Jessica Biel believes in being open and very honest with her young son.
And this belief system has now gotten the actress in trouble with some critics on the Internet.
Speaking at the 2018 MAKERS Conference on Tuesday, Biel sat on a panel with CEO of WCG and CEO of Evofem Biosciences Saundra Pelletier and ex-Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Elaine Welteroth.
At one point in their candid conversation, the topics turned to kids, sex and relationships.
“How do parents…pick up where sex education leaves off in the school system?” Welteroth asked the other two women, which prompted some interesting comments from Biel.
“In my household, I have a two and a half year old and we’re starting now,” the actress explained, referencing her husband (someone named Justin Timberlake) and their son, Silas.
She continued:
“We shower together, and [we say], ‘This is what I’ve got. This is what you’ve got.
“We just talk about it. I know it’s really young, but I really believe that if you start this early, there’s no shame.
“I don’t want to tell him, ‘Keep your private parts,’ and this and that. It’s a beautiful thing. You have it and mine is different and it’s cool, man.
“We have to respect ourselves and respect each other.”
Biel also said that she and Timberlake don’t sugar coat the names of their private parts with any silly terms for the sake of their child.
They went him to understand how everything works and what everything is really called.
“I think I still go back to this idea that it doesn’t have to be so serious,” Biel said of sex education, adding:
“If you want to laugh and say vagina and laugh or say penis or whatever, well do it! Laugh and get it out, get the giggles out and then ask the real question that you know you have.
“I think that’s always what happened to me when I was young… you could barely get past the giggles to ask the real question, which was a really probably important question that as a young person you needed to know.”
It’s a fair point.
If parents are not open with their children about this topic, the kids may very well try to find out certain answers on their own.
And it’s not hard to imagine this going very poorly.
However, some trolls out there are aghast that Biel would go anywhere near the subject of sex with her two-year old son.
She’s being called “stupid” and “disgusting” and lots of other mean words.
To wit:
As if these remarks weren’t cruel enough, someone else suggested Biel and Timberlake should not even be allowed to have children.
For real:
It’s a pretty interesting debate, right?
Not whether Jessica and Justin ought to be parents. That’s unfair, close-minded and downright absurd.
But at what age do you talk sex with your kids? At what age do you give them an idea of what’s going on with their bodies and how they came into the world?
Is Biel being a responsible mother here?
Or is she getting too far ahead of things with young and impressionable Silas?
