They should just learn about it the good ol' fashioned way: TV, internet, and rape.
No, but for srs...
I'm not a parent, and I know that the process of becoming one opens you up to a whole new world of biases that you wouldn't arse before. Parents have a need to "protect" their children from anything that they think poses a threat to their "innocence". It's a natural feeling, instinctual, and it should in no way be changed. The problem here is not the instinct to protect the child, but rather what the modern parent believes a child should be protected from.
Sex is a big one. Adults seem to believe that if children learn about sex too early, they'll become sexual pariahs or, somehow, nymphomaniacs. If anything, kids should learn about sex from their parents as opposed to learning it from sources they're told to keep away from. This creates the illusion that sex is some kind of seedy thing you only do with no-names in scummy hotels as opposed to something you should enjoy with someone close to you. Teaching kids to masturbate sounds fab. Kids already do anyway. They just don't get anything out of it because, until they hit puberty, they're androgynous drones.
I feel in general, its modern beliefs among adults that make kids so messed up. We barely give them any room to grow, smothering them with societal stigmas as soon as they all fall out and doing our damndest to suppress their imagination and curiosity. They make an imaginary friend, we take them to the clinic to be doped up because it leads to "unruly behavior" or "delinquency". All in all, parents should pass on certain information to their kids so they don't always have to learn things the hard way, but when a child starts to develop a sense of self and they want to express it... well, its pretty sick to think of all the parents out there that try to suppress this.
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