AIBU to object to Y4 teacher's "Sex and Death" comment to pupils?

[CSLewis]

Dd came home one day and told me that in Art they'd been looking at Salvador Dali, and that her teacher told them that his work "is mainly about sex and death". !

I am really angry with her comment, as not every 8/9 year old in the world knows what sex is, and I don't consider it a teacher's job to introduce them to the subject.

Also, if that's what she thinks about Dali, why on earth choose him for her Y4 class to study??!? Talk about insidious sexualisation of children from an ever-earlier age!

This is an "outstanding" Catholic primary, btw , tho I have plenty of atheist friends who wd also be appalled if their 8yo came home with that. Obv I don't think IABU, but what do u think?

OP's DD is more than likely to have already heard the word in the playground....along with all kinds of misinformation.

YABU ....but.....YANBU to ask the question and I think you've had a bit of a rough ride here.

Awareness of sex is not 'sexualisation'. I would be pleased my DD might be intellectually challenged in this way, rather than just having someone like M Gove's words spouted at her by a teaching automotron.

Frankly, if my daughter didn't know about sex by the time she was in Y4, I would hope that another responsible adult would make up for my failure to explain.

The teacher is hardly likely to whip out a cucumber and a tube of ky is he/she
It's on the curriculum, I don't know any children of that age that don't have some understanding of sex and to be honest if you want to be the first to have that discussion you had better get in quick. It's on tv in the middle of the daytime of course they will have some knowledge.

The teacher is doing her job. She /he has the professional skills to know what the appropriate boundaries are
You sound a bit of a nightmare parent !

DS has only a basic idea about sex (also in Yr4). He doesn't need to know about Dali's thoughts on sex or death. In fact he studied Dali last year and just enjoyed the madness of it all.

You are doing your daughter a huge disservice by allowing her to get to year 4 and not know what sex is.

If your so bothered that she finds out from you, why don't you pull you finger out and get on with telling her?

The teacher is the least of your problems, given what kids discuss in the playground.

There is a world of difference between educating an 8 year old about sex in an open, informative way...and showing Salvador Dali's work and telling them it's about sex. Most posters have missed the point. The OP isn't concerned about the teacher making a sexual reference (although it is debatable whether 8 year olds should be expected to think about this very much, given their stage of sexual development). She's concerned about the manner in which her daughter has been asked to think about sex and death. Very different.

Mumsnet has a name for being made up of intelligent, thoughtful people. Surprising that the calibre of debate is can be so poor. Very Daily Mailish, i.e., pissed off and hormonal.

Oh, and I didn't say year 4 children shouldn't be informed about sex. Of course they should. But it's possible to do that whilst also protecting them from some aspects of life...as every responsible parent the world over would agree. I strongly suspect that many posters have no idea what Salvador Dali's work actually looks like, or what pieces were shown to these children.

Is sex a bad word?

wouldbemedic the OP's original post focuses heavily on 'the creeping sexualisation of children' so you should not be surprised at the reactions.

You can argue about the teacher's interpretation of Dali's work - and I would definitely do so - but the tone of the OP's post seems to be mostly about objecting to the word sex, introducing them to the concept and so on. She also states that it is not the teacher's job to educate her DD about sex, it's hers. That makes it pretty obvious where she's coming from, as most of the posters on this thread have pointed out. She'd have done better to have said 'As a committed Christian I have a problem with this' - that would have been honest.

Yes yabu 'sex' to a.nine year old won't mean the act of sex , unless they already understand that. At nine they have concepts of boy friends, fancying one direction and maybe even snogging ..all harmless stuff . Saying the word sex isn't the same as going into graphic detail about the act of sex!

I've come to this late, but what is 'Dali's work is mainly about sex and death' actually meant to mean to an 8-year-old?

I think 8 is pretty late to not know what sex is tbh.

Frankly, if my daughter didn't know about sex by the time she was in Y4, I would hope that another responsible adult would make up for my failure to explain.

Nail on the head right here.

An 8 year old not being educated about these things is a parental failure.

Most year 4s have heard the word sex before. Surely introducing it into a conversation like that will mean that it's not such a shock when you explain it properly. Creates a sense of normality if a teacher talks about it like that-which is what is needed really. The idea of "sex" should not be hidden from children, as its basic human nature.

The OP is concerned about the teacher using the word "sex" and making a sexual reference:

"not every 8/9 year old in the world knows what sex is, and I don't consider it a teacher's job to introduce them to the subject. [...] It is not her job to 'educate my child about sex'"

It's specifically this that has got posters annoyed.

I'm not sure anyone is claiming that this was the world's greatest ever lesson on Dali. I suspect myself that "Dali's work is mainly about sex and death" isn't going to be a very helpful framing device for a Y4 class. It sounds though that the comment from the teacher may have been only a brief passing remark, given that the OP hasn't mentioned her DD doing any follow up work or having questions stemming from it. So were the children really asked to think about sex and death in any particular manner?

I think Cecily P has nailed it. If (in conversation with an adult or teenager) someone said "X's work is about sex and death" (as in fact, a music teacher said to me and my string quartet aged 15 when we working on Schubert's Death and the Maiden), that would convey all sorts of things about the overwhelming strength of sexual attraction, intimations of mortality, powerlessness, etc. And I can't see how you could have that sort of conversation (certainly not on a whole-class level) with 30 8 year olds. To that extent, I don't think it was a particularly helpful metaphor to reach for in talking about Dali. Maybe asking questions like "what sort of feelings do you get from this? Are the paintings calming? Are they scary? Are they weird?" would be a more age-appropriate way of getting at the fundamental "oddness" of Dali (and, yes, wouldbemedic, I think most of us on this thread would actually recognise a painting by Dali - personally I think he's vastly over-rated and far from being my favourite among the surrealists, and in general I find surrealism far from being my favourite movement in 20th century art).

That's an entirely separate issue from whether a teacher is allowed to mention the word "sex" in front of 8 years olds - of course they should be able to, for all the excellent reasons Grumpasaurus outlined up thread.

Agree with Lucinda.
My 10 yr old DS (y5) hasn't yet had the full sex end lessons about rerproduction-as-pleasure which I know they get at our school in Y6. So although he knows what sex is, it wouldn't mean much to him in this context. So his understanding of Dali is not enhanced.

I do also have a bit of anissue with throwing words or phrases around that children may not fully understand but think sound clever and then use them in inappropriate situations (eg my rather naïve brother called someone a dildo at an adult dinner party when he was 14!) I suspect the teacher said this line without really thinking about her audience, she should know better...but its hardly the end of the world

Lucinda?? I meant Lurcio

pink - Yes some children will not have an idea what the teacher meant. But siome of the bright ones may have some idea.

article on Max Ernst

I was quite fascinated by my Mum's book on Max Ernst (she was an artist and art teacher and had a very extensive collection of art books) when I was in my early teens, partly because of the portrayals of sexual desire (like, I would guess, most teenagers I was fascinated by it because hormones were making me very, very interested in sex). One of the ones I found most fascinating is about half way down that web-page - it's called "The Robbing of the Bride". It's a very disturbing picture - overtones of sexual violence (the spear pointing at the woman's vulva), objectification (the main figure has her head replaced by a stylised, mythical bird's head, and the whole composition is infused with what a feminist art critic would probably call "the male gaze". At one and the same time I found it weird, freaky and a turn-on! And I knew there was something odd about it, even though back then (aged 13, 14) I couldn't have found the words to articulate it. Sex and death is quite a good shorthand for this.

But I can't imagine myself trying to have that conversation with DS in 2 or 3 years time when he's 8. Yes, he knows the rough outline of where babies come from, he's seen my menstrual blood down the toilet and knows what periods are about, by 8 I expect we'll have talked about how sex is something adults find enjoyable in the context of a loving relationship. And I'm doing what I hope is useful stuff about "it's only a game if everyone's enjoying it...", "if someone says 'stop tickling', you stop...", "people have a right to say no to someone touching them..." which I hope will carry over into sexual situations when he's older. But would I want to have a talk about the frankly disturbing sexual images in surrealist painting at that age? No, I'd probably gloss over it with some comment about "oh, it's just a made up creature which is half woman, half bird", then try to move the conversation onto something different.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it's possible that the OP was badly worded rather than pearl-clutching. It's quite possible to be happy about positive, constructive sex ed while not wanting to expose one's children to the darker side of adult sexuality at an early age.

Lurcio - I love your post :) You've articulated what I would have liked to have said.

pinkcheese - lol at 'sex end lessons'

anadventureincakeandwine: Although I appreciate many of the points you've raised, ultimately I would have to answer that 'yes', these children were being asked to consider each term in a manner that was informed by the other two terms. That is what a framing device (or metaphor) accomplishes, and it works both ways.

I, for one, unashamedly and unrepentantly hanker for a world in which my child's innocence was protected until her mind and body were just a little closer to puberty. If that's pearl-clutching, I'll clutch 'em all.

wouldbemedic the problem with that, of course, is that girls in particular start puberty earlier and earlier. That's a biological thing and not something a parent or teachers can change. I was in a bra at 9 and had periods at 11 (I was only just 11 and in yr6). So teaching an 8yo about sex in that context is quite reasonable since it is close to puberty. As Grumpasaurus says, early sex ed generally means that young people have sex later than those who 'stay innocent' longer - it stands to reason that those who have a less full understanding about sex would be more curious about it.

I am also a bit uncomfortable with the connection drawn between 'innocence' and 'not knowing about sex', that somehow innocence about sex is somehow a thing to be embraced despite sex being a natural and normal part of life. When sex is normalised and not put on a pedestal, attitudes surrounding sex are much healthier. I realise that you are coming from a perspective of love and are not the same kind of parent, but this article articulates some of the discomfort I feel about the idealization of innocence. Not meant to be critical of you at all by the way, just widening the debate (I hope), and again I realise you are coming from a different perspective to the parenting in the article. I do understand the desire to keep children innocent! I just think it causes more problems.

MN always makes me laugh- I love a teacher becoming 'a random adult'. She didn't go into detail she just told them in 2 words what the paintings were about. I had a very sheltered childhood, of course we talked about sex in the playground, but I didn't tell my mother that- I might have done had she asked but she didn't.
They will be doing sex education anyway in year 5, surely you are not going to withdraw your child?

Antonyms for the word "innocence" include "guilty", "unvirtuous" and "experienced".

By maintaining your perception of your child's innocence, you are doing nothing more than demonizing sex.

No wonder we have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe.