chances so far as the self-awakening sex life
is concerned if we did not know that it is impossible, without more harm
than good to keep the child from such perfectly normal relations with
other children as almost certainly will expose it to disastrous
misinformation a suggestion.

Whatever ought to be said of the importance of the home tradition and
ideals and the general physical and moral regimen of the child (and these
are of supreme importance), the facts of the last two paragraphs lay the
ground for this general statement: that in the case of a child whose moral
and sexual environment has been bad and perverting, proper sex instruction
cannot make matters worse, whereas in the best families much harm may
arise from the lack of such instruction.

If any information is imparted to the child at all, the first instruction
should properly come from one or other of the child's parents. It is
sometimes the case that opportunity for the first information is presented
when the child asks questions. And the supposed question of the child is,
"Where did the baby come from?" Our course would be much smoother if
every child asked its mother or father this question, or if every child
began with this particular question, or if every child asked any question
at all. Sometimes the child asks the nurse this question; sometimes the
child is an only child or for some other reason this question never occurs
to it; sometimes the child's first question pertains to some curiosity
about its own navel, or "where eggs come from," or "why the hen makes
them," or "how they get into the hen," or what is meant by "half shepherd
and half St. Bernard." But children do not ask the questions that the
books say they ask, and ready-made answers do not always apply.

Whether a child asks the conventional questions or the unexpected
questions, and whether it asks questions or not, the parent ought to have
some pretty definite notion of when, what, and how to tell a child. A
child's questions about the baby should be answered truthfully; all such
replies as escape by the stork, cabbage-patch, or grocer-boy route should
be avoided. It goes without saying that children's questions should be met
seriously and even reverently, and that parents should never speak of nor
allude lightly, jokingly, or irreverently to sex relationships in the
child's presence.

A child may ask a question prematurely, or at a time when the parent finds
it impossible to answer