Grace was the first of six children born to an immigrant family. They had traveled from their home in central Europe to farm the rocky soil of northern Minnesota. By hand they dug rocks from the fields, built stone walls, and planted corn and rutabaga. They raised chickens and milked several cows. Grace shouldered major responsibility for the younger children. She bathed, dressed, and fed them. Space was limited and children slept together for warmth. An invalid grandmother lay on the couch closest to the stove; as she became feebler Grace assisted her mother by heating her bath water and sponging her wrinkled skin.
The mother's chief concern
was not to prevent the children from viewing the grandmother
naked, but to keep the grandmother covered from the
cold. Children often watched each other's bare bodies and in
the summer would skinny-dip together at the river.
An unlocked privy supplemented by a pot in the winter
was the family bathroom. Grace remembered that the
younger children, and sometimes the older, would creep
behind the privy and peer from beneath to catch another
while enthroned. She remembered a game she played with
the infant boys.
She tickled the penis to make it grow "like a
flower," while the other children pointed and giggled. One little
brother asked the parents at the dinner table about a
thumping noise he had heard the night before. The father
smiled at the mother and said, "We were making babies-,
you've got to make a lot of noise to make healthy babies." The
other children grinned and glanced at one another. Later
they provided their less sophisticated sibling with a detailed
and fairly accurate description of what had occurred the
night before. Another time Grace's four-year-old sister was
absent-mindedly rubbing her crotch on the bedpost. The
father covered her with a blanket, claiming that she was distracting
the others who were supposed to be studying.
Partly because the farm was isolated and partly because of
family custom, Grace was not courted until she was almost
nineteen years old. Six months later she married that same
young man, also from an immigrant family. Although both
were naive and clumsy, Grace experienced regular orgasms
after the first few months of marriage.
Despite diverse religious, educational, and cultural backgrounds,
these families reared children with healthy attitudes
about sex. What did they have in common? First, the
parents were comfortable with their own sexuality, and
freely communicated this to the children. Second, they maintained
a balanced perspective, according sex a position
among other important values.
They didn't overemphasize
eroticism through shame or punishment, or underemphasize
it through avoidance. Achievement was not allowed to overwhelm
pleasure, and pleasure did not supersede consideration
for others. Third, parents approached eroticism just as
they approached other important developmental aspects.
The family actively shaped and channeled the direction and
expression of the sex drive. Fourth, the children's independence
was encouraged so that sexual interests would extend
outside the family; the guilt and frustration which would
otherwise result were thus avoided. Fifth, parents provided
an experience in intimacy, which imbued sexuality with
depth and substance. With humor and tenderness these parents
enriched and strengthened their children's sexuality.