ABUSE OF SON PROMPTS KENNEDY TO CHANGE SEX-EDUCATION STANCE
Chair of Toronto Catholic board had been outspoken in opposition to updated curriculum,
Up until now, Angela Kennedy has been an outspoken critic of the province’s new sex-ed curriculum.
But, devastated after learning her son had been sexually abused as a child, the chair of the Toronto Catholic board has changed her mind.
“After what’s happened with Brian, I asked him: ‘What can I do?’ And he said: ‘Support the sex-ed curriculum,’ ” Kennedy said of her son, who is now 30 and a teacher.
“He said, ‘Children need to know those facts — you can’t have a dialogue without those facts. This is what you can do.’ So I took a look at it, went through every grade, went through it thoroughly, and thought, ‘You know what, this is all good information.’ ”
Asked if she had read the curriculum back when she argued it was out of step with Catholic values, she responded: “I had read it, but this time I read it with a different perspective, a different feeling, a different lens. Maybe (this time) I read it less with the lens of a trustee, and was now reading it with the lens of a parent,” and one whose own son had disclosed abuse.
Ontario’s updated health curriculum has been controversial among some parents, who argued the information is age inappropriate and includes things that should be taught at home, at a time parents choose.
In Grade 1, children learn the proper terms for genitalia; in Grade 3, about accepting differences, which can include talk about families with two moms or two dads; puberty in Grade 4, sexual consent in Grade 6, and abstinence and sexually transmitted diseases in Grade 7.
Angela Kennedy is a mother still reeling from her son’s revelation, and she’s not sure if it would have made a difference if he had had such information. He in no way blames his parents for the abuse a man in the neighbourhood inflicted on him when he was growing up.
However, she said, the fact is “he said he didn’t have all the information. I don’t know if having it would have protected him or not, but it’s better to have the information than not.”
The sex-ed curriculum was an issue she, husband Alistair and their seven sons had debated, especially last fall when it was first introduced in schools. (She had tried to get the Catholic board to pressure the province to delay its implementation.)
“It was not an enjoyable conversation around the kitchen table,” Brian recalled. “I tend not to speak about politics with my mom, and this was one thing where I kind of really had to stand up for it . . . especially around September, when it was implemented, there was so much fear-mongering and misinformation around the curriculum, and parents were pulling their kids out of school.”
At some point, “my anger with that fear-mongering and miscommunication resonated with her,” he said, adding she really began to see the importance of the curriculum after she read the detailed and moving story he published online in February.
He told his parents only this past summer about the abuse he suffered at age11. “They were the hardest people to tell,” he said, knowing it would be a “horrifying feeling” to learn what he went through, and he didn’t want them to feel responsible.
Like his friends who grew up in Catholic households, he doesn’t recall hearing about sex from his parents. “I learned about sexuality from TV and older kids in the neighbourhood, which is not a safe and positive space,” Brian said. “It’s much more exploitative; it’s not a space where you could ask questions.”
Angela Kennedy said she doesn’t recall “sitting each and every one of them down” to talk about sex, but does recall some conversations. When she was growing up, “it was pretty taboo,” she said. “I’m a nurse, and I thought I was open,” but with a big family the days were busy, and, anyway, “sex talk is pretty difficult in a Catholic family.”
Working in the health field, she saw the value of sex education, “but I couldn’t figure a way where I could still protect the Catholic faith and Catholic values . . . but it was plain to me after discussions with the boys that I can. You just teach the facts, and then as parents you can give a Catholic perspective or give whatever religious perspective you want, after you have the facts.”
Brian Kennedy, who is on leave from the Catholic board, has seen a therapist and joined a male survivor group. “I’m an educator and a person who believes, and who has seen the positive effect of telling people and talking about it,” he said. He went public in part to help other survivors.
As he wrote: “I’m a living example that we need more dialogue around sexual health, not less. We need to encourage boys and girls to ask questions, or risk that they’ll bury them, like I did. I believe that if I were exposed to this dialogue, to this curriculum, that I would have had a chance at identifying, addressing and confronting my abuse much earlier than I did.”