Where to Learn About Sex?

Children can learn sex at home, in school or in the street.

Photo from Ross Griff’s flickr 

The family is watching a movie one cozy night and a seemingly nice guy character, the one your son liked and looked up to, said the words “hand job”. Your son replicated the word ending it with a question mark, how will you respond? What will you say to your younger sister when she asked what “sex” is upon hearing it from you?

We can escape these questions of the young by lying and denying. But at some point, they’ll be old enough to know the terms and they’ll learn more about it somewhere. Will it be at home, school or in the streets?

It is a parent’s fear to expound the idea of sex to their child.  They see them as delicate beings and preaching them sexual profanity is a contamination to their mind. But they have organs that work, drive to copulate and minds to fill.

Talking about sex within the family is uncomfortable for the child and the parent. Certain parents aren’t confident to even say the vulgar words their children are sure to learn somewhere. If they won’t learn it inside the house, an option is to let the educators teach them.

Sex education at school goes beyond the act of reproducing but also covers sensitive issues like sexuality and sexual health. Classes are gender specific to focus on issues pertaining to their gender and to avoid embarrassment against the opposite sex.

Schools may offer two types of sex education classes. The Comprehensive Sexuality Education teaches broad range of issues including body image, masturbation and contraception. The other class, called the Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Program, will not bear students with pressing information but will assert the abstinence from all sexual behaviors.

The Comprehensive Sexuality Education may be in conflict with family and religious beliefs. Handing them the details may entice them but will emphasize on safe sex. While abstinence is a rigorous battle in today’s society, it is the safest way to avoid problems arising from premarital and unsafe sex.

If there’s no talk at home, and even in school, they’ll eventually get the information outside. It takes bold faith to entrust this lesson to the public.

Wherever you’re coming from, we agree that unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases can potentially ruin a person’s life.

Where do you think should children learn about sex?

Sources:
Why Sex Education Also Belongs in the Home; Advocates for Youth
Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex; Guttmacher Institute
Sex education in schools pros and cons; YOUniversityTV
Sex Education in Schools; About.com

Cheap is More Expensive

A good sale saves money – most times this is false.

Photo from Tim Parkinson’s flickr

I shopped at the Mong Kok Street three consecutive nights while I’m in Hong Kong. This street is a long expanse of small retailers selling dropdown imitation products from clothes to cool USBs. Can you imagine buying Lacoste shirts for a quarter of its original price? I’m not a recreational shopper but I couldn’t stop.

I came home with more on my suitcase. I bought “branded” shirts, watches and a pair of shoes for me; another dozen of shirts for my family and bags for my mother and sister (picked randomly and they loved it!). But I regretted buying them all.

I learned something about myself. Heads up mothers, this may give you a heart attack: I don’t like sale items.

I need not any of the items I bought in Hong Kong. I never used the shoes because I realized I hated the dire design. The strap of the watches peeled (turned out they’re made from plastic). After the first few wash, the clothes are indistinguishable from a rag. I depleted my entire budget for that trip because everything’s so cheap it feels like I should take advantage of it.

But cheap price is cheap quality. They don’t last long. They don’t satisfy you with the value you deserve.

After the Mong Kok street experience, I always get myself the topnotch original brands simply because I deserve the best. There may be some delays to my purchases, but that delay adds up to the excitement and happiness of buying the product. I’ve grown to give-up my quest for instant gratification that cheap products give because that gratification will go fast and will become frustration.

Like David Hays says, “Buy it once”. Choose the better quality products with better value. Buy for long term use and lasting gratification.

What cheap product you have to buy twice after the first broke?

More Moments for you:
The Act of Doing
Walk Away from Traffic
No Time for TV

Mention:
Buy It Once: When More Expensive Is Cheaper; Black Star Rising

The Act of Doing

Technology plays tricks on us, my Friends – it shortens processes, liberating us to partake of other activities.
by Granny Wise

Photo from photoXpress

There is nothing wrong with this, but do we not at some level miss out on beautiful, real, hands and minds-on experience? If everything happens at the touch of a button, then isn’t our creative involvement limited, even thwarted?

The answer, thankfully, is no.

Of course this depends on personal interests and lifestyle. A busy executive who absolutely loves spending long hours totally immersed in her work may favor as much automation as possible in other areas of life. This is a person who will select a healthy apple sauce or tomato sauce from the shelves of a grocery store instead of making her own. She still values wholesome nutrition while finding ways to allow time and room for her creativity to unfold where it is meant to do so.

And this is it. It is not a matter of being willing to make things from scratch; it is a matter of allowing proper expression to our creativity. For homesteaders, gardeners and farmers, creativity strives on the land and in the kitchen. Architects blossom at the drafting table. This is how we complement each other. This is how we design the world we share.

Gardening, cooking, canning, preserving, making cider and making tomato sauce from scratch takes time. The question that comes to mind for those whose energies are focused in other areas might be, “Why would I go through so much trouble?” The fact is, it is no trouble at all. When gardening, cooking, canning, preserving, making cider or making tomato sauce, we are like an artist.

The artist takes the time to pack up easel, paints and a good lunch, drive around in search of an inspiring vista, set up all equipment, mix the paints, capture the scene brush stroke after brush stroke, hour after hour, clean up, put away all tools and equipment, drive home, unpack everything and start over the next day. In truth,  the words “take the time”  actually mean “embrace the moment.”

So it is the moment we decide, “I will can some apples tomorrow.” It is a choice, not a chore.

Then, instantly, we look forward not only to the final product, but to the pure well-being that lies in every moment of the process. When canning, one must clean and set up and gather and cut and pay attention to timing. When making sauce, one must assemble the sauce maker, wash the tomatoes, store the sauce evenly in clean jars, dismantle the equipment and clean it carefully. Even the cleaning is not a chore. Instead, it is that part of the process where we realize that a good deed is done and that the last few hours provided nourishment to more than just the body. We are setting up or setting aside an entire process, in each instant realizing how fully alive and fully involved in living this process makes us feel.

Would it be more practical to buy a jar of sauce or preserve at the store? Yes. If your creativity lies in other areas of life. There is the word “practice” in the word “practical.” When we are exercising our creativity, in any area of life, the act of doing is what’s practical.

What practice would you do basic with your hands?

Granny Wise is All Season’s Homestead Helpers‘ writer and sustainability enthusiast. She urged us to create this Blog for her so she’d have a way to share her stories, knowledge and many findings with homesteaders, gardeners and simply all of you who like to take advantage of the abundance nature has to offer in any way that suits your lifestyle.

Pay the school + Pay the child

Educating a child is more expensive than once thought.

Photo from photoXpress

You pay the tuition, you pay his clothes, and you pay for his food. To get more benefit out of school, you should also pay your child for going to school.

Ambitious study of Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. paid $6.3 million to 18,000 students to testify his lead towards the education policy, classified as “one of the more rigorous studies ever”.

Students who are paid to merely attend school, like a day job, significantly fared better in their academics as measured by standardized tests. Money as an incentive is a pliable motivator. For these children, money is sweets, is games, is shoes, is cool stuff.

I’d want that. I wish I was also paid to go to school. If all parents did, all students will be rich! Of course it will make students work for it, especially those that are in their teenage years as money is independence. This may also mean training them for the harsh real world, that you hardly see “free work”, that work is done in exchange of money.

Medley of questions in my head challenged the results, even if I accepted the verity of the study. Couldn’t we see any other motivator other than money? If this was implemented, would they really like to learn, which is a never-dying process; or will they stop trying to learn when there’s no one paying them anymore? And are standardized tests the only measure of intelligence, forcing them to like science and math and disregarding arts or athletics?

Would you pay your child to go to school?

Source:
Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?; Time

 

Judge Your Parents

Take note of their good sides, but take closer look on the bad sides.

Photo from Brian Turner’s flickr

When it’s our turn to be kids, we loved our parents so much. You show your dad that you can throw a baseball or show your mom the beautiful flower you just picked. You’re always by their side; you hug them and cry if you can’t see them.

Then, we enter the teenage years. We may despised because they’re intruding. They’d want to teach us life lessons but we wanted to live our own life differently and not be told what to do.

They say we’ll go back to loving them more once we grew out of the teenage years. When we started having our own families, they say we’ll be exactly like our parents. I hope not.

Criticize your parents. Don’t hate them so much that you don’t recognize their good side; and don’t love them too much that you don’t recognize their bad side. Try not to repeat the mistakes and the displeasing side of your parents.

They gave birth to you and that commands respect; but they don’t always do the right thing. Not because they’re your parents you just accept all they say and do as if they created everything right. I’m not denouncing the roles of parents, but I’ve seen parents who will assert that they’re always right in their families.

Parents can say and do right or wrong. You don’t have to brag it to them, love and respect, and just filter what’s coming in to you.