A Woke Society? **Mod Warning In Post #435**

How do you know?

Plenty of historical figures had explicit sex lives, orgies, multiple male and female lovers and plenty of societies had none of the same taboos that our "modern" society would balk at.

I don't have children, I'm just thinking back to when I was in the 4-8 age group.

My parents were very progressive, they weren’t in any way religious or prudish. The only religion involved was mass and the usual communion and confirmation to keep the nuns off my back in school. There was no alternative to Catholic ethos schools at the time.

My parents were honest and I was prepared for puberty and periods. Breast development and body hair happened first, but I knew about periods at that stage.

Pressure to have sex before you're ready, sexual abuse and unplanned pregnancies are something kids need to be aware of. I doubt anyone rational would disagree with that.

It's just the blanket and very specific nature of the information posted here that causes me concern. What if a child doesn't ask questions?

Children are told not to talk to strangers, not to go off with one, to talk to their parents etc as toddlers. Is it necessary to explain sex to a 3 year old to prevent sexual abuse?

Why not let a child find out the rest in their own time? They'll have picked up enough information to be curious at around 10 even if they're very sheltered, but a 4 year old is unlikely to be curious.

A person may think they are whatever they think they are.

But they are, in fact, either a man or a woman.

Then it becomes a question of what is appropriate for 4-8 year olds? It isn't as if we get to vote on school curricula so some panel of experts are probably deciding what is appropriate, how that is decided and taught I wouldn't have a clue on. I'm sure it's a difficult task trying to be objective on what is a very subjective and emotional subject.

@Brian? raises a very important point, child protection should trump subjective beliefs, moral or religious. Telling them about stranger danger and the man in the white van isn't enough because the biggest threat will be closer to the child than the boogee man.

They need to be aware why touching or feeling in certain parts of the body is wrong. It needs to be clear why rather than some feeling that this isn't right.

I watched the BBC drama about Saville recently and it brought back how little we knew in the 80 and 90s. We had a priest who was sent to Peru on the missions (those poor kids really didn't matter) and he was convicted of abuse years later. I was an altar boy so it was just pure luck I wasn't picked out. Talking to my sister years later she always said she got a creepy feeling around him. If anything had happened I wouldn't have had a clue what to do, and my father was an inspector in the Guards!

So more awareness and education is great. How much you tell them is the issue, telling them that anybody touching your willy is bad, isn't really enough. They need to know why it is bad and who to report it to. There has to be some context and explanation.

Spree shootings can relate heavily to the rhetoric being pushed though. Everyone from Pizzagate to QAnon. And the reality is the same people getting upset about sex education don't raise their head on these mass killings, more often than not they complain about threats to the second amendment.

School shootings are a very recent phenomenon, the last 40 years or so. They are just accepted as normal now, nothing we can do about it.

Woke theories are a recent phenomenon.........

It relates to mindset. The anti-woke agenda in America would lose their sh*t over new gun laws that might decrease school shootings and result in less kids murdered. Instead they lose their sh*t over gender issues that have little effect on kids getting killed.

It's so f*cking obvious but that's America and guns for you.

I don't have any problem with 4-8 year olds knowing that gay people exist and can even get married in this day and age. Neither that transgender people exist. It's like explaining there are people of different religion or race to them, perfectly normal.

The sex education I've read about is age appropriate. Young kids are for example taught that it's ok not to hug someone you don't want to hug and that's what consent is.

At later ages they can be taught the differences between boys and girls. They can be taught that sometimes guys like girls, sometimes they like guys and vice versa so some children will have two mammy's or two daddy's.

they can be taught that some people who were called a girl at birth may later be boys or vice versa.

Each year you build a little bit more or introduce something a bit more advanced. It's always age appropriate and it's always about respecting the other person.

It beats the hell out of leaving it all till they're 16 and they've learned from the internet (For my age group was late night channel 4)

I've no problem with any of that, but I still don't think 4-8 need a detailed understanding of the mechanics of sex, conception, contraception and birth control.

Teaching about boundaries, respecting others and different family types will help develop open-mindedness.

Why does an 8 year old need to know?