Is Early Sex Education Stealing Innocence?

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In this episode, we address the question, "Is talking to kids about sex at a young age stealing their innocence?" Elizabeth Urbanowicz explores the concern many parents have about early discussions on sexuality and explains why it's important to start these conversations around ages three or four. Tune in to understand how to approach these topics in a way that respects your child's innocence while preparing them for the future.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello, friends, today's podcast question says, "Isn't talking to kids about sex at a young age stealing their innocence?" Really interesting question and really important one for us to think through. Those of you who are familiar with the Foundation Worldview podcast know that we typically recommend that parents start the first conversation about sex with their children at the age of three or four, which we do know is much younger than is recommended many times. But you can check out some of our other podcasts on sexuality if you would like an explanation of why we recommend starting at the age of three or four. But today we're going to look at if we start to talk to our children about sex at these younger ages, are we actually stealing their innocence? So that's a great question that we're going to dive down deep into.

But before we do that, if you wouldn't mind just taking the few seconds that it takes to give this star, sorry, this podcast or rating that really helps us out. And we just know that because of the topics that we cover frequently, our podcasts are discovered by people who are a bit hostile to the Christian worldview and therefore our ratings go down. So if you found the content of the Foundation Worldview podcast beneficial, if you could help us out by just investing the few seconds it takes to give this podcast a rating.

Now, my heart really goes out to this questioner because I can understand this fear of wanting to make sure that we are being developmentally appropriate. That we do not want to expose our children to things that they are not ready for. However, as we think through this question, I think that there are actually two faulty underlying assumptions in this question. So as we think about is talking to our children about sex at a young age, is that stealing their innocence?

The first faulty assumption that I think is hidden within this question is the assumption that sex is something dirty. So that's the first faulty assumption. And then the second faulty assumption that I think is present is that kids are better off before they know about sex. So again, those two faulty assumptions that I think are embedded in this question are that sex is something dirty and that kids are better off before they know about sex. Where I'm going to make the argument that actually these two assumptions are completely false, that what we find in Scripture is that sex is a good part of God's good design. I think because we are living in this world that is now a fallen world, and we know that human sinfulness does corrupt all different parts of God's good design, that we tend to view sex through this lens of corruption rather than looking at how sex within the boundaries that God has placed around it is actually something that is inherently good.

And so the first place that we see this is in the first chapter of Genesis, that in Genesis chapter one, verse 28, right after God has created man and woman, Genesis one verse 28 says, "And God bless them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." In this command, this command is also known as the dominion mandate that humans are supposed to have dominion over creation. The first part of it says to be fruitful and multiply. This is a command for Adam and Eve to have children, and what is the method through which humans procreate? The act of sexual intercourse. And so we see right here in the first chapter of Genesis that God is actually commanding Adam and Eve to partake of this good gift to fulfill this command to be fruitful and multiply. So right off the bat in Genesis chapter one, we see that the act of sexual intercourse is a good part of God's good design.

We see this echoed again in the second chapter of Genesis. The second chapter of Genesis goes into the creation of the whole universe in more detail. And Genesis chapter two, verses 23 and 24 is describing when God had created Eve and brought her to Adam. And so Genesis chapter two, verses 23 and 24, actually, sorry, 23 through 25 says, "Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."So we see right here we see that this huge pinnacle of creation where God creates woman and Adam is like, ah, at last, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And then it goes into an explanation of what marriage is. It's a man leaving his father and his mother holding fast to his wife and they're becoming one flesh. And then the verse immediately after that says, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. That we see that this gift of physical intimacy of oneness within marriage is inherently good, that sex is not this thing that we're like, oh my goodness, my children should never know about this. And I know they eventually have to know about it, but oh my goodness, their innocence is just taken away when they know about it. No sex as God designed it to be within the covenant of marriage is a good thing and a beautiful thing.

We see this echoed throughout the entire book of the Song of Solomon, also sometimes titled the Song of Songs, that it is this very long love poem of a bride and a groom coming together and delighting in God's good gift of sexual intimacy. And so we see this all throughout the book of the song of Solomon, that sex within the marriage covenant is upheld as this good thing and this beautiful thing. And we see this throughout the New Testament too, that the New Testament writers encourage husbands and wives to be sexually active. Paul says in the book of one Corinthians in chapter seven that a husband and wife are not to deprive one another of their conjugal rights except for a short season if they're going to be fasting and praying. And then we see just in the book of James, we see an encouragement in the first chapter of James. James chapter one, verses 16 through 17 says, "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." That we see all throughout Scripture that sex within the marriage covenant is this good gift, that it's a good gift, it's this perfect gift and it comes directly from God. So we need to change our mindset that if we are viewing sex as this dirty thing, which it's very easy to view sex as dirty in our culture because our culture just revels in humans sinful corruption of sex and sexuality. And so everything that we're being fed in TV and movies and books and just in the culture is putting in our face the sinful corruption of God's goodness. And so it's really easy for us to then just think of sex as something that's dirty, something that's twisted, but we need to understand that in the context for which God has designed it, which is the marriage covenant between one man and one woman who have become one flesh for life, that sex is a good gift.

Now, what I just mentioned brings up another truth that is revealed in Scripture, is that human sinfulness corrupts the goodness of God's design. That as long as we are here on this earth, we will continue to see the corruption of sin. And this is something that we see in Scripture. We just went through verses in Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two, immediately in Genesis chapter three. That is the chapter that describes the fall of mankind. And so in Genesis chapter three verses six and seven, Moses writes, "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths." Okay, so what is the immediate result? As Adam and Eve rebel against God and sin against him, they become sinful. Well, all of a sudden, their bodies that they had no shame in before they're suddenly ashamed of, and they go and they run and they hide. They sow together fig leaves to cover themselves. So we see sin corrupting God's good design. And all throughout the rest of Scripture, we do see that sin corrupts every part of God's good design, including sex and sexuality. However, just because we see this corruption, it doesn't change the inherent goodness of God's design. Similar with Adam and Eve's bodies, nothing had changed about their bodies, but when they became sinful, they suddenly were ashamed because of their sin and they needed to cover themselves. Their bodies were still inherently good but had become corrupted by sin.

Now, we see in the book of Hebrews in chapter 13, the author of Hebrews in chapter 13 verse four writes, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous." And so we see in this passage, it's saying to uphold marriage and to let the marriage bed be undefiled, which means it can be undefiled that we can keep sex just within the context of marriage for which God designed it. Now, does this mean that everything's going to be perfect, that there's no part of sex that's going to be corrupted by God's good design? No, because our bodies are fallen and they're deteriorating and they're breaking down. So it doesn't mean that sex is going to be exactly as God created it in the garden, but that it is possible to honor God with our sexuality. And so we just need to make sure that we have this biblical foundation as we're going to talk with our children about sex, that we need to change our mindset, that our mindset cannot be, oh, there's this really disturbing and disgusting thing and it's awkward to talk about, but we have to talk about it because a part of life, it's like, no, there is this good gift that God has given us. And this good gift has a very specific context that it is only within the context of a one man, one woman marriage, that God has given us this gift of sex. And all good gifts, on this side of Genesis three, it has been corrupted by the fall, but we can still choose to honor God with our bodies.

So that's my first response to this questioner that teaching our children about sex at a young age is not stealing their innocence because sex is not something that is dirty. It is a good part of God's good design that yes, human sinfulness has corrupted this goodness, but we can still train our children to understand that sex is inherently good within the context of marriage that God gave it. And I would actually argue that if we don't talk with our children about sex at a young age, that is what actually puts them at risk of having their innocence stolen. Because what is going to steal their innocence is exposure to sinful corruptions of God's good design before they even understand the inherent goodness of that design. If we've never had conversations with them about the goodness of God's design for gender and sexuality and marriage and family, and then they're exposed to pornography, then their innocence has been stolen. If we've never had a conversation about these good things, if parts of God's design and how marriage is the only context in which these things can be enjoyed, then they're at greater risk for sexual abuse. Also, if we've never talked with them about the inherent goodness of God's design and they're exposed to anything, whether it's children's media or just running into a family that has two dads or two moms, or running into a man who is presenting himself as a woman, or whether they're in school and they're being indoctrinated to call good what God has called evil, all of these things without the proper teaching and training at home, those are the things that steal innocence, not teaching them about the inherent goodness of God's design.

So what do we need to do? We need to give our little ones a solid foundation in the biblical view of sexuality that protects them from those things that would steal their innocence. So what I'm going to walk you through now is just some basic truths that we can cover with our little ones to help them understand the goodness of God's design and then to help prepare and protect them from sinful corruptions of God's good design. So what I'm going to walk you through is actually many of the truths that we cover in units two and three of our recently released God's Good Design curriculum. And so these are truths that can help prepare our little ones. And so one first foundational truth that we teach in the second unit of this curriculum is that God designed us in his image and we talk about how bearing God's image is something that no one and nothing can take away from us. So that means that we and every other human who has ever lived has inherent dignity, value and worth. We want our children to understand that fundamentally their design is good. Then we cover that God designed us as male or female, and we take them straight to those passages in Genesis 1:27 and 1:28 and talk about how God designed humans as either male or female. And we use the biologically correct terms to explain how they can tell and how their mom or their dad and the doctor knew right away whether God designed them as male or female. And we talk about how this is a good part of God's good design. Then we talk about how God designed us for his glory, and that means that God designed us to show a true picture of what he is like to others. Okay? So we lay this foundation of just the goodness of God's design. That God designed us in his image as male or female for his glory.

Then we talk in unit three about God's good design for relationships, and we cover how God designed different kinds of love for different relationships. And we talk about how there's friendship, love, and there's marriage love and there's family love. And we talk about the difference in those. We talk about how we can share friendship love with just about anyone. But then we talk about how marriage love is different, that God designed marriage for one man and one woman to become one flesh for life. And so we talk about the inherent goodness of that.

And then what we cover in both units two and three is after we've laid that solid biblical foundation for understanding God's good design for us and God's good design for relationships, we talk about how sin corrupts God's good design. So that's why we don't always see the goodness of God's design when we look at the world around us. But then we immediately talk about how Jesus in his life, death and resurrection, that Jesus defeated the power and the punishment of sin. So we're making sure we're telling them this is not the end of the story. What we're stuck in right now is not the end.

And then we cover some of the sinful corruptions that we're going to see in the world around us and even within our own hearts and minds because we are sinful. So we cover because of sin, feelings can trick us. We talk about how many times we don't feel like treating others like they bear God's image. We talk about how sometimes people might feel like they're a boy when their body reveals that they're a girl, or they might feel like they're a girl when their body reveals that they are a boy. Then we cover that because of sin, not all touch is good touch. And we talk about the many different types of good touch God has given us. And then we talk about what bad touch is to protect them from abuse.

Now, when we're presenting these things, you might be thinking, Elizabeth, you're talking about young kids like four and five years old. How do you not overwhelm them? That's a great question. One thing that we do in these lessons where we're talking about sin is we're honest with the kids, but we always make sure we're focusing on the positive of God's good design more than we are on the sin. So in these games that we play where we're giving them examples of good touch and bad touch, in the examples of bad touch, we're making sure that we're a little bit more generic and vague so we're not planting situations in their mind. And we always have more examples of good touch than we do of bad. And we always end a game on an example of good touch and celebrating God's good design.

Another truth we cover is that because of sin, not all pictures are good pictures, and we cover the difference between good pictures and bad pictures. And we use that same formula that I just told you about of focusing more on good pictures, being a little vague with the bad ones and making sure we're always ending, focusing on God's good design. Then we also cover that because of sin, we often reject or ignore God's good design. And so we talk about how we are all sinful and we often reject or ignore God's good design. And we give examples in there of not treating others like they're made in God's image, of people believing that marriage can be between two men or two women, of a boy believing that he's a girl. And so just talking about how this is part of the sinful corruption.

But then we end the whole curriculum with the truth that when Jesus returns, God's good design for us will last forever. And we focus on Revelation 21 and what it will be like when Jesus returns, when he makes the heavens and the earth new, and we have resurrected bodies. And so if we can lay this positive biblical foundation and then prepare our kids for some of the sinful corruptions that they're going to encounter, what we're doing is we're preparing them. Preparing our kids is the best form of protection. Preparation is protection. So as we wrap up this episode, just please remember that sex is inherently good. It is a good part of God's good design. It's human sinfulness that has corrupted it, but we know that when Jesus returns, God's good design for us will last forever. If you have yet to check out our God's Good Design curriculum, highly recommend that whatever you're doing right now, you stop what you're doing. You check that out because the truths that we cover in these materials are going to set our little ones up on a solid foundation of understanding the inherent goodness of God's design and prepare them to encounter the many corruptions of sin that we will face in a developmentally appropriate way.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode. If you have a question you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves. You would trust that God is working all things together for your good. By using all things to conform you more into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.