means. Yet, let us be just. There is such a thing as too much temptation for a boy—temptation that a woman has no right to give.

SENTIMENTAL TAMPERING WITH DIFFICULT PROBLEMS: WITH SOME REMARKS ON SEX FAVOURITISM

It is sometimes difficult to have patience with the proposals that are brought forward, so frequently and with such persistent zeal, to amend our Criminal Law. One cannot doubt the sincerity of these efforts to improve our disordered moral conditions. But something more than good-will is required. There is such a thing as over-haste in righteousness.

Besides, the attitude taken by these scavengers of conduct is almost always sentimental and one-sided. It is also dishonest. I say so, because almost without exception, they fail entirely to meet the true facts of the evils they attempt to cure. As reformers they seem to have but one idea; if they have more, they keep them secret, for they agitate but for one object.

Morality is a word that has been wrested from its true meaning of the whole duty of man in his social character and limited to the one narrow application of sexual conduct. It is curious and significant. It is as if we transferred to others some judgment which unconsciously was imposed from within.

Yet obviously the strongest impediment against effective reform lies just here—in this blindness to reality; this separation from the truth. I need not wait to enlarge upon this further, it is impossible to contradict. To judge blindly is to judge upon a lie.

Would you ask me to give you examples?

There is, to take one illuminative instance, the long continued and still unsettled agitation for raising the age of consent for girls. Those who are chiefly eager for this reform invariably evince frenzied zeal, combined with the most curious and deplorable ignorance of the real facts. I cannot for a moment believe that they are in the least degree, consciously blind. But that does not alter the fact that they are blind. Instead of facing the situation squarely with knowledge and due consideration of all the complicated conditions, they ignore every thing they do not want to see. They wallow in sex-righteousness.

Consider again the controversy that raged now sometime back, with regard to the White Slave Traffic. The sudden frenzy. The unproved stories of the trapping of girls! The clamour for legislative measures! Every moral reformer became obsessed.

The instinctive attitude of the one-ideaed reformer had a unique chance of displaying itself, and one marvelled at the almost curious enthusiasm, mated to inexperience, with which the subject was approached. While the most offensive feature of the agitation was the sex-obsession, which gave rise to the silly notion of the helpless perfection of women and the dangerous opposite view of the indescribable imperfections of men. It is no exaggeration to say that every sense of reality was lost in white clouds of virtue.