Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Rachel Read never set out to be in the spotlight. But confronted with raising children in an education system intent on sexualising her children without her consent, she learnt new courage to protect her children’s innocence.

On the surface, Rachel Read seems to be an ordinary mother. She has five children aged five to 24 and is currently homeschooling her two youngest boys.

However, over the past couple of years, she has accomplished extraordinary things – and not through her own intention or planning.

While the subject of raising children in a sexualised culture is a challenging one, it’s too important for her to ignore.

Experience at a Christian School

Rachel and her husband enrolled their children in a Christian school in Adelaide, believing it would be a safe haven from the worldly ideologies taught in state schools.

This proved to be false.

“The first warning bell rang when my daughter came home one day – she’s in Year 2 – and mentioned the word ‘vulva’. She was seven, which is very young.” Rachel was concerned that a child that age was learning the specific names of sexual anatomy well before such knowledge was necessary.

“Looking back, I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.” The language was coming from school, but from whom? The school kids? The teacher?

“But now I have the curriculum, and I know the exact wording in the curriculum is the wording my children learnt.”

“Although my children attended a Christian school, they were exposed to highly sexualised content.”

Sadly, an incident occurred at this Christian school involving her daughter that was of a sexual nature. The police were called to the school, and the Department of Child Protection became involved.

The incident occurred after the sex education class. Rachel is certain that the sexualised curriculum was a significant contributing factor.

Now, in hindsight, Rachel sees the negative impacts on her children from the sex education they received while at school. It still weighs on her, as a mother, to see these detrimental effects.

Many parents do not realise that numerous Christian schools adhere to the Australian National Curriculum, which is the same as that of government schools. This means the content delivered at Christian and state schools differs little, if at all.

During a period of reduced family income, Rachel enrolled her children in a state school. However, the experience was even worse. “That was also really bad,” she recounts. “The friendship groups and the content from the teachers were highly, highly sexual.”

Rachel Read: ‘Parents, You Must Engage’

This prompts her to urge parents: “You need to be actively involved in raising your children.” Parents cannot adopt a ‘hands-off’ approach and leave all the educating to the school.

“I reckon that as a society, we’ve handed over our responsibilities to schools, the Department of Education, and screens. We’re busy. We’re tired. I understand that.

“We don’t want to think about it. But the days of apathy and complacency from parents need to be over. You really need to engage with who your child is talking to and the friendship and lunchtime groups they’re involved with. It’s within those structures that those sinister messages are coming through.

“Parents haven’t a clue about what’s happening. There aren’t any consent forms; they don’t inform the parents about what they’re teaching.

“Parents have to step in and protect their kids, whether they like it or not.”

Move to the Eyre Peninsula and Becoming Involved with a Local School

Rachel and her family relocated from Adelaide to South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula to avoid the Covid struggles of city life.

Her daughter had just one year left of school and enrolled in the local public school. Rachel had no desire – or perceived need – to take a significant interest in her daughter’s short-term place of education.

“I had never been on a governing council before. I had no desire whatsoever to be involved with the governing council.”

“I was having a chat with someone from church one day, and he said, ‘Why don’t you join us? Come along.’”

“I didn’t want to do that. But I really felt the Holy Spirit say, ‘Go.’”

“I had my daughter in Year 12. I thought, ‘How much can happen in a year? What’s the point?’”

“Until May of that year, nothing significant had occurred, and I questioned what I was doing on the school council. But the Holy Spirit said, ‘Wait’.”

“The following week, the principal announced that changes were on the way. The curriculum was changing, the landscape was changing, and the school required a new principal to guide it in this new direction.”

“Straight away, I sensed the Holy Spirit say, ‘This is what you’re here for.’”

“So, I started to examine the curriculum.”

Rachel kept studying the curriculum. The more she studied, the more worried she got.

Secrecy on Sexual ‘Education’

Parents found it quite challenging to access the information they sought from the school. The sexual education curriculum wasn’t available to them, and most had no idea what was being taught.

This secrecy was a constant frustration. “I had parents of Year 5 boys come to me, expressing that their children were taught they could change their sex with puberty blockers and medication, and could even choose to be a dog or cat if they wished. These mums were absolutely furious.”

When Rachel and the other parents requested to view the class content, the teacher declined. The reason provided? “You’re not trained.”

“So, you can show the kids, but you can’t show us?” Rachel asked.

“If you can show children something of a sexual nature that you can’t show the parents, what are you showing them?”

“We kept pushing and pushing.” However, the school ignored all the parents’ requests for transparency.

Rachel located all the resources from the World Health Organization (WHO), which serve as the foundation for much of the curriculum on sexuality and gender.

But she found that it’s not just the curriculum that parents need to be aware of. “It’s actually in the resources [e.g. books, videos, websites] that you find the most damaging material.”

Rachel found videos recommending 15-year-olds consider prostitution as a valid form of work. “It’s just wild. We have found multiple videos to back this up. The WHO has endorsed a video for nine-year-olds on what to do if you get pregnant.”

Partial Parental Victory

Rachel ran an evening to inform parents about what was in the curriculum.

The following day, the local newspaper called and requested an interview. It was published throughout the entire Eyre Peninsula. As a result, “everyone began discussing it. The school didn’t take the publicity well. However, it did get the parents on the peninsula talking to their kids about it.”

Parents continued to urge the school to be transparent about the curriculum. Rachel penned a letter on behalf of the parents, citing the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In Section 6.6, Stand 3, the final report recommends the following measures to prevent sexual abuse within institutions and organisations:

Standard 3: Families and communities are informed and involved

1. Families have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child and participate in decisions affecting their child.

2. The institution engages in open, two-way communication with families and communities about its child safety approach and relevant information is accessible.

3. Families and communities have a say in the institution’s policies and practices.

4. Families and communities are informed about the institution’s operations and governance.

The school’s secrecy regarding sexual content and its effort to exclude parental involvement created a clear breeding ground for sexual abuse. Defying a royal commission on such a serious issue was, needless to say, a terrible look for the school.

“Schools often quote that royal commission. We should use their words against them,” Rachel suggests.

“The school started apologising and admitted they hadn’t handled this correctly. The following year, they issued a comprehensive consent form. Before that, there had never been a consent form required. It was solely the pressure from all the parents.”

Rachel didn’t notice all the changes she had hoped to. However, she did see a few, and they were substantial.

One of these changes was the understanding that parents can opt their children out of sex education classes, as much of that content is included in Health and Physical Education. She has a letter from the current South Australian Minister for Education, Blair Boyer, confirming that this is a valid option for parents.

Informing Parents: Protecting the Innocence of Children Adelaide Event

Rachel discovered that parents all over the country are concerned about what their children are learning at school. But they “don’t know how to approach the school.”

Consequently, Rachel is assisting in organising an event in Adelaide to inform parents and provide them with practical ideas on how to navigate these challenging topics.

The event, titled “Protecting the Innocence of Children”, is hosted by Turning Point Australia. Guest speakers include Victorian Senator Ralph Babet and SA MLC Sarah Game, along with three international speakers, one of whom has lived in Geneva and possesses extensive knowledge of WHO’s role in promoting their sexual education agenda (refer to the appendix below).

Tickets for the 24 April event in Kensington Park event are available here.

Christians are Called to Protect Children

Jesus never intended for the good works of His people to remain hidden. Two verses that Rachel finds motivating come from Proverbs 31:8–9. The verses read:

“Speak up for those who have no voice, for the justice of all who are dispossessed.

Speak up, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the oppressed and needy.”

“If you’re in a position to act, do good,” Rachel clarifies. “We hold a position of authority over our children’s lives. And God asks us to do good. He asks us to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.”

“We must accept the responsibility and authority granted by God – not by the government, not by a department, but by the Lord Himself – it’s our duty to care for and protect our children.”

Jesus clearly articulates the value and importance of protecting children when he said:

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to fall away — it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses. For offences will inevitably come, but woe to that person by whom the offence comes.” (Matthew 18:8–9)

Everyone matters to God, as we are all made in His image. That’s why harming a human being, especially a child who cannot defend themselves, elicits such a strong response from Jesus.

Ephesians 5:11–14 is a particularly relevant passage relevant to Rachel’s work. In this section, Paul urges Christians to expose the works of darkness.

“Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them.

For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret.

Everything exposed by the light is made visible,

for what makes everything visible is light.”

The motivation for doing this less-than-desirable job?

Rachel answers, “There’s a whole generation of children being led away from the Lord. And it has eternal consequences.

“I pray that the upcoming generation will actually be His fiercest army. And that they would rise up and deny the lies of the enemy.

“They are worth fighting for.”

 

Appendix: Examples of the WHO’s Standards in Sexual Education

The World Health Organization gives the following standards in its “Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe” which is a “framework for policy makers, educational and health authorities and specialists”.

The WHO’s standard for zero to four-year-olds is that they should:

• Be taught information on “early childhood masturbation”.
• Gain an awareness of “gender identity”.
• Develop a “curiosity regarding own and others’ bodies”.
• Know that a sexual right includes “the right to explore gender identities” and “the right to explore nakedness and the body, to be curious”.

Children aged four to six should:

• Be given information on “all body parts and their functions”.
• Develop an attitude of “a positive gender identity”.
• Once again, be taught about “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body; early childhood masturbation”.
• Be taught about “sexual feelings (closeness, enjoyment, excitement)”.
• Be taught about “love towards people of the same sex” and “different concepts of a family”.

The WHO standards appear contradictory in that they claim that “the attitude that their own experience and expression of emotions is right and important (valuing their own feelings)” but then goes on to claim that “there are some people who are not good.” But the WHO can’t have a bet each way. If all emotions are just as valid as anyone else’s, then that equally applies to the “not good” people’s emotions as well.

Six to nine-year-olds should once again be taught about “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body (masturbation/self-stimulation)”.

Nine to twelve-year-olds should:

• Be able to “make a conscious decision to have sexual experiences or not”.
• Know their “sexual rights as defined by… International Planned Parenthood Federation”.
• Know that abortion is a human right as a part of “reproduction and family planning”.

For those in the 12 to 15-year-old bracket, they should:

• Be taught information about “gender identity and sexual orientation, including coming out/homosexuality”.
• Know “how to enjoy sexuality in an appropriate way”.
• “Develop skills in intimate communication and negotiation”.

Teenagers aged 15+ should be able to:

• Express “a critical view of different cultural/religious norms related to pregnancy, parenthood, etc.”
• Have an “acceptance of different sexual orientations and identities”.
• Develop “a change from possible negative feelings… towards homosexuality to… celebration of sexual differences.”
• Know their “right to abortion” and “be empowered to claim sexual rights” as an important “sense of social justice”.