Preparing Children For Sexual Intimacy As Adults 

 

                                                       By: Susan Adams, M. Ed. l0/ll/09

 

 

Objective:  The objective of this article is to present information on the importance of creating comfort for boys and girls with their own sexual identity while not stereotyping the genders. 

 

Summary:  In order for children to become adults capable of getting emotionally and physically close to members of the opposite sex, they must be comfortable with their own sexual identity and expectations as boys or girls who become men or women.  Stereotyping the genders creates a need for the playing of roles which can block intimacy.  This has the ability to make adults keep others at a distance for fear of finding out that the appearances of characteristics portrayed is false.  For example, "real" boys do cry.  This article seeks to explain how to raise children with greater comfort in their own sex and the sex of others.

 

 

Society, unfortunately, has many set standards for what a Man or a Woman "should" be.  The union of two happy and satisfied adults can be blocked by unsound attitudes about what the sexes "should" or "should not" be and do.

 

That having been said, boys growing up must come to know what boyish and mannish roles are.  They need to feel their boyishness and to accept it naturally.  Girls need to learn their part in society.  And both sexes must start early in childhood to lay the foundations for their feelings about the opposite sex.

 

At its most basic form, life is not black or white.  Men are usually  thought of as our bread-winners but today many many women are in the work force.  Men may be more aggressive but many women are as well.  Men are generally not as interested in their own beauty as women,  but they  may be.  So there needs to be great elasticity in thinking about what men and women do.

 

More subtly, the first man that a daughter knows is usually her father.  The first woman a boy knows is usually his mother.  The same sex parent is often the role model for the same sex child.  So the attitudes in families about how parents treat each other gets easily copied by the children.  If  father is disrespectful to mother, his son may learn disrespect for women and the daughter in such a family may learn distrust of men.  Or, she may "identify with the aggressor" and become like father while also learning to overpower men to avoid being overpowered.

These are but possibilities.  The safest avenue is for adults to treat each other with mutual respect and to remember that their children are

watching and developing attitudes about their sex and the opposite sex from what they see.

 

It is almost harder to a child to accept his sex if his parents wish he were something else.  This happens in some families.  Sometimes a boy baby is not as valued as a girl  might have been.  There may already be three boys.  Possibly, a daughter died and the new child is supposed to take her place.  Sometimes a girl baby is less welcome.

 

Such children cannot e themselves.  Girls are encouraged to be tomboys and their natural interests may be discouraged.  Their hair-do, their dress, and other subtle influences come to shape them into the sex that was desired rather than the sex that they are.  Parents often don't realize that this is happening.  Boys in such a situation may be held too close in over-protection, over-dressed, or kept from rough housing.

 

Much depends on the feelings of the parents.  If a youngster is to grow up happily adjusted, the adults who surround him need to be content with the sex that he or she is. These attitudes often get projected unconsciously so it is important to take some time, step back, and take a look at your own attitudes about the sex of the children in your house.

 

Sometimes parents lean too are in the opposite direction.  They have fixed ideas about what boys and girls are like.  They set out to make boys "tough" and girls extra-feminine. 

 

Each boy has to find his mannishness in his own way.  Each girl must grow into her own form of femininity.   It is important not to steer children away from their own sex whle also  not making the guidelines for "men" and "women" too rigid.  This means to avoid phrases like, "boys don't" or "girls do".  Let children find themselves as their interests develop.

 

There is another issue.  Some youngsters by circumstance live largely with only one sex.  Dad may travel and the son may grow up with a predominance of women.  This loses for him the chances to play with other boys, possibly, and to see grown men in action.

 

In these cases-and with girls as well who may grow up without the same-sex modeling, it is important to have a plan.  You may use extended family for visits.  That is, for the young boy, time with an uncle or a coach, and grandparents.  For a young girl, a housekeeper, aunt , and grandparents who can do some of the role modeling that the same-sex parent might do.  Children need many experiences with people of both sexes.  this is how they broaden their definitions about "men" and "women". 

 

Children do not ordinarily pair off sex lines during the early years unless the adults do this for them.  It is more important to let children play together and develop their own interests while providing good role models of both sexes.  Children can then get a good start on the road to becoming healthy adults who are comfortable with their own sex and the sex of those around them.