As a non-parent (and do not want kids), I feel I have a jaded view on this. Yet, I was once a child.. so I should have some, I guess. I taught myself to shave, learned about sex myself, taught myself to drive, etcetc. I love my parents, but frankly they didn't teach me anything in life outside of passive observations of their behavior. I learned about bickering from them though, in leagues. heh.
I don't get why more parents don't want to be the kind that are so dependable, the child will call them when they're too drunk to drive home at 16yrs old. Or the kind that explains to their kids that all drugs are not equal, some are far worse, some are not bad. Or hell, not just that some drugs are bad, but why some are bad.
So many parents seem afraid to be the one who teaches their child first about the "tough" things in the world like sex and drugs. Yet, the tough things in the world should come first from them, imo. I just don't get it.
I am a parent, dad of two girls: 4 and 9. I completely agree with you.
I have a rule that I will never lie to my kids when they ask a question, and that I'll always answer to the best of my abilities. In the rare case where I feel like they're not ready for the answer, I'll tell them that. So far it's worked well.
A couple of months ago we moved ~1k miles. My nine-year-old rode in the moving truck with me for 10 hours, and most of that time was spent discussing sex. Most of her questions were initially about the mechanics of the act, but as I explained things she ended up being just as interested in the emotional and social aspects. That conversation spawned several follow-ups where she had more questions after she thought about things. The only aspect I stopped short of explaining in full was pornography - she's aware of its existence, but not the reasons people participate in it or view it... and that's hard to explain to someone who hasn't yet experienced the impact of hormones during puberty.
The way I see it, my kids are going to learn about the world one way or another. I see only positive consequences of being the trusted source of information and guidance when they first encounter it, regardless of how difficult the conversations may become.
Yup, and that's exactly why I struggle to understand why so many parents avoid it.
Some I think mean well, but vastly underestimate when their child will discover the worst of humanity. Especially in the internet age, at school or at home. It's a complicated world.
In light of that, I give my kids the same thing. Instead of filters, I just keep logs of network traffic and occasionally grep them for keywords that I think might warrant discussion.
All you need is someone to report you, and for the agency to have an incentive to err on the side of taking kids away.
now we just need to make it normal (i.e., socially acceptable). it's hard because no matter where we stand in the sociosphere, we're always on the lookout for danger and enemies. that's the yang to our yin, the opposing force that elucidates our core identity.
while life is full of quite unlikely but life-threatening risks, it's crippling to be constantly finding, worrying about, and trying to mitigate all of those risks for our kids. we can't, and it shouldn't be expected of us.
parents need to provide the broad strokes (don't jump off a cliff, swallow random pills, or run blindly into the street) but kids need the room to test the minutiae of those boundaries (can i jump off the monkey bars? is this rural dirt road ok to run into? is it ok to eat 10 of these flintstones vitamins at once?). that's what growing up is all about.
otherwise our kids won't be able to cope with the inevitable dangers they will face later in life. on some dimensions, they need to be tested in minutely-increasing increments so they develop confidence in emergency situations ("camp" in the living room, then in the yard, then with a scouting troop, then with friends, then alone) but they don't need to be--and can't be--prepared for every danger in the world.
you can't fly without risking a fall to the ground.