Schools should come up with sex education plans only then these educators can get into the faculty team. We have to start more community-level programmes.
1. Tell us about yourself and your journey. What led you to take this career path?
I am Swati Jagdish a lactation counsellor and sexual health educator. I was into training and development in the beginning, until my daughter was born. After she was born I got interested in Brest feeding counselling and giving awareness on Brest feeding in public and many more myths and taboos related to Brest feeding.
I along with Four friends of Mine established a support group called "Coimbatore Parenting Network" which is also now an NGO. We are involved in a lot of Awareness Campaigns. After being part of this NGO for some time a lot of our support group members started asking questions about how to guide their children in terms of safety, child abuse prevention, body parts, boundaries, consent and also how to answer the weird awkward questions their children were asking.
The members of the support group used to reach out to me because I was the one who was most involved in awareness campaigns and giving talks in colleges and corporates. Because they felt I could guide them people started approaching me and around that time my daughter also started asking questions and I had also started creating content on my Facebook page as well as my Instagram page. I realized that people were not aware of breastfeeding, menstrual Hygiene, relationships, intimacy, understanding about emotions, parenting and stuff.
I decided to share my knowledge which I have been doing with my daughter and to give better content I decided to pursue sex education as a career. I went ahead and did a certification and that’s how I got into the field of comprehension sexuality health education. I take classes only for parents as of now but of course, any adult can take part in this kind of workshops.
I have not started classes for children I intend to do classes for teenagers after a while but as of now, I am only taking classes for adults. That is how I took up this career path. Mostly to create content and guiding my child as well as parents in our support group are the main reasons why I got into this field.
2. What according to you is good parenting?
According to me good parenting is understanding and respecting the child’s emotions, body boundaries and autonomy. Feeding your child or giving the right kind of educational opportunities or getting toys or engaging the child, all of that is good and any way that is supposed to be done but beyond all that are we respecting our Children as an individual are we giving them the right kind of environment at home where they can share anything, confide in us and trust us wholeheartedly I think that’s the most important thing about being a good parent.
We have to create an environment where our children flourish where they don’t have to be scared of us where they don’t have to have inhibitions with us where they can have open communication with us be it about their body about their emotions about the changes that they are going through, relationships and about anything that threatens their safety. So creating that environment according to me would be great parenting.
3. How according to you one can manage stress?
Well, managing stress depends from person to person, for me being creative bits of help in managing stress. I write something I find that very soothing I zone out when I write. Writing helps me a lot. So whatever thought comes into my mind I put it on paper that is really stress relieving for me but yeah I also take a walk, I sit outside in the sun for a long time all that makes me feel really good and I have a great partner we split our tasks very well and I believe for anybody to manage stress not just mother but anybody to manage stress we need a lot of support.
For me I have that support that also helps me to manage stress to a large extent because I don’t believe we can do everything, I believe we are all humans first and not superhumans, this is one big reason why I am on a mission to stop glorifying motherhood, supermom syndrome. Stress happens to everybody and the best way a mother can manage stress is if her partner supports her or if she has enough support from grandparents or nanny or anybody for that matter. I believe there should be enough support because you might not be able to do everything by yourself all the time.
4. What does your typical day look like?
On my typical day, I do yoga in the morning usually these days because of lockdown and everything I take it very slow otherwise I usually have consultations or some training programmes or something happening I head over to that place where it is happening. But now since I don’t have to go anywhere my mornings are very slow. Me and my husband to talk to our daughter, bond with her, make breakfast and check my emails and go through days activities like all classes and interviews I have on that particular day. I just go through my activities and one by one and start doing whatever is lined up for the day.
Afternoons we spend our family time sometimes we all watch a movie or play together or read some books. There will be some family activity that we do in the afternoon. Evenings mostly I have workshops, if I am taking workshops then my husband takes care of my daughter and they prepare dinner if I don’t have workshop all of us go for a walk or listen to some music and do whatever we can do at home. We have a lot of indoor games that we play.
After dinner we again spend some time together, sometimes if I have some work to do then father and daughter spend lots of time with each other. I am not able to spend lots of time with my daughter because of increasing commitments these days that’s why I told you the support of your partner is very important. I take some time to sleep because I sometimes feel to write something at night, I create some content at night when my daughter goes to sleep that’s the time when I get some peace and have a quiet atmosphere. That is my typical day.
5.Why does India need more educators like you?
India needs more educators in the sex and sexuality field mainly because we as a country don’t talk about the most important things in life and that includes the reason for our population which is sex, everybody is having it but nobody is talking about it. We need more educators so that our children can be safe. We need more educators that our teenagers go through puberty smoothly without confusions, youngsters understanding the gender spectrum as a lot of them are struggling to come out into society and express who they are.
We need more sex educators that teachers guide children in the right way because a lot of slut-shaming a lot of bullying so many things happen in schools we need sex educators so that our parents can guide their children very well we also need sex educators that our country's at least to a large extent can prevent gender-based violence, sex-based violence that our country is going through. Once everybody starts talking about these subjects in a calm cool composed and casual manner I am 100% sure we can reduce the incidents of many issues in our country. It is really important that we need more sex educators and educators are not only enough because if there are educators and not opportunities there is no point we need to create more opportunities for them as well. Schools should come up with sex education plans only then these educators can get into the faculty team.
We have to start more community-level programmes. More NGO’s need to take up this activity, more corporate companies can take it up as part of theirs CSR activities. Finally, we need a lot of policy-level changes as well and if we can have sex education from the government level like how it is in the Netherlands and many more countries then I think these educators can properly do something.
As of now it is very difficult, even if you become an educator you have to do something yourself, you have to freelance or you have to wait until you grow but if there are opportunities it becomes very easy for the educators to get into a job and pursue as a career. So simply being a sex educator is not enough we need to ensure that there are enough opportunities.
6. What are your tips for people who want to practice this profession?
My tip for people who want to get into this profession is first you need to be doing a lot of reading and learning it’s not just information in course content it should be a lot from personal experience also. Make sure you have a lot of personal experiences to share because the content is everywhere if you want to know what vaginismus is, you will get plenty of videos and course materials and many things about it. But what can you offer from your thought process and your creativity if you can create nice educational experiences for people then I think you can flourish in this field but something else I want people to think of is our country is just warming up to this particular professional, there is not a lot of job opportunities or scope. You need to create your opportunities. It will be a lot of personal work and if you have past trauma or any kind of bad experiences a lot of personal baggage you need to go through a lot of personal counselling and then if you can get it into this field it will be better.
Because it is a very vulnerable and very sensitive field if you are personally very hurt by many things and many issues you will not be able to heal somebody or educate somebody out of hurt. Empty your cup and be ready for a lot more learning every other day something is researched or something is found out because in this field something new is happening all the time so you have to have to really, learn and educate yourself regularly.
7. Which is your favourite book and why?
As of now, I liked wild women’s way by Michaela Boehm. It is a very interesting book about femininity, women’s sexual health, finding pleasure and understating relationships.
- Interviewed by Lakshme Priyaa
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