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Should innocence be protected?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
hi everyone
Is innocence just another form of ignorance and if so why should we want children, in particular, to hold onto ignorance as though it was something valuable. i am thinking about sexual education and the protection of the young from knowing and having understandings about their own developing sexual identity.
I was watching a programme about sex education in Amsterdam and how their teenage pregnancy rate is one of the lowest in the world and they begin quite graphic sex education from the age of 6, and how ours has one of the highest and we don't even have to administer any by law.
The high rate of teenage pregnancy is just one aspect that led me to consider this relationship between innocence, ignorance and wisdom.
In Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' he says that the angel Sophia -a character in The Amber Spyglass - the last in the trilogy- represents Wisdom. She, writes Pullman, 'comes to human beings at a certain stage in their evolution and helps them to realise who they are, to break free of the pettiness of childhood, of the ignorance which is innocence, and take the first steps towards becoming wise, towards wisdom.
if you want to contrast these two things, innocence is not wise, and wisdom cannot be innocent.'
Do you think that by safeguarding innocence we are hindering wisdom?
Is innocence just another form of ignorance and if so why should we want children, in particular, to hold onto ignorance as though it was something valuable. i am thinking about sexual education and the protection of the young from knowing and having understandings about their own developing sexual identity.
I was watching a programme about sex education in Amsterdam and how their teenage pregnancy rate is one of the lowest in the world and they begin quite graphic sex education from the age of 6, and how ours has one of the highest and we don't even have to administer any by law.
The high rate of teenage pregnancy is just one aspect that led me to consider this relationship between innocence, ignorance and wisdom.
In Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' he says that the angel Sophia -a character in The Amber Spyglass - the last in the trilogy- represents Wisdom. She, writes Pullman, 'comes to human beings at a certain stage in their evolution and helps them to realise who they are, to break free of the pettiness of childhood, of the ignorance which is innocence, and take the first steps towards becoming wise, towards wisdom.
if you want to contrast these two things, innocence is not wise, and wisdom cannot be innocent.'
Do you think that by safeguarding innocence we are hindering wisdom?
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Comments
And while sex educaiton might have a positive effect, protecting children from actual sexual intercourse (specially with adults, but also with each other) is in their own best interests.
Lol, yeah it sounds like an essay to me too.
But anyway, yeah I do think that. I think it's a parents job to give their kids the tools to look at a situation or piece of evidence, and make a mature and balanced decision about it. In my opinion, shielding a child from these things (effectively denying their existance as far as the child is concerned) only means that they are less able to decide for themselves when they might have no choice in the matter as to whether they are exposed to it or not. Obviously the balancing act comes in knowing how much to teach your child about any one thing, and in how much detail. I mean you're not going to teach your daughter about rape before you teach her about sex are you? And you're not going to teach her about sex before you teach her about her own body.
The worrying thing in my opinion, is the opinion of some parents that teaching a child about something will encourage it. I do believe this is a danger of teaching a child about something before they have the base knowledge (i.e. teach a kid about the mechanics of sex, without the groundwork of where babies come from, feelings of love and attraction, and the concept of others being allowed to choose what they do with their own body, and you might find them making an uniformed decision about what they do when such a situation presents itself). This goes for concepts that might be shown in a film, TV programme or computer game too, that are far in advance of their understanding of an issue. However, I think the far greater danger is to raise children completely ignorant of such matters.
I'd recommend the chapter in The God Delusion about children. It's specifically about religion, but I think it highlights the dangers of teaching children not to question authority, and not to think rationally given the evidence, which is what I think things like abstinance programs, and "drugs are bad, m'kay" programs effectively do. (On a side note, recent research suggests that children who are raised to obey authority without question are more susceptible to child abuse). I think the best thing parents can do is to guide a child's learning about issues, but make sure that no subject is off limits. But teach the facts, and allow the child to make their own moral judgement. I think most children can work out right and wrong for themselves using the simple logic of "would I like someone else to do this to me?" Explain a moral dilemma logically, and I don't think children will have a problem making the correct decision (of course this creates a bit of a problem for racists, homophobes and the rest to pass their crap on to their kids though, as they'll see right through the bullshit as kids always do).
^ Opinion of someone who isn't a parent.
Saw another program on the news the other night that said parents should let children play unsupervised as it helps their growth and understanding of the world. But this is not happening, we're living in a culture of constant fear of attacks. It's all a bit ridiculous really, there's no indication that your child is under any more risk playing outside on his own thanit was 50 years ago, yet it wasn't a problem 50 years ago.
Back in the real world it has just been announced that pigs can't fly.
The same goes for drugs.
I agree.
I think the 'play' idea is not so much unsupervised play but more 'unstructured' play where children can explore their own ideas, themselves and the world around them. They can achieve this supervised in their own back yards if parents are nervous about leaving them alone.
In my experience sex education is getting better in most schools, the school I worked in last year had an excellent approach. That said though, there were still a few parents who didn't sign the consent form to allow their children to achieve this education.
I think that there are degrees.
The most important thing is balance, drugs are wrong and sex is wrong are bad messages to give. Teaching children the facts (even those which go against the grain - such as drugs do make feel good and sex is a pleasurable experience) and letting them decide is what brings about real results IMHO.