Sex Ed
I enter Eitan's room to have the conversation. Eitan reading his ManU magazines and the last thing in the world he wants is a discussion about girls, and whatever comes with that package. I remember being about Eitan's age, lying on my bed on a lazy Sunday reading comics (Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider Man - issues #1-25 mint) and my father having the same conversation. In the UK, sex education is a compulsory part of the national curriculum in primary and secondary schools to cut teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, which I applaud though many uncomfortable with the general early start. Britain has some of the worst statistics in Europe. A new personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum, expected by 2010, will include compulsory sex and relationships education as well as better advice warning children against drugs and alcohol. Children will learn about body parts and the fact that animals reproduce from the age of five, puberty and intercourse from the age of seven and contraception and abortion from the age of 11.
Madeleine and I spend the entire afternoon at Eitan's 8-11 borough swimming championships, watching him compete two laps. At least they were 33 meters and he tries the butterfly. Madeleine is to die from boredom and, frankly, so am I.
