Lets talk about kids and condoms

Of late, there has been a condom advert that keeps popping on our TV screens during prime time news when you least expect it.

If you are a grown-up and live with fellow adults, you can entertain this advert. But if you are a mother like me with small kids, it’s a bit unsettling.

Just imagine sitting cosily with your five-year-old bracing to watch prime time news and then the sensual advert emerges. That is the time you wish Kenya Power could pull one of those random blackouts.

To my horror and displeasure, my almost six-year-old daughter Tasha has a particular liking for this sexy advert. I think it is because it features things that she fancies; a beautiful woman, sometimes a beautiful car and sometimes gorgeous high heels.

Now, whenever this advert comes on TV, she retorts innocently, “Mum what are condoms? Can I have some?”

“Condoms are for big people and no you cannot have them.” I always shut her down and change the channel. (Yes I do that without apology) I think she believes they are sweets.

Sex education is indeed an important subject that parents should talk to their children about, especially in this day and age when statistics show that kids are having their first sexual encounter as early as ten years.

But be that as may be, I feel that the sex advert is totally inappropriate at that crucial hour when the family and kids are having dinner.

There is no doubt the advert has very good intentions (saving lives) but the timing is just so wrong, especially for families raising socially responsible kids.

I think the advert should run during saa za watu wazima (adult hours) like after 10pm when most kids have hit the sack.

Call me old-fashioned and backward, but I don’t like to be put in a situation where I have to explain to my under-age daughter what that rubber packaged in an attractive pack is for. I honestly feel she is not ready to have such a mind blowing (no pun intended) conversation.

I mean in as much as we are living in an era of high societal moral degradation, there are parents who are doing their best to raise their kids in a proper manner.

Sometimes I feel TV has so much filth from sexually explicit soap operas to sexually charged adverts.

As parents, we ought to be proactive in preventing our minors from such degradation. Is any parent feeling me?

Photo: www.esscence.com