Should Kathleen Wynne Tell Our Kids About Sex?

The answer to the question “should Kathleen Wynne tell our kids about sex” is, actually, that she shouldn’t but I am happy that her government is finally getting on with the revision of this important course of study. Sex is one of the driving forces of nature that exists in us all. In some homes, having ‘that conversation’ is not only routine…it is part of ongoing education. The kids in those homes are lucky…but they are few and far between.

There are those who say that, with sex, one-size-fits-all (no pun intended) is an inappropriate approach to dealing with our sexuality and that it’s for parents, not teachers, to confront. But most of us come from homes, regardless of background, where parents really didn’t…and still don’t. I have two adult children. My wife and I were both open people. But, despite the fact we always responded to questions, the more nuanced aspects of sexuality still got away from us. And that was pre-Internet! Today, nothing escapes kids who want information. “Porn” is the single most searched term on all of Google…does anyone really think that’s only about deprived adult males?

So, given the Internet provides very graphic and readily available material on every normal aspect and all aberrations of sexuality, what is a parent to do? And what is a school system to do? Both are faced with an unending stream of questions kids won’t actually ask and answers most of us didn’t even know were expected or which we’re ill-equipped to provide.

The new course of school study will deal with nomenclature; same-sex relationships; masturbation; oral sex…and it works its way into a lot of material that scares many adults as much as it might overwhelm youngsters, if learned in the wrong environments or in the wrong way. Those charged with imparting the detail in school settings will not have the loving relationship of parent-and-child to lean on, but they will have a professional ability to speak and listen along with an intuitive sense about how to deal with youthful responses.

When I was young, the boys’ gym teacher taught us what passed for sex education. He was as embarrassed standing up at the front of the room drawing a bad chalk picture of a penis on the blackboard as my father was trying to have the ‘birds-and-bees’ conversation with me! My buddies and I laughed at both efforts, well-intentioned as they were. And I tell this story by way of pointing out that our “sixties” parents behaved in precisely the same way as millennial parents are now. “Don’t you teach my kid about that…it’s my job”. That was the standard line…and I am pretty sure I heard several parents use those very words on last evening’s TV news. By the way, parents may elect to opt their kids out…mine couldn’t.

I believe that what most parents worry about most is bad relationships and abnormal sexual habit patterns developing that are NOT part of an education they can offer their kids. ‘Sexting’…for example, sending digital photos out over the Internet has really caused pain, even death. A young girl is talked into taking a naked “selfie” and sending it to a boyfriend sincerely believing he’s the only person who’ll ever see it…when the boy fires it off to the world where it resides in cyberspace forever, the girl is mortified…and we’ve all read the horror stories of what can ensue…has ensued. Honestly, what parent can teach kids about that?? It didn’t exist when they were young! But the schools are addressing it.

Some parents (and this can be culturally based) don’t want teachers discussing homosexuality. Yet, most kids attend classes where a fellow student has two moms or two dads. This is a first generation phenomenon. How do parents reasonably address this legally supported orientation? They can’t.

Will our schools (supported by our government) do a perfect job of properly addressing what our kids need to know? I doubt it. They don’t even teach decent math anymore. But, as with everything, we need a starting point. I do not often applaud government…certainly not this government, one that has its hands full with all manner of difficulty. But I do applaud it for trying to bring an aspect of education into line with the times.

If parents and morally inhibited leaders want to preach otherwise, it’s a free society. Go and demonstrate or call your MPP. Meanwhile, let’s get on with something that’s long overdue.

Peter

Scarborough-by-the-Sea Sounds Good Right Now!

Is it just because I’ve become ‘an older version of me’ that I believe the weather in this part of Canada has been changing…and not for the better? No one of sound mind will debate climate change anymore. But I’m not sure how many still want to discuss global warming. I grew up sixty years ago in a Montreal I remember as a definitive study in Canadian winter. A well known Quebec "anthem" is Gilles Vigneault's "Mon pays, ce nest pas un pays, c'est l'hiver" in which the title line translates as "my country is not a country...it's winter". My (then) young boy’s body ran and played amid walls of snow; I built snow forts, tobogganed, expected about six months of winter, and really had no issue with any of it. There were blizzards and there were cold days. But that was then and this is now…and that's before even considering that Montreal is at least 200 kilometers north of the latitude of Southern Ontario. We have been experiencing sustained, biting cold and literally tons of fresh snow. Routine temperatures are in the negative range and as low as -20c. In my childhood, we hadn’t yet “discovered” the Celsius scale and -20c. is close to zero when measured in Fahrenheit! Are you kidding me? Yes, I've experienced that previously but not for a very long time, never sustained, and not in Southern Ontario.

So, I give up. I yield. Recently, I discovered that a round trip to Florida doesn’t have to originate up north. Someone told me that I could actually book a round trip for the same price, on the same planes but they originate in Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach and then return there! Who knew? That means I could work from the sunny south, use all the electronic connectivity I have here at home quite seamlessly, and, if a client needed to see me, I could avail myself of one of those south-north-south flights I found out about! Then, I could stay up here and freeze for only two days and spend the other 28 days of the month wearing shorts. Beats the other way around, don’t you think? Consider this my pledge to make that change next winter…no, I’m not kidding!

Life today makes so many things possible. Who knew that the time-wasting cat-fights we all have on Twitter and Facebook could be conducted from Boston’s-By-the-Beach in Delray? And nobody up here would be the wiser! In a recent blog post, I noted that the Americans are a canny lot because they have an amazing ability to see the future. For example, when the Brits were fighting the rebel Yanks a few hundred years ago and finally decided to settle things, the continent was divided. Canada got everything north of the 49^th parallel. As we say in mixed company…B.F.D. 90% of Canucks live within 100 kilometers of the US border for a reason! If those dumb ass Brit negotiators had said “sorry, we want a vertical division”, we could have owned everything from the eastern Arctic to the Florida Keys. The Americans could have had everything from Alaska south to Mexico. Who needs Vancouver or Seattle or California anyway? The midpoint could have been, say, Death Valley! More succinctly, a friend tweeted recently that we should re-open talks with the Turks & Caicos – those islands bluster every couple of years seeking to become the next Canadian province. Great idea. Then we could spend our winter vacations in the sun and not cross a border or pay a premium for the local currency!

Consider this blog post my personal attempt to make light of a bitter cold day in the dead of winter, knowing, as I write this, that we are a scant eight weeks away from rebirth and renewal in what is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful displays of new life in the world…Canadian spring. The squirrels come out and dig up my lawn; they denude my oak tree for the acorns; the raccoons defecate over my entire property (but fear not…for I have fox urine a-plenty to spread around)…racoons smell the fox-pee and then, imagining it is meant to inspire dread, makes them look at me through their facial masks quizzically. Grubs wreck my lawn. Leaves on the trees degrade the TV signals. Maple tags clog the pool pump. I should probably stop right there. I still love spring and summer.

Bottom line…I’ve always viewed Florida as a stop gap. I know people there. I have family there. They have restaurants serving good food (if you look for them) and great shopping. There are lots of highways because they’re cheap to build…construction companies don’t have to consider anything called a “frost line”. Then again, I myself have, more than once, labeled Florida as “Scarborough with Palm Trees”. I’ve weighed the pros and cons. Scarborough isn’t so bad and I really like palm trees. You can read my blog posts next year but they’ll be generated with an underlying happier mood, written (as they will be) from Boca Raton.

Peter

Beer, Vaccinations, Kathleen Wynne and Ontario

Two divergent and unrelated news events got me going today. Beer sales in corner stores and vaccinating our kids. How different does it get? Well, I am known as a conservative thinker and a former Member of Provincial Parliament elected under the Progressive Conservative banner. Truth be told, I am more libertarian than I am conservative. So, in a perfect world, I like the concept of “live and let live”. But, it’s not a perfect world. So, conservatism will suffice…and my interpretation of it is that laws are a set of rules that protect us from each other…period. People often ask me about laws enacted to protect us from ourselves…what we can eat or drink or whether we should be allowed to expose ourselves to the ultraviolet light of a tanning bed. My reaction is unequivocal...leave me alone, I’m an adult!

This began to gnaw at me when media reports emerged saying that the Premier of Ontario had announced that we'd see no beer sold in corner stores. She did say the Beer Store monopoly would be changing this Spring but she was absolute in her “no convenience stores” position. Well, Premier Wynne, just who do you think you are? This province elected a majority Liberal government of which you are leader, therefore Premier. We did not crown you Queen nor pump white smoke up a chimney to anoint you the first female Pope. So, you govern...but you don't rule.

Basically, every jurisdiction in North America has beer available in privately owned chain stores. These are often supermarkets but they could, alternatively or in addition, be corner convenience stores. This acknowledges several things…consumer demand, lengthier hours of availability, non-monopolistic competition in price and product, and (importantly) the fact that we are adult decision-makers, fully capable of electing to buy and consume beer when and where we like…or not. No one likes a dictatorial government, notably where the rights being curtailed involve government trying to protect us from ourselves. Please stop this silly nonsense, Premier Wynne, and just give Ontarians what every other state and province has. Quit trying to be 13,000,000 peoples’ mom!!

Perhaps you should focus on another news story of the day and begin doing your job properly...protecting us from each other. As an MPP, I recall, all too often, misguided idiots passing for parents presenting themselves at my office to have documents notarized which would prevent their children from receiving any vaccinations. They’d say they didn’t believe in injecting “monkey pus” into their kids’ bloodstreams. I wanted to jump across my desk and slap them…but, alas, I had to smile and sign.

We are seeing a resurgence of measles in various places around North America, now including Ontario. This tells us several things. a) These controlled diseases are not anymore controlled now than they ever were, absent preventive vaccination; b) There are many people like those parents still out there; c) Communicable diseases can spread rapidly. So, here are some laws we actually need...and, Premier Wynne, it's your job to pass them!

Parents who deny their children a vaccine proven to prevent a disease are criminals and do not deserve to be parents. Premier Wynne, enact a law forcing them to stand aside and shut up as their children are properly vaccinated against all diseases for which we have proven preventives. That would be good legislation for Ontario. Instead, you appear to prefer screwing around with where we can buy beer and when. Hey...leave that to us…we are as adult as you are and, it would seem, many of us are a good deal brighter.

You have clear priorities...fix your flagging economy. Create a solid economic development plan. Develop a parallel jobs plan. Get out of peoples’ lives and out of our faces except when it comes to protecting us from each other…or, in this case, protecting the most precious and vulnerable among us, young children, from the stupidity and irresponsibility of parents who refuse to vaccinate.

Peter