First -- the dissection room. As we walk around the farm, we see dead animals. Little Michael (son of a famous musicologist) is extremely smart and endlessly curious. His sister is dying of cystic fibrosis. He spends a lot of time with us. We love him very much. We collect and take these animals home, field mice, snakes, birds. I explain that we cannot keep these little creatures because they will fill up with maggots and stink like hell. He asks what we can do. I explain about making study skins and taxidermy. Rather than waste the innards, I explain how we can trace each of the systems and show all the animals have similarities and differences. Mike and my second son, with my youngest looking on, learn how to skin and section the subjects. We use rubber gloves and surgical scalpels and forceps. They do very well. After simple dissection and organ identification, we put the little corpses out for the ants to clean. And try later to assemble the skeletons. Very difficult and not very successful. But we do assemble Visible Man and Visible Woman. A very nice weekend. Mike's parents said he was really thrilled and talked about becoming a doctor. Let Mike grows into a charming and handsome young man, a great lover of women. A triumph for the nihil method.
Meanwhile, John, son of a famous philosopher, and my oldest son were collecting snakes. They collected 9 different varieties -- one a very rare king snake color variation. My son loves snakes. John takes one and cracks the whip, breaking off its head. He throws the headless body on the barn roof. My son is furious. Their friendship wanes. John becomes a high-priced aeronautical engineer, designing fighter-bombers to kill innocent civilians. Now he is unemployed and, no doubt, sinking into drunkeness and despair. My son becomes a mountain climber and a free spirit. And a successful free lance computer engineer. And lover of beautiful women. Another triumph for the nihil method.
I don't show dirty pictures to the neighbors kids. I only show missionary sex to my kids. The fellatio was a mistake -- an overshoot.
They were much too young for fellatio. But my oldest son was shocked at 4 years by the Sistine Ceiling and Last Judgment. We spent hours looking and bought a complete set of detail slides. God and Jesus frightened him very much. Too young for damnation and creation.
As to the section of the woman, my experience is that most children are extremely interested in women's pudenda, and instinctively are attracted and want to investigate. I disapprove of 3D examinations as just a little bit too shocking for the parent. Models are somewhat to gross and preserved specimins are impossible. As bad a diagrams are, I think they are the best of a bad deal. Almost every little kid I have known knew that babies came out of mothers bellies (many think through the navel (and you know what I think of that belief!). Almost every child I know thinks that men put their things in women, but are not sure where, unless they have discovered themselves as very many have. I was not a bit surprised at the detail that children demanded. Visible Woman is much too crude (in my day). I know a young girl today who is quite well informed on the details of sex, knows not to mess around with unclothed boys (or men) and seems completely at home with the facts of life. She just had a little sister, washes her and changes her diapers. She asks about every thing and learns just as much as she wants to.
Frankly I am shocked that your son dissecting small animals would disturb you at all. He might well be a mute inglorious Vesalius. It might be a man thing. Men have always taught little boys to catch and cut up game. My uncle (a surgeon -- but really a hunter) taught me to dissect out the body systems of various wild animals. My father, a great wildlife collector and taxidermist taught me very young to blow out eggs and preserve study skins (with boric acid -- not cyanide). They thought this was man's work. Women have always taught little girls to cut up domestic fowl. My grandmother taught me to kill chickens, pluck them, and draw them when I was five. A pretty tough fight for me. It was gritty awful work. I was covered with blood. But it was man's work, and she thought I needed to learn it. My sons hated cleaning doves, quail, pheasants and fish. But in my house, you clean what you kill, and you eat what you clean. No eating --> no killing. No killing --> no eating. Moreover, what you can't eat, you really ought to study so the animal has not died thoroughly in vain.
I am sorry you don't believe the more lurid parts of my tale. It's probably better that you scoff.
I believe that most of the children in history have grown up in the same room with their parents making love. I believe they know exactly what is going on. I believe most of the children in history have started very young, experimenting with each other. Many children report that they have been sexually abused while very young. One-third of the girls, one-sixth of the boys. If you read the story I posted about the Buddhist priest assaulting the little girl 500 times while she though it was religion, you may understand my belief that prudery in teaching children is a deadly mistake. I wanted my children to know precisely what sexual activity was, what it looked like, and who it should be done with and how. I didn't want them raped or assaulted by a priest or friend. I didn't want the responsibility of shielding them from knowledge of good and evil. I am very satisfied with the results. I never volunteered anything. I answered questions. I got them books and articles. I helped them grow up, I believe, far better than I grew up, safer, more secure, more outgoing, more loving, less threatening. I have made many, many errors in my life. I don't think this was one of them. |
