A park custodian flailed through the bush to corner
the girls against the fence. "You filthy kids! Don't
you even know how to use a bathroom?" Thereafter Elaine
avoided all sex play, the park, and even the friends she had
enjoyed.
She imagined that all the adults in the area were
aware of her disgrace and fully expected that a letter would
be sent to her mother. She had suffered a profound humiliation.
During latency, our customs continue to mark girls as having
more to hide.
An enclosed toilet is in the girls' bathroom
at school, while the boys' has an open urinal. Showers are
seldom required for girls' gym, but usually required for boys'.
Girls are expected to be more circumspect about manners,
language, and clothes which cover. Shirts are definitely not
optional. Girls continue to feel ashamed.
Happily, some forces act to enhance the latency-age child's
erotic development. Chief among these is the formation of
groups.
Children band together in clubs for pleasure and
mutual support. Sex is often high on the agenda. The more
inhibited talk about it, the less inhibited experiment. Boys'
clubs may entice a girl specifically for sex play.
Girls' clubs
are aware of seduceable boys. As boys and girls grow older,
an occasional mixed club is formed specifically to investigate
sex.
The latency-age child sorely needs a sense of potency.
Adults provide little direct reassurance when they assume
that the child is uninterested in sex. Fortunately, other children
do see each other's organs and exploits as intriguing.
Indirectly, potency is affirmed through the plethora of competencies
which the child now develops. He can deliver
papers, make money, wash the car, and use the telephone.
He
feels able to deal with almost anything-even sex. Astute
parents express their pride in these achievements, and thus
indirectly augment potency.
In a work-oriented family, achievement itself can become
the child's central focus. Jack gallops from kite-flying to
garage-cleaning to ceramics between two bites of hamburger.
He disdains his mother's hug as he prepares to leave for Little
League. Jack also participates in sex games at the clubhouse,
but not for long. Strip poker is awfully tedious, and
what do you get if you win anyway?
Parents need to balance the active with the passive in
their own lives if they're to help children like Jack. Leisurely
meals with time to savor the food, sunbathing, listening to
music, and reading for pleasure provide gratification in
which all may share.
Most girls and many boys enjoy a back
massage. Around the dinner table questions such as "What
did you get?" and "How much did you accomplish?" need to be
balanced with "How did it feel?" and "How could you really
enjoy it?"
When an erotic child reaches latency, his parents can no
longer protect him. If he's sexually open and responsive he
may meet situations for which he's ill equipped. If he speaks
frankly about sex, his group leader may be shocked. If he
propositions a girl, she may tell her mother.
He can be ostracized
from Sunday school. All parents can do is to prepare
him for some contingencies and reassure him when he meets
rejection. "Chuck, Marian's parents may not like you wrestling
with her. Best you ask them first."
When Chuck returns
home crestfallen because Marian's parents said he was too
old for her, he can be helped to understand that different
adults may subscribe to different values. Since his sense of
potency has suffered, his father can say, "We both know that
your body looks good and can feel good too. In truth, Marian
may be too young for you."