Quote:
Originally Posted by marsupial
Frank, matter-of-fact answers to their sincere questions is a great start. Youth leaders should be doing the same. However, in my experience they are not. Two examples: I sat through a lesson on chastity with the Beehives given by an obviously uncomfortable leader in her 50s. She spent the whole lesson talking about The Lord of the Rings and the special "ring" (a girl's virtue) that she must keep sacred. It was comical, for sure. The only thing the girls probably got out of it was a lost desire to read or watch The Lord of the Rings.
A young woman was sitting in on a stake YW meeting. We were going over calendar items and got into stake dances, morality, etc. The YW rose her hand and asked one of the leaders quite sincerely, "I hear the term heavy petting a lot but I don't know what it means." The leader was quite ruffled by this question and very indignantly replied, "You can look that up in your 'For the Strength of Youth pamphlet.'"
C'mon, how hard would it have been for her to simply say, "touching private parts" and then move on?
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Yes, indeed.
In my entire childhood prior to leaving home, the
one and only time the topic of sex was ever discussed by my parents was when my mother forced my brothers and me to sit at the kitchen table and listen to a cassette tape of a talk given by Boyd K. Packer on the evils of masturbation. That was it.
My wife's experience was similar. Needless to say, we are trying to do a little better with our kids.