#im really sick og the 98% childfree website tumblrinas thinking that their memories of their own childhoods

[unforth]

Shower thoughts about "kids shouldn't be allowed on the internet until (insert arbitrary age here)" and "kids shouldn't even know about sex until (insert arbitrary age here" are adjacent flavors of the same incredibly flawed idea that like...

There are these Big Things that, when we reach a certain age, are likely to be day-to-day relevant in our lives. Even if we don't have sex daily or use the internet daily, these topics come up in our media, our discourse, our news, our surroundings, every single day.

And the "kids shouldn't be using the internet" thing posits a reality where we can keep kids from knowing about it or wanting to use it - when many parents use it daily! - until some arbitrary time when "they're ready" and then suddenly they are allowed to, with all the knowledge and skills and curiosity of being that age, go loose on something they've never learned how to use. Likewise with sex, the ages most people say it's "okay" when they make these arguments are usually teen years, when the AVERAGE age when USAdians lose their virginity is 17. Considering how many people on this website routinely report being virgins in their 20s or 30s, how many kids are fucking at 13 to make the average that low? What do you think happens if their sexual awakenings come at the same time *or before* anyone has given them age appropriate sex ed?

For the internet, I can actually say anecdotally, what happens! Because we got internet at home when I was 12. Issues included me spending ludicrous amounts of money on pay-by-the-hour usage (did you know that in the mid 90s AOL charged by the hour? Now you know.), addictively hanging out in chats and playing muds until 2 am, then attending school daily on 4 hours sleep, fending off countless A/S/L messages from weirdo old dudes, and being solicited for cybersex with strangers! And I had no idea what I was doing! And here again is the overlap of internet and sex!

Anyway. I told myself I'd keep this short but here we are.

Age-appropriate sex-ed, age-appropriate internet usage, age-appropriate [insert thing you think kids shouldn't know anything about at all for some fucking reason] will almost always keep children safer than throwing them in the deep-end when they're older.

[What WHO says about age-appropriate sex ed][related lit review]

[UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children device usage guidelines] [American Psychological Association advice]

Teaching children age-appropriate things about ubiquitous topics is prevention and is the best way to keep them safe. Period. End of story.