A Time For Sex Ed Innocence

A Time For Innocence (A Kid's-Eye View of the Facts of Life) (1969) is a Fireside Book reissue of Sex and the Single Child by Sam Levenson with illustrations by Whitney Darrow, Jr. I found it at a thrift store this weekend and flipping through the pages I was smitten enough to read the back -- then take it home.


The books are dirt-cheap at Amazon, so if you are at all charmed by what you see, grab a copy for as low as a penny; however, even if the books are cheap, I didn't want to ruin the binding on the scanner, so excuse the photos.

"Hey, Ma. How come I'm so plain and you're so fancy?"

If find it a bit surprising that a publication which would admit -- and not scream in horror -- that it's possible and normal for children to see their parents nude. Certainly no one in today's culture admits to such things, despite millions of people who do so. (Infants, perhaps, as we believe they cannot remember such things; but more likely they just can't talk and therefore share the secret.) How refreshing!

Because you know I love storks:

"The stork only brings the parts. The doctor puts them together."

"The storks come from the Chicago stork yards."

"I hope he doesn't scare Mommy; she's pregnant you know."

From the back of the book:

When Sam Levenson, as a boy, finally mustered up the courage to ask that age-old question, "Where did I come from?" he got some pretty discouraging answers:

"When you'll have children of your own, you'll ask them."

"Ask your mother. You're from her side of the family."

"If God wanted us to know what's on the inside he would have put it on the outside."

The revolution in sex education has changed all that. Today the facts of life are rampant among children, but, as Levenson points out, "One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination."

In a series of funny, touching, unabashed and uninhibited vignettes, Levenson--aided and abetted by the incomparable Whitney Darrow, Jr.--quotes the lovely, innocent logic of little people as they express their views of the big people's world. "The difference between men and women is that women dance backwards." "We come from seeds just like vegetables; that's why they call us human beans." All are woven together with a commentary that glows with Sam's own brand of humor and wisdom. For him, "Sex is a three-letter word which sometimes needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning: words like give, care, help, kiss, feel, love; words which even a child can understand."

All of which makes A Time for Innocence one of the most lovable exposes in years.

The book is lovable. Filled with cute illustrations by Darrow and equally cute quotes from children.

"Girls have the same circles on their chests as boys so the doctor will know where to put the stethoscope."

"A lady becomes a mother when she concedes."

"How come if there are no bull-girls, there's cow-boys?"

"If you want girl babies you marry a lady. If you want boy babies you marry a man."

Along with the cuteness, the humor, the warm and fuzzy feelings, are things which are perhaps not so funny.

At first I thought this book was a product of the sexual revolution -- even a product being positive about the sexual revolution. But reading the text before the one-page cartoon panels and the pages of childish quotes, one finds a less clear message.

From chapter one, page 12-13:

From the time of my childhood to my child's childhood the subject of sex has passed from the less said the better to we can't stop talking about it. We are now answering more questions than our children are asking.

We are bearing down too heavily on the minds of little children with explanations they cannot fathom. They do not yet have the emotional maturity to understand a clinical dissertation. It can be frightening.

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination. Come to think of it, we gown-ups are pretty good at that sort of thing, too, especially these days when there are so many facts to choose from.

The fanciful facts of life that our little primitives invent serve to decorate the walls of their psychic dwellings places deep in virgin forests. We expatriates feel obliged to lead them out of their sheltered caves. "This way to the truth. So sorry."

It often happens that even after you have led the children into the clearing he will run back into the forest. Don't we all?

Of course I believe that sex is like anything else we teach our children -- answer what they ask broken down into the size pieces they can handle. When asked by my children, "How do babies get in the mother's tummy?" I do not respond with every bit of plumbing, let alone every detail about sex positions, sexual pleasures and relationship issues. I start with the fact that part of what is required to make a baby is an egg, which is already inside a woman's body. If they ask more, I tell more; if not, that's all that's said. Until the next question is asked anyway.

But...

I disagree that sex education need be a "dissertation" or beyond their emotional maturity. Most education involves some element of fathomlessness, else it would be something they already know; but answers and education need not be "bearing down too heavily."

From chapter three, pages 43-44:

Many of our schools are now enthusiastically involved in crash courses on Sex Education for the post-potty-trained. Breeding has been added to reading. The curriculum may go from how a baby is the born in the first grade to how not to have a baby in the eighth grade.

Really? As a child born in the 60's and in elementary school in the early 70's, I can neither remember nor imagine such things. Certainly at the tail end of elementary school we had those assemblies where we were split into two groups, male and female, and watched films which described our changing bodies; but baby making in first grade? I don't think I had finished planting a successful marigold seed or rooting a sweet potato much before then.

Levenson continues:

The child, it is hoped, will no longer pick up stuff in the gutter, as I did. (I must say that along with the undesirable things I picked up in the gutter there were some highly desirable items like immies, rubber bands, pennies, checkers, buttons...)

In order to qualify for a Sex Education license (in this case an unfortunate word for certification), the applicant must have majored in Sex (at least twelve credit hours) as an undergrad and pursued (another poor choice of word) private (still worse) investigation for at least thirty-two hours, half of which must have been field work. He/She must above all show proof of a passionate commitment to La Dolce Vita family style.

The classroom approach to sex education is scientific. A spade is called a spade, but the child is not allowed to call any part of the anatomy a spade. Correct names are recommended. This often created problems at home where the unenlightened parents call things by euphemistic and affectionate nicknames--"Your pip-pip is showing, honey." "Wipe your too-too, darling." While a pip-pip by any other name still performs certain specific functions, it is best to use dictionary rather than confectionary terms. Even when models of the human body are used, they are no longer of a neuter gender since what is seen is no longer regarded as obscene.

And why should it be?

One of the valuable fringe benefits of the program has been the wealth of information the parents have picked up from their children. "No kiddin', Georgie!"

Teaching the act of love is easy. The feeling of love, without which man becomes just another animal, can be taught only by people who deeply believe in love. For the true believer love is compassion, empathy, sympathy, tenderness, devotion, benevolence, friendship, sacrifice, respect, affection, brotherhood, sisterhood, giving, receiving, exchanging--a spiritual heart transplant.

I (continuously) object to the constant denial that human are animals and that we need to separate ourselves from them. I know this lofty goal is for our spiritual betterment (which is where religious zealots get their toes in to the conversation and legislation), but honestly, when it comes to biology we are animals; so let's stop arguing that there's another scientific taxonomy to work from.

Next follows the three-letter word requiring four-letter words part mentioned on the back of the book, which is rather decent advice, and then...

We must not hesitate to tell the child that love also means pain.

It is easy to become a father or a mother. It is much harder to become a full-grown person. This is basically what true Sex Education should be about.

The home is the first and most influential school. The way parents treat each other in the living room will help a child to understand life in the bedroom.

I wish he had continued more about the subject of pain... I would whole-heartedly agree, but as I'm not quite sure where Levenson is heading, I'm naturally reluctant to do so. Also, the notion of a becoming a full-gown person, and that this is what Sex Ed should be about is too ambiguous. Does he mean that sex should be reserved for grown-ups? To that I agree. But he really should clarify here.

The matter of parents and their treatment of one another at home in the living room and its relationship to life in the bedroom is a great line that I also wish he had underscored with more detail.

I believe his intentions were to say that any discussion of sex, any Sex Education, needs to include the pragmatics of responsibility -- not just for pregnancy, but relationships and health -- but the lines were poorly drawn. (And if you argue that the book was merely a cutesy look at innocent kids in the world of grown-up matters, I'll argue right back that Levenson has preached a bit too long on what's wrong with sex ed.)

Over all, it's a cute book, a funny book; but it's also a reminder of several things:

* even during the sexual revolution, sex education wasn't necessarily accepted
* pictures alone do not always tell the story