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<v Speaker>Woman An in-depth exploration of the world of women today with <v Speaker>Samantha Dean. <v Samantha Dean>Good evening. Tonight on Woman, we're going to be talking about the sexual development of <v Samantha Dean>the child and the parental role played in this development. <v Samantha Dean>Our guest is Dr. Mary Calderone, who is the executive director and <v Samantha Dean>co-founder of SIECUS. That's the Sex Information and Education Council <v Samantha Dean>of the United States. <v Samantha Dean>Dr. Calderone, start off, I'd like to ask you, what are the first signs of sexual <v Samantha Dean>awareness in a small child? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>I think that the first thing that parents will notice is the discovery <v Dr. Mary Calderone>of pleasurable sensations when the child touches certain parts of his body, particularly <v Dr. Mary Calderone>the genitalia. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Actually, this is totally, totally normal because the parents encourage <v Dr. Mary Calderone>exploration by the child of his own body. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>You know what? Where is your nose and where is your ears and where is your hands and <v Dr. Mary Calderone>fingers and your tummy button? But then they always stop in the diaper area
<v Dr. Mary Calderone>and they are liable to get quite upset when the child finds his genitalia <v Dr. Mary Calderone>and gets pleasure out of touching them. But this is really entirely normal, and I <v Dr. Mary Calderone>think this is probably the first sign of the awakening sensations <v Dr. Mary Calderone>in the child. <v Samantha Dean>And at what age does this usually take place? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>It can happen very young. Three or four months. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>It can happen at 6 months. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>With, it was found by Kinzie, that perhaps 30 percent boy babies had had an <v Dr. Mary Calderone>orgasm in the first year of life. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>The second thing that a boy baby does after yelling is to have an erection. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>These are things that most people aren't aware of. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>In other words, children are born with the potentiality of becoming fully sexual <v Dr. Mary Calderone>people. If they weren't born that way, we'd have to call them abnormal. <v Samantha Dean>And how should parents react to this first demonstration of sexuality and child? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>I think that most psychiatrists, physicians today agree that the <v Dr. Mary Calderone>parents don't have to react at all. They can be happy that their child is normal
<v Dr. Mary Calderone>and that's about it and not be scared that their child is going to grow up a sex <v Dr. Mary Calderone>maniac or anything like that. <v Samantha Dean>Right. Well, we've established that sexuality is present virtually from birth or from a <v Samantha Dean>few weeks or months afterwards. <v Samantha Dean>When should you make your first conscious effort at educating a child? <v Samantha Dean>Along these lines, sexually? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>It's interesting that you use that word conscious because it depends <v Dr. Mary Calderone>a lot on what you've been doing unconsciously. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Most parents aren't aware I think of how much they do do unconsciously in sex education <v Dr. Mary Calderone>of their children, which literally begins at birth. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>There's no question about it that the child begins to sense what a woman is, what a man <v Dr. Mary Calderone>is. By the way, the parents pick up the child, handle the baby. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>The child gets to feel that a woman is a soft, giving, warm creature <v Dr. Mary Calderone>who smells deliciously of milk and has <v Dr. Mary Calderone>a soft voice and loving arms. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Possibly the child finds that a woman is not this kind of a person, that a woman is a
<v Dr. Mary Calderone>hard rejecting, hostile creature who has angry tones in her voice. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Perhaps when she speaks to the father, and then that becomes, that's sex education, <v Dr. Mary Calderone>because the child begins to associate these qualities with what a woman is. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Certainly the way the parents see each other and treat each other as man <v Dr. Mary Calderone>and woman. This is the very earliest sex education that a child <v Dr. Mary Calderone>can get. If the parents are loving and warm and accepting to each other and of <v Dr. Mary Calderone>each other and accepting of themselves as man and woman. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And happy in being man and woman and being together as man and woman. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>This is the best sex education that a child can have, particularly if the parents can <v Dr. Mary Calderone>express this love to each other. I mean, I don't mean necessarily in front of the child, <v Dr. Mary Calderone>but the aura is there of love and satisfaction in each other. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And the child senses this very, very early. <v Samantha Dean>So can continued expressions of affection, demonstrations of affection are very, very <v Samantha Dean>important to a child's development. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>I think so, yes. Particularly in the tones of the voice and in the warmth with which
<v Dr. Mary Calderone>the child is drawn into the circle of love and affection and <v Dr. Mary Calderone>acceptance. Dr. Masters always says that the best sex education <v Dr. Mary Calderone>a child can have is a father giving mommy <v Dr. Mary Calderone>a pat on the fanny as you go through the kitchen while she's doing the dishes or <v Dr. Mary Calderone>something like that course. Maybe you'll be doing the dishes. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Maybe she'll pat him on the fanny as she goes by. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>It probably is, certainly really young households. <v Samantha Dean>When should you take it one step further and actually talk about sex? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Information? <v Samantha Dean>Information? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Yes, I think that's a very important question. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Many parents want to know if they should bring up the subject if their children haven't <v Dr. Mary Calderone>asked. And it's true that, you know, the old joke where did I come from, <v Dr. Mary Calderone>mommy? And the long involved discussion and the child really want to know they came from <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Brooklyn or Buffalo. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>It's true that there are teachable moments. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>But if a child hasn't, by the age of four or so begun to ask about babies <v Dr. Mary Calderone>and where they come from and how they're made.
<v Dr. Mary Calderone>I would definitely make it my business if I were a parent. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>To bring up the topic, because there's always somebody in the neighborhood having a baby. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>This is a golden opportunity to tell this wonderful story. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Where babies come from, which, of course, is just the reproductive story. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>It's not the full sexual story, but it lays the groundwork for an easy and warm <v Dr. Mary Calderone>acceptance of the role of the father and the mother in the creation of the baby, which <v Dr. Mary Calderone>comes a little bit later. <v Samantha Dean>It seems that most preschoolers knowledge of sex is in the area of reproduction <v Samantha Dean>and they sort of imagine that sex or reproduction, rather, is the sole purpose <v Samantha Dean>for sex. That you have sex maybe four or five times a year. <v Samantha Dean>uh, in a lifetime, rather, depending on how many children you have. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>There's many preschoolers, I've heard twelve year old boys say, well, I guess my mom and <v Dr. Mary Calderone>dad did it three times because there's three of us. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>[Samantha Dean: Right. Yes.] And this is really quite sad, because what it does is to <v Dr. Mary Calderone>leave the young with the idea that sex is only and purely for reproduction. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>When the churches, we all know that the other and equally important <v Dr. Mary Calderone>role is a deepening of the relationship between the husband and wife.
<v Samantha Dean>So when should you bring up the idea of the pleasure concept? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>I think that the joy of the sexual relationship between <v Dr. Mary Calderone>husband and wife is something that can be very easily communicated by <v Dr. Mary Calderone>indicating that people do not have intercourse just to have a baby, that <v Dr. Mary Calderone>they really do it because they love each other. That is a tremendously private thing <v Dr. Mary Calderone>only for a mother and father together. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And that modern medicine has made it possible to have this <v Dr. Mary Calderone>beautiful relationship without necessarily having it result in a baby every time. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Now that is easily understood by the child of five, and that lays the groundwork for <v Dr. Mary Calderone>later acceptance of the whole principle of family planning, which is so vital to our <v Dr. Mary Calderone>welfare these days. <v Samantha Dean>But then you've necessarily got to incorporate birth control in your discussions? <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Not the techniques. I don't think that's important at all. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Because by the time the child is grown up, the techniques will have changed. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>So why go into a long discussion about them. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And I think that's totally out of place. I really do. <v Samantha Dean>What should your attitudes and approaches be to sex play in a child,
<v Samantha Dean>you know, experimentation, playing doctors. <v Samantha Dean>And-. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>This is part of growing up. This is part of the experimentation of discovering another <v Dr. Mary Calderone>person's body besides your own. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And again, it's not shouldn't be made a matter of big, you know, story <v Dr. Mary Calderone>or hoop-dee-do, but taken as it goes. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>All parents have gone through it and they lived through it. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And they become perfectly normal, happy people, I presume. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And children will keep on doing this till the ends of their day, till the end of mankind. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>I don't think it's a matter of tremendous concern. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>And I think it's a great pity if a big hassle is made of <v Dr. Mary Calderone>it in a neighborhood. Let's say if a little boy is found, as most little boys always <v Dr. Mary Calderone>do, picking up a little girl's skirts to see how a little girl is made. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>Little girls peek into the bathroom when the little boys are going to the bathroom. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>See how little boys are made. This is par for the course, they want to know. <v Samantha Dean>Because most the books that you read nowadays on sex play. Advised the parents to take a rather intellectual approach to it and certainly encourage questions and answer the questions, but advise the child that a more active approach to the subject is just not appropriate at the moment. <v Samantha Dean>Which-.
<v Dr. Mary Calderone>That's kind of intellectual, isn't it? <v Samantha Dean>It is, exactly. And I didn't-. <v Dr. Mary Calderone>It seems to me that one should not make too much of a thing about it. <v Speaker>I like to ask you a question, the other side of the coin approximately. <v Speaker>I'm sure it's difficult to say exactly, but what percentage of patients in America <v Speaker>are female? <v Speaker>That is, persons who seek help for emotional pain or institutionalized? <v Speaker>Well, Phyllis Chesler was one of the first people to really go <v Speaker>into this very carefully. And she concludes that women <v Speaker>far outnumber males in all kinds of psychiatric and <v Speaker>therapy, mental health therapy situations. <v Speaker>So what conclusions do you draw from this? <v Speaker>One model almost imagined that there are certain psychoses or disorders which are <v Speaker>uniquely female by this statistic. <v Speaker>I think that's probably true. Jesse Bernard, who's a very famous sociologist and who has <v Speaker>made a profession of her professional interest, has been marriage, <v Speaker>concludes in her book Women in the Public Interest.
<v Speaker>And another book that she wrote called The Future of Marriage that marriage drives women <v Speaker>crazy. She compares the man's marriage and the woman's marriage. <v Speaker>And she makes the point that marriage for men is a very good deal <v Speaker>in terms of his psychological health and so on. <v Speaker>For a woman who is not a single, men have a higher rate of <v Speaker>mental illness than married men, but single women have a lower rate <v Speaker>of mental health problems than married women. <v Speaker>Well, when you're talking about mental health problems, which which women suffer from <v Speaker>now, what are you talking about? Things like depression, psychosomatic illnesses or <v Speaker>anything that drives a woman to seek professional help because <v Speaker>of a, quote, emotional problem is comes into that category of a mental <v Speaker>health problem. And for some women, it might simply be the feeling that life was <v Speaker>not allowing them a normal amount of satisfaction, <v Speaker>just a feeling of dissatisfaction for other women. <v Speaker>It might be a fear that they were going to commit suicide or perhaps murder
<v Speaker>or whatever. <v Speaker>People have recognized for a long time that there tended to be many more women in <v Speaker>analysis than in therapy than men. <v Speaker>And one of the explanations for that was that it's more proper in our society <v Speaker>for a woman to admit that she needs help. <v Speaker>It's part of the traditional training of women for them to seek help. <v Speaker>Doctors in medical professions that is physical, non mental <v Speaker>health problems have also noticed that they have more women patients and they have <v Speaker>concluded male doctors have concluded that this is because it is <v Speaker>OK for a woman to say she's in pain and it's not proper for a man to say that. <v Speaker>And I think that's one of the reasons women seek medical help of all kinds more readily. <v Speaker>Did you find out about the female therapists in the field currently to date? <v Speaker>Do you think they're just reflecting the teachings of their. <v Speaker>And some are. Some aren't. <v Speaker>And some do in some ways and not in others. <v Speaker>For example, my advice to women who are trying <v Speaker>to see what kind of therapist would be good for them.
<v Speaker>What was going on? Whether or not it's a woman or a man. <v Speaker>Therapist I think they may want to consider. <v Speaker>But more importantly, I think they should ask questions like, how <v Speaker>do you feel, Doctor, about the feminist movement or the women's liberation movement? <v Speaker>How has it affected your practice? In what way have you changed because of <v Speaker>women's new and intense struggle for equality of opportunity <v Speaker>and employment and so on? And if the therapist, whether or not it's <v Speaker>a man or woman, gives any sign of disapproving of this seeking <v Speaker>after equality or gives any sign of ridiculing of it or <v Speaker>or criticism of the leaders, anything like that, I think would make me really <v Speaker>wary of that therapist attitude toward women. <v Speaker>An older woman is not of any value in this society. <v Speaker>And as evidence of that, we women.
<v Speaker>Most of us try very hard to preserve the <v Speaker>semblance of youth. We use cosmetics. <v Speaker>We use plastic surgery. <v Speaker>We lie about our age. <v Speaker>When I was 33 years old, I looked in the mirror and I said, there it is. <v Speaker>Thirty three. It's the first 33 year old woman I've ever seen. <v Speaker>And I had no idea. What? <v Speaker>You know what, Rudy? You know, I know people who were 19 and 20 <v Speaker>and I knew of women who were 70. <v Speaker>Nobody in between would admit her age. <v Speaker>Unfortunate thing that that struck me as women supposedly come into their prime as far <v Speaker>as sexuality is concerned in their 30s, few years after <v Speaker>that, they considered over the hill. So we have a very short term. <v Speaker>It's very short. I understand a woman is at her height at 34 and she's over the hill at <v Speaker>35. And I remember those few. <v Speaker>I wish somebody was looking in the mirror. <v Speaker>Fortunately, I read it at certain giving. <v Speaker>Advertising, the media and so on has it has a lot to do with perpetuating and emphasizing
<v Speaker>the youth cult and depicting middle aged people and perhaps less favorable <v Speaker>and not ever showing pictures of older women, except that they're funny, they're <v Speaker>a joke or they're sick, or that we see this all right. <v Speaker>Leaning our down our dancers again and again and again. <v Speaker>And it's the same thing with the same eyelashes and the same indeterminate <v Speaker>age. That could be it's indeterminate could be the nineteen or twenty five. <v Speaker>But sure, we see this. <v Speaker>But you do see older men in ads but not very old mean as you say, it's <v Speaker>a youth dominated culture and not all cultures are youth dominated. <v Speaker>Some are age revering cultures. <v Speaker>Yes. <v Speaker>Right. How about you, sister? <v Speaker>And my husband has been incredibly reasonable about the thing <v Speaker>in the beginning. He encouraged me to run for the legislature. <v Speaker>I've always said that there will never be any race more difficult than my first race.
<v Speaker>In 1968, when I ran for the legislature, I wasn't a token, I was a joke. <v Speaker>And he encouraged me without question. <v Speaker>As I became more immersed in my work, it became more difficult. <v Speaker>But again, no one had to make the decision in 72 about where I <v Speaker>was going. He encouraged me to run for the governors position, <v Speaker>something I really appreciated because so many people flinched at <v Speaker>the idea in the beginning. <v Speaker>He didn't, though. And just the other evening I was talking to him because <v Speaker>of right now I don't know really where I'm going personally, but as <v Speaker>Jill and I are both involved in the caucus, I have been EROI in such things. <v Speaker>It takes me away a great part of the time. <v Speaker>And he was saying that I couldn't stop by now. <v Speaker>So I guess you'd say that's exceedingly reasonable. <v Speaker>He all right. Being equal rights now, do you think there's any particular
<v Speaker>type of woman that gets into politics? <v Speaker>Are there any underlying similarities or can't you generalize? <v Speaker>You know, of course, you know the whole thing I say. <v Speaker>I came to the woman's movement through politics. <v Speaker>The woman's movement wasn't even it wasn't even a term in Texas in 1968. <v Speaker>I went into politics because I've always been interested in it. <v Speaker>I knew the obstacles, but I felt once, if I was elected, those obstacles <v Speaker>of being a woman in one thing wouldn't would go away. <v Speaker>They did not. <v Speaker>But that's that's another. <v Speaker>On another subject of one <v Speaker>dog there, though, that there were areas of vast neglect <v Speaker>that what we generally call women's issues. <v Speaker>So and now in the Texas legislature, instead of being one woman, <v Speaker>is it was the two terms. I served there six and <v Speaker>happily they're different types of different characteristics,
<v Speaker>different backgrounds, different training, different races. <v Speaker>And so I don't think there's any occasion. <v Speaker>I know there's a stereotype. <v Speaker>Yes. And you two, incidentally, are both very different from the traditional stereotype. <v Speaker>You're both very quietly spoken in low key, at least, you know, on cursory <v Speaker>acquaintanceship. This is the way you come over. <v Speaker>Do you feel this has worked to your advantage or disadvantage? <v Speaker>Well, I think it's something that I think that is my approach. <v Speaker>And I prefer, um, communication instead of confrontation. <v Speaker>Other women in politics have found that that the confrontation technique has been <v Speaker>successful in their point of view. And I think it's your own temperament. <v Speaker>I mean, it's you know, it's your own style. <v Speaker>I constantly urge women to run for office and get involved and not be turned off by the <v Speaker>styles of other women. So I believe if it didn't appeal to them, the guys could have us <v Speaker>look at the number of men who have so different. <v Speaker>I will say. Is there any one particular female politician whom you think is <v Speaker>particularly effective? Was his style appeals to you specifically?
<v Speaker>Oh, I think so. <v Speaker>A vast numbers of for example, I'm a great admirer of Bella Abzug. <v Speaker>I've often thought of it. Now, I don't think I could get seven votes in her district. <v Speaker>I wouldn't be heard. <v Speaker>For one thing, if she's a person of tremendous <v Speaker>ability, I think. And I just have a great deal of respect <v Speaker>for. And again, I don't think we have <v Speaker>much in common. <v Speaker>You know, to just see the two of us together and think Bella will get many votes and <v Speaker>she might. <v Speaker>She came off awfully strong in Commerce, Texas. <v Speaker>We'll get another couple of months ago she was down there. <v Speaker>But that's just one person. I'm sure there are others. <v Speaker>Shirley Chisholm, our great deal, Bella, I have worked more with <v Speaker>and I've heard it said and I'm in no way connecting this thought with <v Speaker>better obstacle or any specific person. <v Speaker>But I've heard it said very often that when women get in a position of political power, <v Speaker>they very often sell out to other women.
<v Speaker>In other words, that they don't use as many women as they perhaps might on their staff <v Speaker>and they don't campaign as actively feel for women's causes. <v Speaker>Do you think there's any truth to this? And if so, can you explain the psychological <v Speaker>phenomenon? <v Speaker>I would. May I say something in jail? <v Speaker>Because I think that's one of those fallacies. <v Speaker>Really? You do? Let me say again, from my own experience. <v Speaker>So one of those myths that could only be punctured <v Speaker>by being challenged is this thing of women not working for other women. <v Speaker>And I've seen a change from 1968 when I first ran <v Speaker>to 72, when I ran when a greater and greater numbers of <v Speaker>women were participating and worked their hearts out. <v Speaker>And I hope that I've been able to reciprocate in kind. <v Speaker>So to me, that's I think it's one of those myths that you've sort of <v Speaker>developed. <v Speaker>I think it may have been true maybe five or six or seven years ago that <v Speaker>women were not thinking about themselves as role models and they weren't thinking about
<v Speaker>the lack of other women in the system. <v Speaker>I've talked, I know, with Warren, who ran for the Senate in 1970. <v Speaker>She said one of her real problems was getting other women to accept her as a candidate. <v Speaker>This fall, she was also campaigning. <v Speaker>He said he felt that the whole acceptance of a woman in politics <v Speaker>would come around. <v Speaker>He's changed since 68. <v Speaker>And I see it now when I campaign and women say, well, wait till seventy six. <v Speaker>I mean, there's a real for the five men. <v Speaker>Congresswoman, I think that we're elected in November. <v Speaker>Barbara Jordan from Texas. About Brathwaite from California. <v Speaker>Marjorie Hall from Maryland. This whole from New York. <v Speaker>And Pat Schroeder from Colorado are women who are acutely <v Speaker>conscious of their role as women in the Congress and what they mean <v Speaker>to other women who aspire to public office and who feel very responsible for that <v Speaker>national constituency. They have it. <v Speaker>Yeah, I think that there was a tremendous sense of. <v Speaker>And I know from my own experience of isolation in the past
<v Speaker>that I don't think women officeholders now have. <v Speaker>When you name the five, I mean, there's there's an awareness. <v Speaker>And with that isolation, I know I had my own experience when I went to the Texas <v Speaker>legislature and I wanted to introduce legislation for State Human Relations Commission <v Speaker>that would prohibit discrimination based upon race or <v Speaker>religion or ethnic background. <v Speaker>And the professor that was drafting the. <v Speaker>Flation wanted to had sex, and I said, no, let's concern ourselves <v Speaker>with the minorities. He insisted that be put in one term later <v Speaker>and two years later, when I reintroduce that legislation in the Texas <v Speaker>legislature, I had no qualms whatsoever about aiding sex, prohibiting <v Speaker>discrimination based on sex simply because of what I had learned that I was not <v Speaker>aware of. Literally. <v Speaker>Do you think this sexual conflict is greater in politics than <v Speaker>perhaps in other institutions? I think you just don't know.
<v Speaker>For example, I say down in Texas that I'll take my chances with the electorate rather <v Speaker>than practice law as a woman in that state. <v Speaker>Really? Yeah. I mean, that that's just happened. <v Speaker>So. So I think there are those problems in all the institutions <v Speaker>and all the institutions that are powerful. <v Speaker>We have had this dichotomy in this country, you know, from finance, economics. <v Speaker>So all the professions, technology. <v Speaker>As I say, with its deadliest offspring of modern warfare <v Speaker>and politics, where the power hays has all been masculine dominated <v Speaker>and principally white male domination and we have <v Speaker>served as handmaidens. <v Speaker>You know, 90 percent, for example, of dietitians, librarians, <v Speaker>elementary school teachers and nurses or women. <v Speaker>Know those have been the roles of some women and also the political backbone of the <v Speaker>country.
<v Speaker>But in a in a volunteer situation, in a volunteer capacity, as <v Speaker>poll watchers, CEO has often said, had I waited on the Democratic Cook County <v Speaker>party in my home county new ACSU to run for office, I'd <v Speaker>still be answering telephones. <v Speaker>So you find it in that institution as well. <v Speaker>So that's a that's a role, I think that the caucus, the National Women's Political <v Speaker>Caucus is playing so well now, and it's encouraging women who have <v Speaker>gained vast experience in politics. <v Speaker>So volunteerism and, you know, taking the polls and addressing envelopes in <v Speaker>the Manning headquarters and who know how the process works. <v Speaker>And also being the experience of working in their communities and really know what the <v Speaker>social need to think of themselves in a new way, not as supporting cast, but <v Speaker>as potential candidates who have a terrific contribution to make. <v Speaker>When was the caucus setup and how long's it been going? <v Speaker>Well, it was organized in June 1971. <v Speaker>So two years old is coming in. <v Speaker>I think it's reflective of really the need it is for feel that it it has
<v Speaker>developed as as it has. And I really think when it was before I was involved because <v Speaker>I was down running for office or something. <v Speaker>Oh, was its insistence that it was time for a woman to be appointed to the Supreme <v Speaker>Court? And I think people now are generally aware of that. <v Speaker>I wanted to mention one thing before it passed. <v Speaker>And as I say that I have participated in the electoral process, which is what <v Speaker>I like a great deal, and I haven't had a textbook to do it. <v Speaker>And I think there are three terms that come to my mind that I think <v Speaker>are prerequisites and there are things that I believe. <v Speaker>But I think you can generalize from them. <v Speaker>First is an awareness. And I think you were speaking of that. <v Speaker>There's a greater awareness and you have to have the awareness before you do anything <v Speaker>and then you have to have an assertiveness. And I think what you're speaking of the role <v Speaker>of the caucus in getting women into moving on past the the <v Speaker>so much of the work they've done has called for a new assertiveness.
<v Speaker>And then I think there comes time for what I call audacity. <v Speaker>And it's the audacity that breaks down the barriers and. <v Speaker>Develops things for the future. <v Speaker>Ulceration is a what is normal jealousy? <v Speaker>I mean, what what comes within the bounds of normal jealousy? <v Speaker>Oh, I think their children are extremely jealous, especially the preschool children. <v Speaker>They resent the time you spend with the other baby who isn't walking or talking <v Speaker>or doing anything. They resent the attention of all the other people that come over <v Speaker>and forget about this older child who's there. <v Speaker>Forget to bring them a little toy or present and forget to include him in these things. <v Speaker>In most people, I recommend that you try <v Speaker>to spend more time with the older child because the baby isn't doing very much at that <v Speaker>point. And every anyone can hold and cuddle them, feed them. <v Speaker>It's the older child that needs the emotional attention.
<v Speaker>Mothers get tired. They have extra problems when babies come. <v Speaker>And I've had them say to me, I don't understand why he's so jealous of the new baby. <v Speaker>And I said, well, how would you feel if your husband brought home the second wife and <v Speaker>told you that he loved you just as much as he always had? <v Speaker>But here was a new addition. And somehow that seems to get through that, you know, they <v Speaker>do see it as someone who's replacing them and someone who takes the time <v Speaker>and attention and affection that they had for quarter of an and it's normal <v Speaker>to expect them to feel some jealousy. <v Speaker>You mentioned when should you tell a child about divorce during the arguing <v Speaker>stage, when the divorce has been filed or after the divorce is granted? <v Speaker>When at the point of separation and when <v Speaker>you are really considering the divorce, I think is the time and children hold out hope <v Speaker>that the parents are going to get back together even to the last moment. <v Speaker>And I think this is wrong. I think you have to tell them that this is final. <v Speaker>This is a final event, that you are not going to live together anymore and then turn
<v Speaker>around and give them support to handle their situation by saying, well, you still going <v Speaker>to live with me? If that is the mother or the father and that the other parent is still <v Speaker>interested in lump-sum and move, visit them and see them. <v Speaker>So you tell them the truth and then turn around and try to support them in the knowledge <v Speaker>of the truth. <v Speaker>You think it's ever a good thing to fantasize death to children and sort of say, well, <v Speaker>your uncle took a trip, he's up in the clouds now, he's flying around and he's really <v Speaker>having a good time? Or should you say he got sick and he died? <v Speaker>I think the truth is the only way to tell a child that somebody died and <v Speaker>it doesn't matter even how young the child is. <v Speaker>I feel that at any age you should tell them the truth. <v Speaker>What they'll understand about death is, depends on their age. <v Speaker>You can start telling children about death even when they're very young. <v Speaker>If they have a pet turtle or a goldfish that dies. <v Speaker>They'll turn it over and look at it and see that it doesn't move. <v Speaker>And that's death. And they understand very concretely.
<v Speaker>I think eventually about that. <v Speaker>If you fantasize about it and they feel and they get old enough, they <v Speaker>feel you've lied to them a little bit. <v Speaker>And every time maybe if they got in an airplane and they were going up in the <v Speaker>sky, maybe they're going to die and not come back, because that's maybe where you told <v Speaker>them uncle Henry went. <v Speaker>So you should use these day to day occurrences like discovering a little dead bird in the <v Speaker>street and sort of use it to explain. <v Speaker>The-. <v Speaker> There is always something. <v Speaker>The flowers, trees, seasons.. Everything you can. <v Speaker>You can teach a child. <v Speaker>How about if a relative is is terminally ill. <v Speaker>It's obvious he's going to die. Should you prepare the child in advance or <v Speaker>do you think this might have the effect of making the child very scared the next time <v Speaker>when he's ill? He feels that, you know, he's had his chips. <v Speaker>I think it depends. If the child is close to the relative or if you're very upset <v Speaker>about it yourself, you might as well tell the child because he's gonna know something's <v Speaker>wrong and he's probably going to imagine something much worse than than even what's <v Speaker>really happening.
<v Speaker>On the other hand, if it's a distant aunt who he never sees and you're not particularly <v Speaker>upset, it's good enough to wait until it happens and then say, well, you know, aunt <v Speaker>Maggie died and then deal with what comes next. <v Speaker>You know? <v Speaker>It's a very natural phenomenon, death and grief and working this out. <v Speaker>And if you don't prepare the child when they're very young to handle a situation like <v Speaker>that, they won't be able to do it. When you're older, they have to learn how to work <v Speaker>through grief. And it's a natural emotion. <v Speaker>You just shouldn't protect your children against that kind of a natural growing up <v Speaker>emotional process. <v Speaker>How did you. <v Speaker>I'm interested from a sociological point of view, do you find that men abuse children <v Speaker>any more, any less when they're at home, when the wife is the breadwinner with <v Speaker>any greater degree of frequency, for instance? <v Speaker>Statistics that we do have show pretty much, you know, even <v Speaker>kinds of things between father and mother. <v Speaker>One of the things about abuse, especially the serious kind, however, is that you rarely
<v Speaker>know what really happens because there's almost never an admission <v Speaker>by the parent, except maybe years later the abuse is documented by <v Speaker>medical evidence, really, so that no one comes <v Speaker>in and says, I did it. And it's often just you kind of guess which <v Speaker>parent may have done it. But it seems to be pretty well divided. <v Speaker>It's fairly evenly divided, although you'll find that Ellen and I may differ in a few <v Speaker>points because I read the medical literature and she may read the social literature, but <v Speaker>from what I gather from the literature that I read, the father is <v Speaker>the more abusing parent in overall numbers of cases. <v Speaker>But in the more serious cases, it's by and large the mother. <v Speaker>Why do you think this is so? <v Speaker>I really don't know. I think that's something for a psychologist to work out. <v Speaker>But there's this is rather clear in the statistics, at least of of medically reported <v Speaker>cases, that the father is the more at least to be abusers. <v Speaker>He doesn't abuse as badly as the mother does.
<v Speaker>Have you personally seen abuse cases where it has been the father who has been <v Speaker>instrumental? <v Speaker>Oh, yes, mother also. <v Speaker>The only fatalities that I've been involved with, <v Speaker>which were four, we're all mother. <v Speaker>Oh, really? Yes. Yes. How about boys versus girls? <v Speaker>Do. Did the girls, you know, suffer more or do boys suffer <v Speaker>more? Or is it more or less even? That's pretty much 50/50. <v Speaker>Right. <v Speaker>So sometimes it's the sex of the child that maybe causes the abuse. <v Speaker>But, you know, in a broad range of population that comes out to be pretty even. <v Speaker>Is it confined to any socio economic strata of society <v Speaker>or is it diversified? <v Speaker>I think it depends what study you do and where the reporting comes from. <v Speaker>That's, of course, the problem in all of this. When we talk about abuse, we're really <v Speaker>talking about cases that get reported. <v Speaker>So then you have to look at where are the ones that aren't being reported or are there <v Speaker>any. It's true that the poor tend to have to use, <v Speaker>you know, clinics, public hospitals and so on.
<v Speaker>They don't have the private pediatrician. <v Speaker>So they're much more visible. So that reporting could be weighted that way. <v Speaker>Actually, studies have shown contrasting things. <v Speaker>Some have shown predominately poverty areas and others have shown <v Speaker>more or less middle class. I would say most studies pretty much show <v Speaker>that it's not upper middle class America that's abusing their child or certainly not. <v Speaker>What's getting reported is a. <v Speaker>Dr. Marrow, there is a trend nowadays, isn't there, to give teenagers more control, <v Speaker>more freedom in their own lives. Now, do you think this control should spread to the area <v Speaker>of sexuality? <v Speaker>No, not at all. That it sounds very popular. <v Speaker>And I think the youngsters seem to think we're favoring them when we, the adult <v Speaker>generation say you're on your own. <v Speaker>We'll give you freedom. But I offer this observation that <v Speaker>a youngster who's been on earth for 18 years may possibly look <v Speaker>toward the older generation, the parents, the teachers and so on for truth,
<v Speaker>for guidance, for insight, for values. <v Speaker>And I think it is the great mission of the parent generation <v Speaker>and those whom the parents also entrust to the education of their children. <v Speaker>The great mission is to expose before the youngsters truths <v Speaker>or insights which might possibly help the youngsters in every area. <v Speaker>And I think when it comes to sex. <v Speaker>We have defrauded the average young person of today. <v Speaker>We have acted as if sex is some some sort of biological drive <v Speaker>and a man that unfortunately gets you into trouble unless you take precautions. <v Speaker>So therefore, show them what the contraceptives are and get out of my hair. <v Speaker>And I think that they were shortchanging the youth. <v Speaker>We have not told them anything of the mystery of sex. <v Speaker>The. The mystery of love, the meaning of life, the meaning of death. <v Speaker>This entire context against which alone sex <v Speaker>can be understood had been blacked out. <v Speaker>So I don't think the youngsters of today are especially fortunate.
<v Speaker>I don't I think that they are the impoverished youngsters of today because they don't <v Speaker>know and they haven't heard anything. <v Speaker>But to me, a biological viewpoint of sex that teenagers <v Speaker>might come back at you and say, well, we are not considered appendages any <v Speaker>longer of our parents. We have the right to vote. <v Speaker>We can be sent to war. We can in certain states marry without our parents consent. <v Speaker>Should we therefore not have the right to determine whether or not we have intercourse <v Speaker>before marriage? <v Speaker>Well, yes, I like you said, you are, in a sense, the teenage advocate. <v Speaker>I like this Declaration of Independence on your part. <v Speaker>But the point is that however old or young you are. <v Speaker>Never mind that you arrange your life originally depends on your parents <v Speaker>and the state and the medical doctors and the policeman who gave you some <v Speaker>sort of order. But I would suggest to teenagers and middle class, <v Speaker>middle age people alike that the entire mystery of human life ultimately
<v Speaker>depends on something called God. <v Speaker>And whether you call. <v Speaker>There is a bit of embarrassment when people want to speak about God. <v Speaker>But I simply say we are walking this planet. <v Speaker>I for forty five years, someone for 18 years, and we are like a mysterious <v Speaker>apparition. We don't know our origin. <v Speaker>We don't know our destiny. We have 60 or 70 years on this planet and then death. <v Speaker>And there is at least a great religious tradition which tells me and the <v Speaker>teenagers that God made you, not you yourself. <v Speaker>And then I would suggest to the teenager before his declaration of Independence <v Speaker>is complete, that perhaps he is depending upon a personal <v Speaker>God who does have the right to tell him, never mind whether <v Speaker>to have sexual intercourse before marriage, but also whether he should kill or not <v Speaker>lie or not steal again. You know, as the teenagers allegedly make <v Speaker>a great to do about how honest they are and they're so exercised
<v Speaker>over the horror of killing. <v Speaker>And my point is, why ought we not to kill me? <v Speaker>Who is telling them not to kill? Right. <v Speaker>So at least in this case, they suddenly recognize a law higher <v Speaker>than themselves, which forbids them to kill children at May lie and <v Speaker>they don't like dishonesty and phoniness. <v Speaker>So I also suggested that there may well be a divine law, <v Speaker>ultimately, by the way, for their own benefit, which tells them to posessed their bodies <v Speaker>in chastity and purity until they are able to <v Speaker>donate their secret to someone they love in a permanent bond. <v Speaker>I see your point, but in view of the reality of the situation that <v Speaker>more teenagers today are sexually active than ever before. <v Speaker>What should we do about this? <v Speaker>Well, I mean, I think whether what I say or not is heard. <v Speaker>I mean, I'm not going to change thing. What we are doing about it is say, go ahead, go <v Speaker>ahead, but protect yourself. That's the way of being responsible.
<v Speaker>I would add my lonely voice saying. <v Speaker>Have you ever thought of not going ahead? <v Speaker>Have you ever heard the word chastity? <v Speaker>And don't laugh now. Have you ever thought of keeping your bodily <v Speaker>integrity in your spiritual integrity until marriage? <v Speaker>So meanwhile, I admit that what I say is not going to change immediately. <v Speaker>But I would like to flatter the young people more than my <v Speaker>contemporaries in the teaching generation. <v Speaker>And I would like to offer them at least the ideal that there's something about sex, <v Speaker>which is a deep mystery. The very fact that a new man comes into being through <v Speaker>sex is very mysterious. It is much more mysterious than any electronic <v Speaker>phenomenon or anything in chemistry or physics that you yourself teenager <v Speaker>with all your hopes and dreams are on this earth because a man and a woman <v Speaker>united. This is a great mystery. <v Speaker>And I would offer to the youngster this ideal of purity, <v Speaker>premarital chastity, if in at least I would say this,
<v Speaker>that if a man falls, at least let him understand that it's <v Speaker>a tragic thing, a sinful thing, that he's squandering himself. <v Speaker>But nowadays we have this kind of pseudo scientific objective view <v Speaker>of things that will. Scientists now know where babies come from. <v Speaker>If it took science to tell us this and we're going to equip the youngsters <v Speaker>with with what they need to prevent this nasty thing called pregnancy, but not <v Speaker>a word about the deep experience of sex. <v Speaker>Not a word about the length of sex to love. <v Speaker>What do you think of the idea, though, of sex education being taught in the schools in <v Speaker>conjunction with parents educating the children along these lines? <v Speaker>Because presumably parents do have the primary influence on educating <v Speaker>the children in this area. And what they says he's got to say is going to have a lasting <v Speaker>effect. <v Speaker>Now, if it's well done in the schools, do you think this will just you know, I had no <v Speaker>objection that when sex education merely meant a serious
<v Speaker>biology, including human reproduction, I had never any objection to that, <v Speaker>nor simply if it meant a half hour film by menstruation or even <v Speaker>if people insist a half hour film on V-Day. <v Speaker>But as you know, the typical sex education curriculum begins in kindergarten <v Speaker>and ends in senior high school 30 years. <v Speaker>And I simply like to know how how long do you need to tell the people the <v Speaker>facts of life? So what they're really trying to do is not merely giving youngsters <v Speaker>the knowledge that might be necessary for this or that, but they're indoctrinating <v Speaker>the youngsters into a flat pseudoscientific. <v Speaker>Anti birth abortion mentality. <v Speaker>And and, by the way, not in conjunction with parents, but sometimes without <v Speaker>the parents knowledge and often without the parents concept, that there are hundreds <v Speaker>of thousand about outraged parents who simply have no political <v Speaker>vehicle whereby to vent their outrage, because if they pulled the trial at one school,
<v Speaker>the other school is just as bad. <v Speaker>So because there is a kind of monopoly of the school systems <v Speaker>where the public or parochial. <v Speaker>Those parents on my side are simply disenfranchised. <v Speaker>How would you suggest parents go about counseling their children on this <v Speaker>matter? <v Speaker>Well, one thing I find it especially frustrating that we often end up dealing with <v Speaker>the teenager who is under 16, who has had no prior conversations <v Speaker>with her parents on this subject and often finds herself in a difficult situation <v Speaker>such as suspecting venereal disease or possibly pregnant and with nowhere <v Speaker>to turn. And this is the teenager that isn't often reached <v Speaker>by the parents home and the school. <v Speaker>And consequently, it's usually a stranger that in some way takes over the management of <v Speaker>this child or this developing young woman.
<v Speaker>And often the lack of communication between this young girl <v Speaker>and her parents is most disturbing. <v Speaker>Often the younger I will insist that her parents not be involved in any discussion <v Speaker>period and you find because of the way the laws are. <v Speaker>Parents have to eventually become involved. <v Speaker>And it's a very traumatic experience for the child and the parents who find out for the <v Speaker>first time that they are in dealing with in their home with <v Speaker>a sexually active, rather young adult young woman who has had certain <v Speaker>wants, needs and desires that they have never been able to interpret or understand. <v Speaker>And consequently, there is a great problem and the problem is communication. <v Speaker>But do you feel that certain parents perhaps experience certain reservations <v Speaker>or raise objections and even have difficulty in coming to terms with the fact <v Speaker>that they're 12, 13, 14 year old child is sexually active? <v Speaker>And perhaps if they give them birth control or give them <v Speaker>education along this lines, this is sort of giving tacit approval or even actively
<v Speaker>condoning and a later ensuing sexual relationships. <v Speaker>I believe that the attitude between the parent and the child <v Speaker>begins developing very early in the child's life. <v Speaker>You're a young child, even in the preschool age range can come home with questions <v Speaker>that the parents response can can be very important to a parent that <v Speaker>hears a child come in with a with an honest and simple minded question <v Speaker>and says, gee, that's something we don't talk about or gives the child the impression <v Speaker>that sex is somehow dirty or something that isn't discussed in the home. <v Speaker>Ladies, I think a groundwork for a series of very difficult situations with <v Speaker>a child doesn't feel free to discuss these matters with the parent. <v Speaker>So I think even at the very earliest level in the child's life, <v Speaker>the parent can begin expressing an openness toward sexual discussions <v Speaker>that carries through into the child's later life so that they can deal <v Speaker>with problems straightforwardly.
<v Speaker>And secondly, I think there's there's no indication that the offering of <v Speaker>sound information is in any way an encouragement of <v Speaker>any kind of sexual crimes. <v Speaker>Do you agree with that? I think if the parent shows a certain willingness to <v Speaker>discuss things openly and fairly with the child and not intimidate the child, <v Speaker>the child will respect the parents opinion much more than if the child is simply <v Speaker>forbidden without basic understanding and knowledge to engage in certain activities. <v Speaker>Sexuality is part of our lives begins from the crib. <v Speaker>It doesn't have to necessarily lead to sexual intercourse at an early age, but it can <v Speaker>because of many of the frustrations and the rebellious attitudes of some of the <v Speaker>younger children. And if you have a greater understanding and openness that was presented <v Speaker>in the home where things could be worked out and discussed prior to the actual <v Speaker>adventure, certain things might change. <v Speaker>And at least the child would feel that there was a place somewhere to turn <v Speaker>to for a discussion before they finally made any decision and didn't have to fear that
<v Speaker>they were forced into a decision. Maybe on the basis of pressure from a boyfriend where <v Speaker>they had no one else to turn to to discuss. <v Speaker>And we see love and warmth, and consequently the whole matter of birth control <v Speaker>becomes one of after the fact. <v Speaker>The patients I see in the office who request birth control, the young ones in particular, <v Speaker>have already had intercourse many times. <v Speaker>They don't come in often for birth control until they've been frightened by the first <v Speaker>late period or until they're already pregnant and it's too late. <v Speaker>But the thing that baffles me is the intolerance of society towards <v Speaker>somebody who's been raped. I mean, how many times do you hear it say, oh, well, she <v Speaker>must've provoked him. She must have enticed him in some way. <v Speaker>You know that by denying the fact that rape has ensued. <v Speaker>How do you account for this? <v Speaker>Well, it's a number one fact in today's society that <v Speaker>rape is really the victimless crime, that the it's always <v Speaker>the alleged victim you see in the quotation marks, which
<v Speaker>isn't so joking. <v Speaker>It's really true that it's where in society and society in America, <v Speaker>you have to be proven guilty to be convicted <v Speaker>for the crime. A woman says that she's been raped. <v Speaker>And if for one small reason, she might have known the person or have seen <v Speaker>the man in her neighborhood or any kind of recognition of the man, <v Speaker>it's almost against the out of the books. <v Speaker>You can't convict that man because there must be some sort of collusion going <v Speaker>on between the two of them. And the woman is trying to get back at the man for some <v Speaker>reason or another, like a spiteful date situation. <v Speaker>And I wouldn't get that man and sic the police on him. <v Speaker>But that's. <v Speaker>So I use rape. Why wouldn't she use burglary or any other <v Speaker>crime? I mean, why would she? Why would she use rape? <v Speaker>Well, I don't believe that she would necessarily.
<v Speaker>But why do the law enforcers believe that? <v Speaker>I mean, the one applies to rape, whereas it doesn't apply to others. <v Speaker>I think there's the idea that somehow men, men are allowed <v Speaker>allowed to have sexual feelings. <v Speaker>It's the women that are the ones that are much more in control of their sexuality. <v Speaker>So that that if a man does come on to a woman, somehow she has done something <v Speaker>to bring out his sexuality. <v Speaker>I mean, like it's a fact that that it's acceptable if a man is married to have affairs <v Speaker>outside of marriage where a wife it's considered you know, it's a very shocking <v Speaker>kind of thing. And I. And it's been built in so much that we're talk about it that <v Speaker>if a woman wears a short skirt and she gets raped, it's because she wore a short skirt. <v Speaker>Or if she inside. <v Speaker>If she looks directly at a married man walking down the street, it's almost the <v Speaker>idea that she must have given showed something at her face that registered a <v Speaker>come on him in some way, or he would not pursue her. <v Speaker>That's something that she and then it's something and many women believe this because <v Speaker>they've heard it so often that indeed, when they when they are raped, they think, my God,
<v Speaker>did I maybe I was doing something at the time. <v Speaker>And it's one of those kind of so unknown things because women kept it inside because <v Speaker>it was for a woman to be raped. <v Speaker>It was almost like a blot on her. Her morality, she was looked at <v Speaker>in question, in fact, was in the paper. They'll keep the name out because of the stigma <v Speaker>of what it means to be rape, not the rapist. <v Speaker>They may be in it is not as awful as being the person that has been raped because she's <v Speaker>looked at to blame it. So she keeps it inside as generally secret. <v Speaker>She doesn't even tell her friend. So as you go through life thinking about maybe I did do <v Speaker>something, how do I know if I didn't? <v Speaker>This is your latest book, isn't that a teenager's Guide to Life and Love? <v Speaker>Right. <v Speaker>I'm always a little defensive when I see it because it's an extraordinarily conservative <v Speaker>book. <v Speaker>People think because I'm a radical politically, that everything I do should be equally <v Speaker>radical. And this is, I think to many teenagers, a very old fashioned
<v Speaker>dis seeming book. <v Speaker>And it shocks some of my more radical friends that I was responsible for. <v Speaker>I try to defend myself by saying bad teenagers <v Speaker>don't need a book. They find out about life for themselves. <v Speaker>They're not particularly troubled by life. <v Speaker>It's the ones who've been brought up very strictly with all the inhibitions. <v Speaker>The way I was brought up who are troubled by adolescence, the conflicting feelings, <v Speaker>what's going on in me? Is it bad or is it all right? <v Speaker>The book was really written for strictly brought up teenagers to try to explain <v Speaker>why they have these contradictions and anxieties. <v Speaker>Do you feel a special sort of responsibility as a baby doctor towards this generation <v Speaker>that you help careful by your book? <v Speaker>Oh, I do. When I think that that's part of what got me into the opposition in the war in <v Speaker>Vietnam. The fact that these really were the children brought <v Speaker>up, according to my book, at least according to their parents.
<v Speaker>I think that the people who approved of my opposition to the war in Vietnam <v Speaker>and other political crusades, they saw that. <v Speaker>They said, I can see that you're still interested in that with young people and don't <v Speaker>want them to be killed in a horrible, brutal, unjust <v Speaker>war. But the people who disagree with my politics, of course, <v Speaker>didn't see it that way all. <v Speaker>What do you think the Abbie Hoffman said today? <v Speaker>Our typical byproduct of your demand feeding type permissiveness? <v Speaker>No, I don't think that the kind of philosophy that I advocated has made that much <v Speaker>difference in the character of young people. <v Speaker>I think Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, they're a very special, unusual <v Speaker>type of person. <v Speaker>I I think that a lot of people, especially those who don't <v Speaker>like the more liberal and radical youths, assume that I created them with the advice <v Speaker>and baby and child care. But they forget that all the conservative young people nowadays <v Speaker>were raised by my book, too. In other words, any parent who used a book for practical
<v Speaker>purposes was using my book. So it obviously the book, if it has anything to <v Speaker>do with producing types, it produces conservatives, moderates and radicals. <v Speaker>I think I think we'd be foolish to pretend that communication is easy <v Speaker>between teenagers and their parents. I think that the very nature of our species says <v Speaker>there are going to be tensions and differences. <v Speaker>If everything were easy and beautiful between parents and teenagers, teenagers <v Speaker>would never leave home. It would be much better to stay there with mumsie and dads <v Speaker>and earn the money and provide the security. <v Speaker>Part of why you grow up and get impatient and go off to live your own life is because <v Speaker>underneath you don't want to stay under their domination. <v Speaker>So I think biologically it's bound to be difficult, difficult <v Speaker>at times. I think in some families it's difficult at times constant wrangling <v Speaker>and in others it's surprisingly calm. <v Speaker>But even in those families where it's very calm, I'm sure there are tensions underneath.
<v Speaker>This brings me to another question, that of independence. <v Speaker>This is a problematical one, too, sometimes because most teenage teenagers seem to crave <v Speaker>autonomy. Now, where should you draw the line here without abdicating parental <v Speaker>responsibility? <v Speaker>But I think that teenagers want to hear what their parents views <v Speaker>are, even though they don't really react, though. <v Speaker>They're not willing to admit it. No teenager says, I'm very glad to have heard <v Speaker>your opinion. <v Speaker>Not. When you're fighting to be grown up and to be independent, you can't concede too <v Speaker>much. But I think that underneath they want to hear what their parents say. <v Speaker>So I think parents should be very frank in expressing their views, <v Speaker>not with the idea. These are better views because I'm a parent and because I'm an <v Speaker>older, I'm older. But because as a person, this has been my experience in life and <v Speaker>I care about you and I want you to hear about. But I got off the track. <v Speaker>And, you know, that's that's basically on the track. <v Speaker>Do you think parents overreact sometimes because they're teenagers are getting away with
<v Speaker>things that they didn't get away with in their days, that not only that they're getting <v Speaker>away with things that the parents did didn't get away with. <v Speaker>But even if the customs were just the same. <v Speaker>Older people are envious of you. <v Speaker>Exactly. Anybody would like to be young again and starting over. <v Speaker>And I think that's part of the grittiness of parents. <v Speaker>What would your advice be to parents who discover that their son or daughter is smoking <v Speaker>marijuana? <v Speaker>I would assume I would tell them to assume their children are normal. <v Speaker>It's not that I advocate smoking marijuana, but certainly this is the custom. <v Speaker>I've read very carefully reports for three government commissions since 1936, <v Speaker>none of which have been able to come up with any evidence that marijuana smoking is <v Speaker>permanently harmful in any way. <v Speaker>So that certainly isn't nearly as harmful as tobacco <v Speaker>or alcohol. Alcoholic drinks, we know that those kill hundreds of thousands <v Speaker>of people. So it's a relatively harmless drug
<v Speaker>and it is the custom. When I was in college, the custom was to get drunk among <v Speaker>a certain number of my pals. <v Speaker>And I wouldn't I wouldn't advocate that either. <v Speaker>And I wouldn't. I think if we had a really good society and everybody had a good life, <v Speaker>people wouldn't need to knock themselves out with booze or marijuana or anything else. <v Speaker>I think it's just foolish for parents to come or the authorities to become hysterical <v Speaker>about marijuana. That's a really surprisingly undangerous <v Speaker>drug. <v Speaker>I got a small bone to pick with you. <v Speaker>In a teenager's guide to life and love. You say the more spiritual qualities of love are <v Speaker>almost exclusively the monopoly of girls who are admonished to resist the advances <v Speaker>of males in whom physical sexuality is generally more insistent, less <v Speaker>tightly tied to tender and romantic spiritual side of love. <v Speaker>Now, how are we to get rid of the double standard? <v Speaker>So long as boys are given advice like that by such enlightened doctors as you? <v Speaker>Now you weren't quoting me word for word, were you? That's a, a summary because it
<v Speaker>sounded a little, little more pompous than I would have said. <v Speaker>I think this is an example of perhaps of where I'm a little old fashioned <v Speaker>because I think in previous decades it has been assumed that men <v Speaker>were more aggressive sexually. <v Speaker>I'm willing to concede now that that I don't mean that I'm noble to do so. <v Speaker>I just admit that that could have been a preconception because <v Speaker>it was accepted that that was the way men were to be more aggressive. <v Speaker>Certainly what's happened in the last 10 or 15 years that <v Speaker>girls and women have become a lot more aggressive sexually. <v Speaker>One of the places that I got that from was the Kinsey Reports, which, of course, were... <v Speaker>The material was gathered 25, 30 years ago. <v Speaker>They said one of the most startling conclusions that they came to <v Speaker>when they came to write the book on sexuality and women is how <v Speaker>women seem to be able to accept
<v Speaker>women who are who were either had been maiden ladies all along <v Speaker>or women who had been divorced. Um, women who had been widowed seemed <v Speaker>without great tension to be able to get along without sex the rest of their life. <v Speaker>Whereas it's it's always been. <v Speaker>And men twenty five years ago told the Kinsey people, if they <v Speaker>were honest, that they were sort of on the prowl. <v Speaker>Maybe they didn't do anything, but they were thinking about sex a great deal of the time. <v Speaker>So I think I got it from such sources as that, which was not just opinion, <v Speaker>but it may well have been biased by preconceptions. <v Speaker>Dr. Spock, time has absolutely whizzed by. <v Speaker>Thank you very, very much. A very interesting, informative talk. <v Speaker>Thank you. Good night from women. See you again next week.
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Composite
Producing Organization
WNED
Contributing Organization
The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip-526-gh9b56f93g
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Description
Series Description
"WOMAN is a 30-minute weekly discussion series which explores the world of contemporary woman. The purpose of the series is to present information about Woman as wife, Woman as mother, and Woman as a force in society. The series is geared not to a particular 'type' of woman, such as housewife, or feminist, but rather attempts to reach a cross-section of the population. The ultimate goal (of the series) is to stimulate conversation among groups of women, and to encourage the free flow of ideas. Subjects for discussion range from 'Frigidity', 'Sex Education', 'Teenagers Today', 'Alternatives to Traditional Marriage', to 'The Working Mother and Day Care', 'The Older Woman', and 'Woman and the Law'. Guests include such national authorities as Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dr. Mary Calderone, Frances (Sissy) Farenthold, Ellen Peck, Barbara Seaman, and Wilma Scott Heide, as well as regional and local figures. Following each program a bibliography of suggested readings is offered to viewers free of charge. A panel composed of a psychologist, psychiatrist, gynecologist and pediatrician provide resource material and advice."--1973 Peabody Awards entry form.
Broadcast Date
1973
Asset type
Compilation
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
01:00:39.572
Embed Code
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Credits
Guest: Heide, Wilma Scott
Guest: Seaman, Babara
Guest: Peck, Ellen
Guest: Spock, Benjamin, 1903--1998
Guest: Farenthold, Frances Sissy
Guest: Calderone, Mary
Producer: Elkin, Sandra
Producing Organization: WNED
AAPB Contributor Holdings
The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia
Identifier: cpb-aacip-fc6ab1a3240 (Filename)
Format: U-matic
Duration: 1:01:25
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Citations
Chicago: “Woman; Composite,” 1973, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-gh9b56f93g.
MLA: “Woman; Composite.” 1973. The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-gh9b56f93g>.
APA: Woman; Composite. Boston, MA: The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-gh9b56f93g