The New York Times reports on a growing number of mothers who are rejecting their own parents' tight-lipped and euphemistic examples to begin educating their children about sex and anatomy at an early age - often as early as pre-school. Surprisingly, churches are jumping on the sex ed bandwagon as well:

Early sex education is a small and hard-to-measure movement, but it's a growing one, with advocates...writing books and conducting seminars for parents, preschool teachers and day care providers. Many chapters of Planned Parenthood offer workshops on the topic and so do some evangelical Christian churches.

"The classic approach in religious circles has been, shield their innocence for as long as you can, until they're 13, then give them The Talk," said Stanton L. Jones, a professor of psychology and the provost of Wheaton College in Illinois. Dr. Stanton and his wife, Brenna Jones, wrote "The Story of Me," a sex education book for 3-to-5-year-olds. (The book emphasizes God's contribution and traditional gender roles, and says less about intercourse than many of its secular equivalents).

Lately the Joneses "have found a lot of acceptance" for starting sex education early, Mr. Jones said; pastors teach their approach at conferences on family life, and the book is sold by the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family.

Advocates of early sex ed stress the necessity of teaching children before they are influenced by the increasingly vulgar and explicit popular culture.

Any parenting style that focuses on honesty and education sounds good to me, and Christian sources of sex ed will please those of you who are uncomfortable with the MTV primer on the birds and the bees.

(via Feministe)