stomach and liver

The stomach and liver and bowel are organs to do with food and digestion.

The lungs and wind pie are organs to do with breathing. It is not necessary to know how they work now, but it is a simple fact that they work exactly the same and look exactly the same in men and in women.

The sex organs, however, are different in a man and a woman. They work differently and they look different.

The female sex organs are all to do with girls growing into women and the male sex organs are to do with boys becoming men.

Both male and female sex organs are part of the reproductive system. They are the parts of your body concerned with reproducing life. There is no other way in which new life can be created than the way designed and built into your nature. This places a great responsibility on men and women. Their responsibility is firstly in bringing about the birth of ne life and in caring for and looking after the young child; secondly, it is to pass this knowledge and wisdom to the next generation so that they in turn will know the importance and dignity of being parents.

Diagrams are used

Diagrams are used to show how things work. They are better than photos because a diagram can show inside something. Whenever you buy a machine of any kind or a car or model, you will be given a labeled diagram, so that you can understand how it works and look after it properly.

If you understand about your body you can care for it and if anything seems to be at fault you can explain to the doctor what and where the trouble is.

It is an important step towards growing up, to understand about you. Knowledge gives you independence, for as long as you have to ask other people you are dependent upon them. So it is a good thing to know and understand about yourself: it makes you confident and removes your fears and worries.

What you learn in this book is only a very simple explanation of those parts of you which are involved in your development from boy to man. You will learn in much greater detail at school about the functions of each part of your body.

For instance, the heart and veins and arteries are organs to do with blood circulating in you.

All about your body

Everything in this book is reliable information and you can use it with confidence.

If your parents bought it for you, this is like giving you permission to talk about these matters to them. They are saying here is a book which says everything we would like to say to you. It has the right words and explanations, and we hope it will help you to understand some very important facts about your life
When you learn human biology in school you will hear words used like organs of the body and reproductive systems. Many of the names used will be strange foreign words, mostly Latin or Greek. We don’t have English words to substitute for these and so doctors continue to use the foreign names.

Boys have plenty of nicknames for parts of the body and no doubt you use these talking to your friends. However, here we will use the proper names so that if you ever needed to ask a doctor about yourself, you would have the right words and you would know what he was talking about.

There are also some diagrams in the book which will all be labeled with the correct names.

Questions for the parents

Over the years, many of the questions may have been answered in part by your parents. You may talk to your friends about these matters and so share all the little bits of information gathered from older brothers and sisters, or by listening to adults talking.

Eventually it is necessary for you to put it all together and sort it into some kind of order that makes sense for your own life.

That is what this book is for. It does not expect to surprise you with all sorts of new facts, but it is going to attempt to state clearly and progressively how a boy develops and becomes a young man. When you first read it, just take in what you need to know and see if you can decide where about you are, and what stage in your growth you have reached.

Afterwords keep it on your bookshelf in your bedroom and use it whenever you need to check some information. Maybe friends will ask you something about themselves, or maybe they will say things which you doubt or disagree with or want to find out if they are true.

World is not home

The world was not like home, always full of friendly people.

However, because your parents still went on loving you, you learn t that it didn’t matter if some boys didn’t like you-that was their problem. You knew you were likeable because your parents told you so by the way they loved and cared for you.

This was a very important lesson for you to learn from your parents. It will help you through the next few years.

The next few years are contained in words like teen ages and adolescence and stranger words like puberty. You have probably heard them all at different times. They mean, very simply, the in between years. The time when you are no longer a young boy and not yet a man. They are important years because many changes will take place in you, in your body and in your mind.

You will have many questions you will want answered about you and your feelings, about girls and how they change and become women, about love and this word sex that all the boys seem to joke about.

It is possible that you have already seen films about these subjects at school, or maybe had talks from a teacher or a nurse or a marriage counselor.

Boy growing up

When he went in, his mother invariably said, you’re late, talking again I suppose, I don’t know what you’ll do when you really have to work. He was never quite sure if that was a question or an argument. Best to keep out of arguments and the best way to do that is to keep out of the house.
Pete is just a typical boy growing up. You and your friends are all about the same age as Pete and his friends. Your happiest times are when you are together. You enjoy freedom and getting away from authority, which at the moment probably means school and parents.

It was not always like this. There was a time when you were little and you felt safest close to your parents. Home was where you could be yourself; it was safe to be naughty, you knew all the rules. It was also safe because you knew you were loved. Your parents gave you lots of time and love. They taught you many things about talking, about playing, about looking after yourself.

Going visiting was another kind of adventure. You had to learn to play with other children. Some you liked and looked forward to seeing, others you had fights with: you did not like them and they did not like you.

It is springtime

It was springtime. The four boys came out of school together. They always did: Andy, Nick, Pete and Tony had been friends since they began in primary school.

“Coming out tonight? Asked Andy.

Where to
Just out. Someone’s put a rope on that old oak in the park. You can swing over the stream now.
Magic. See you down there.
The friends broke up and went different ways. There was no need for more talk or firm arrangements. It was always like this-easy-going, friendly- explanations were never necessary. If you could come out, you did if you couldn’t, no one minded. After all, everyone had parents, so they all knew the kind of obstacles that were put in the way of their freedom.
Pete’s Dad would decide to have an enquiry into homework occasionally and deliver one of his serious talks on growing up and not always messing around doing nothing with the boys. Find something useful, he would say, give a hand around the house.