The only thing we have to fear is fear (of ourselves?) ...

Telling this story now is probably like showing naked baby pictures, since my boy-girl twins are twelve and full of elbows, hormones, and acute hypersensitivity....

But they took baths together when they were little, so there really wasn't any question--even at age two--about differences in anatomy.

So one night we had friends over, and--you know--we're trotting the kids out in their PJs to say good night to all the artificial aunts and uncles, and my daughter proudly announces,

"Hey, everybody! I've got a vagina, and he only has a penis!"

Another moment of proud parenthood.

Nor have I noticed any deep depravity or psychological fall-out from (a) their learning the correct terms for their body parts at age two, or (b) being exposed to nekkid siblings. (Unless it was the other day when my son wanted to take his AK-47 to McDonalds, but I digress.... And I didn't let him have the thirty-round banana clip, so he trashed the whole idea.)

Now at The Curvature, Cara has a post about social Conservatives concerned that our children will somehow be victimized by being shown a book called It's Perfectly Normal, wherein--among other things, a girl is depicted bending over an using a hand mirror to examine her own genitalia.

I don't necessarily care if you read the Conservative reactionary nutjob article by Robert Knight at Human Events that details why we should treat our kids as sexless dolls who might at any second morph into rapists and sluts if we don't keep them from finding out what's between their legs, but I do think Cara does reasonable outrage better than almost anybody else I read:

That’s right: “even a girl leaning over and holding a mirror between her legs.” I can’t get over the hilarious and telling nature of the fact that among those who think the worst possible human action anyone could commit is to experience any form of pleasure without asking God pretty please first and promising to think of Him the whole time, a girl having a peek at her vulva is the most outlandish offense in a book all about sex. Not the dirty, sinful nudity. Or the shockingly anti-Biblical depictions of sexual activities by presumably unmarried people, including spilling one’s seed. The worst part is a girl foolishly thinking that she has a right to know what her genitals look like. Crazy liberals, don’t they know that God put a girl’s “down there” down there for a reason??? It wasn’t to sell hand mirrors, that’s for sure!

What Cara doesn't tell you about (because I doubt she has the stomach for it) is the responses that Knight's article got from the readers.

Here's where I really start to get scared:

Hey, this is an issue we all agonize over. My youngest has been raised without cable movies, very little TV, no MTV, and lots of reading. She is 15 and beginning an explorer group for kids interested in a career as physicians. The weird thing is, my wife and I have told her about sex, sexual exploitation, and media degredation of women since she was quite small. As a police officer, I have seem too many kids popped full of mature informtion while possessing an immature sense of who they are. I was too casual with my older kids, and I learned to tighten up on the grip I have for keeping popular culture from defining our children.

I did something about my parenthood drama though. I made a musical primer for dads, believe it or not, at dadtunes.com

No one is going to have free shots at my kids to the degree that I can help it. Turn off the TV! (debrief them after school)

www.dadtunes.com

I lack the courage to visit dadtunes. Maybe some of the more intrepid can go there and report back.

Meanwhile:

Looks like the hand wrighting is on the wall with Wal-Mart stocking sex toys and starting to put in Clinics. It's beyond me that for thousands of years sex just came natural as a part of human nature and all of a sudden in the last century for some reason we have to teach it to our kids. I understand the Florida school system is beginning to teach Evolution as fact instead of theory. The spiritual side of man, or higher learning centers is ignored---indeed, kept in the dark intentionally. Once (as far as I know) in history the Arabic world was the keeper of the flame. It was called "The Dark Ages". Are we headed there again? Has it all come down to this? Gratification, intertainment, and paying taxes? Is there nothing we can do about a government that forces liberal policies on us? This next election should tell the tale. I hope the Liberals get everything they want. Their throats will be the first to be cut when Western Civilization falls. I'm sure they'll have a pocket full of money and a satisfied look on their face though.

Oh yeah, and just to keep the record straight, I also told my kids what gay people were, around the time they were five or six.

Watch out, they're probably going to grow up to be suicide bombers.