Cultural Relativism and When Parents are Wrong

For most of my adult life I have believed that people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they what they want to do, does not harm (including physically, mentally or spiritually) anyone else. That may sound a bit simplistic but if everyone followed that rule, there would be a lot less strife in this world. That is I believed that to be true until this past week or so. Now I am not too sure or at least I need to expand my definition of harm.

At the end of February, the Liberal Government in Ontario announced that in September they would introduce a new sex education program covering grades one to eight. The revision was long overdue. It should be noted that the proposed curriculum is not the most progressive in Canada. There are other provinces that are dealing with some of the complex issues at an even earlier age (Toronto Star). Some parents are not happy with as to in which grade the topics are being raised  or even that they are being raised at all.

Those parents are using a number of reasons as to why they are opposed to the new curriculum. They have suggested that the children will be "sexualized by radicals in government who push a sexual revolution agenda under the guise of protecting children"(Campaign Life). They have argued that talking about same-sex marriage, masturbation and safe sex amongst other topics are within the purview of the family - not the government. They say that the material is too age-inappropriate, and too explicit. Some have argued that if the Ministry of Education "forces" children to participate in these classes, they will be violating some basic fundamental human rights. Some individuals are making the argument that Canada as a democratic country has no right to force overly liberal values on its citizens; that people's cultural values, beliefs and heritage need to take precedent when such programs are being designed. Those parents want to be consulted, although I suspect that they, no matter how much consultation was done, would ever agree to the new curriculum. Some parents are threatening to remove their children from school for a day to protest the proposed changes.

I can appreciate parents being concerned that their children may be exposed to, and learn things that they, the parents, don't want them to learn. As a parent and a grandparent I truly wish that I could protect my children and grandchildren from everything that will confuse them, scare them or hurt them. I wish I had a magic wand that I could wave over them so that they never had to learn anything until they wanted to (including algebra and geometry). But I can't. My grandchildren will see graphic pornography long before they have any real interest in the topic of sex, they may be exposed to bullying or undue pressure to do things before they have the tools to defend themselves, they will observe the abusive behaviour that some exhibit towards those who are gay or trans-gender and they will not know how to respond and they will at a very early age have access to a range of technology and communication devices whose capacities we don't truly understand. If I could believe that all parents, especially those parents who have conservative values, had the capacity to know when their children were ready and needed to learn and that those same parents had to skills needed to teach such sensitive topics, I would perhaps be willing to agree that the Ministry of Education has gone too far. I would perhaps agree that parents should be the ones who teach this stuff. But I don't believe that to be true.  Parents do not always know their own children well  as they think they do- especially as those children approach adolescence. Most parents would not know where to begin.

Anyone should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they what they want to do, does not harm anyone. Withholding information from a child - information that is needed to keep that child safe and to allow them to be caring and nurturing adults, information that will allow them to make choices in their future lives - that is harming the child. It cannot be allowed. We as a society have a responsibility to ensure that our children and grandchildren will thrive. And that means giving the information that they will need. If that offends those who chose to live in a world where they think they can control what their children will be exposed to when they are not monitoring them - too bad.

P.S. some of the media have subtly suggested that this issue has been raised mainly by immigrants' (code word for Muslim). Not true - it is an issue for fundamentalists - regardless of what religious text they ascribe to.