View
Little Birds & Bees
Kristen Gregory on Talking to Young Children About Sex
When we first cradle our newborn babies in our arms, we desperately want to shelter and protect them from everything. From sin, from death, from the power of the devil. And, maybe more urgently, from s-e-x. After all, modern American culture treats it so lightly and frivolously that they will be exposed to it soon enough. Just go through the grocery line with your kids. The images on the magazines are shocking enough, but if your kids can read, they will learn a lot more than you want them to. Walking past Victoria's Secret isn't even possible once they can see past the end of their noses: girls and boys alike are forced to confront a hypersexualized standard of "beauty" with larger-than-life images that will arouse and never completely leave their minds.
As parents, my husband and I initially set out to protect our kids from all thoughts and knowledge of sex until as late as possible. Age 20 sounded good. But as we have been raising them, we've come to realize that we don't want to shelter them from it completely, but instead to give them something better: a beautiful, true, and good view of sex, presented as is appropriate for each child's age and level of curiosity.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on family from the online archives
36.1—Jan/Feb 2023
A History of the Protestant Debate over Contraception by James A. Altena
33.3—May/June 2020
Maternal Body: A Theology of Incarnation from the Christian East by Carrie Frederick Frost
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson by Agnes R. Howard
more from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
Labels & the Ecumenism of Discipleship by James M. Kushiner
32.2—March/April 2019
on Preserving Physical & Spiritual Nourishment by Nathanael Devlin
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
