Children's awareness about the topic of homosexuality

[beccaboo]

Sorry for that awkward title, but I was trying to convey that I'm not talking about a child being homosexual. I considered posting this in Queer Parenting, but I'd appreciate a variety of opinions, if possible.

I've been thinking about whether I should be more conscious about introducing the topic of homosexuality with my 5.5 yo. On the one hand, I can understand just waiting until he has questions, but on the other hand, I'd like him to grow up thinking that there are all sorts of "normal" relationships, and it seems like it might be better to foster understanding and acceptance early.

Obviously, it would be convenient if we had a more diverse group of friends and it would be just a matter of course for him, but we mostly hang around other married couples with kids. I have a very close gay friend from college, but he lives across the country and we only see him once a year, never (at least so far) with a boyfriend. Actually, I have a bunch of acquaintances here who are gay (classical musicians that I work with), but I don't hang around with any of them outside of work.

Should I just get a book or two like "Daddy's Roommate" and see where we go from there? My ds doesn't seem to have a very developed understanding of adult relationships (marriage, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc) so I want to make sure I keep it at his level.

So... any opinions? I would only like to hear from people who support this issue, not from anyone who condemns homosexuality.

Thanks!

Becca

[Satori]

There's a book called Heather has two mommys that would be a good one to explain gay relationships.

[bec]

While I haven't specifically broached the topic with my older dd (the younger is just 9.5 months ), I have talked about when she grows up. She is really interested in our wedding pictures, and is very interested in how that all came to pass. We told her that we met, fell in love, and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and be partners.

We will go on and say that someday, she might meet someone she loves and will want to spend the rest of her life together, etc. We try not to say, you will meet a man one day and get married.

When she is a bit older, we might bring it up a little more specifically, but I don't think she would understand it yet. She's just starting to understand the relationships she sees everyday (we don't have any gay friends that are local).


Bec

[A&L+1]

Well, good for you to be such a supporter of queer issues. I hope my daughter ends up in a classroom with kids with parents like you!

It has always been my feeling that the more casual I am about being a lesbian the better the response I get. I talk about my partner in every situation (work, family, friends, social, online) like it is no big deal. I plan to use this same approach with my daughter and teach her to bring up the topic naturally. Perhaps you can push this a bit and select queer friendly books, etc. but if possible I suggest choosing to participate in activities that will expose your son to homosexuality in a casual way that makes it part of your normal life. Do you teach your child to respect all races? Do you feel the need to have representative friends of each race to make this point? Most likely you have managed to discuss other issues of difference in ways that have worked in your family and for your child's age. Perhaps these past conversations can be your model.

I think that it is always appropriate to talk about families and say things like, "some families have a father and a mother, and some have two fathers or two mothers." Of course, there are lots of families that have single parents or multiple parents and step-parents, etc. Again, modelling respect for difference is the core issue.

Good luck,

[Bippity]

We sought out a church that is very diverse. I'm sure our DD will eventually have lots of curious questions about the people she hangs with every Sunday. We've got it all... everything from gay/lesbian couples and singles, to people with physical & mental handicaps, to people of all shades of the rainbow - it's the kind of place I've been looking for for years - we LOVE it there!

Maybe there's a diverse group of people around somewhere that fits with your leanings? I think honest exposure is very cool - just to see life as it unfolds over time from a variety of perspectives is sooo interesting & fulfilling.

[bec]

Lisa,

That is exactly the approach we are taking. Unfortunately, our town is not terribly diverse, racially or otherwise. Now, we do talk about politics quite a bit in our house. And there has been a lot of talk about gay rights (particularly marriage rights). My girls have heard us express our moral outrage that the government has felt the privelage of putting a couple's right to define their relationship to a vote. So, even though we might not have day to day contact with gay couples that they will see, I am hopeful that they will grow up accepting of all people as individuals first.


Bec

[flight]

bec, I think just expressing your opinions in front of your kids is a pretty good way of introducing the topic. We've had similar discussions in our house. When DS (4yo) asked us to explain, we would say something like, "Well, you know that Mommy and Daddy got married cause we love each other, and Grandma and Grandpa (giving examples). Well, some people think that if it's a man and a man who love each other, or a woman and a woman, they shouldn't be allowed to get married! [rolling our eyes] Isn't that silly??"

We can also discuss different people that we love, to show that it doesn't have to be with a certain gender, or that it's only married people who love each other.

I think it's important to discuss homosexuality as something normal. It can be in the context of different family types (a mom and a dad, 2 moms, 2 dads, a mom, dad, and uncle, a dad and a grandpa, etc.) or just different ways that people just ARE (red hair, brown skin, likes olives, really tall, loves someone of the same gender).

[CindyC]

I'm just gonna approach the subject as it comes up, whether from the situation or my daughter specifically asking. We have gay friends, so it will seem normal to her. When it comes up I'm just gonna say that's so-and-so's boyfriend or that's so-and-so's girlfriend just like I would with anyone else.

I equate it with her being familiar with various ethnicities. We can't possibly know people of all races, but I hope that the variety of faces she sees everyday will make it a non-issue.

OT -- there is a police academy down the street from us and we can hear them on the shooting range. My daughter asked, "What's that?" I just told her that's the police learning how to shoot. She is 2. I don't think she knows what police are, what guns are, and what shooting is, but I just say the words to normalize things.

I'm always amazed by how much she picks up. I won't be surprised if she's telling me "police protect us" next week.

[simcon]

What a great discussion! Like A&L+1, I hope my daughter ends up with children of people like you all!

I just wanted to add that a great book is "The Family Book," by Todd Parr--it's wonderful, colorful, and makes exactly that point that all families are different. I'd highly suggest it--it treats 2-mom and 2-dad families as just another kind of family ("some families live near each other, some families live far from each other" and "some families look alike, some families look like their pets :LOL"--I love the illustration for "some familes live in a house by themselves, some families live with other families"--the latter is a tree with all different kinds of birds and animals popping out of it.) Especially for younger kids, I like it way better than "heather has 2 mommies"--which cracks me up, but bores my daughter...

[ja mama]

We have a lesbian couple three houses down, raising three teenagers. My 4.5 yo ds has a hard time understanding they are both women. One of them looks like a man, (buzz cut hair, ambiguous body style, jeans and white tank tops) and ds has asked several times if it is really a girl, why does she look like a boy. I answer that it is how she feels most comfortable. It's her body and she gets to choose how she wants to look. He's way more hung up on that than the two Mommy thing.

Is there a better answer to that question, seeing as he keeps asking it?

[wende]

When I talk to my kids about future relationships I always say "when you have a boyfriend or girlfriend" or "if you choose to get married to a boy or a girl". We also have conversations regularly about how gay couples have children, all the different ways, and whether or not they are allowed to marry and why they should be. I also remind them that they are allowed to form their own opinions on every subject but that treating people differently because of whom they love or what color their skin is is unacceptale.

So far my kids are very open with me and with the idea of homosexuality. They make jokes at each other such as "Alexis has a girlfriend!" in the same way that they would tease "Alexis has a boyfriend!" but know that it's NOT ok to tease someone about being gay in a hurtful way. It's not to be used as an insult, as if it's a bad thing. My dd says "if I grow up and want to marry a girl, I'm not saying I'm gay, but I might be, I should be able to". Aspen says "Noah says he's gay. He kissed me." When I asked if that was ok with him he said "well, we're friends so it's ok. Plus, he kissed me on the cheek."

[USAmma]

We purposely attend a UU church with many different types of families including gay ones. Haven't attended for awhile-- been too busy-- but plan to attend again soon. I'm hoping that my girls grow up to see that diverse families are normal and okay. It's one thing to talk about it, it's another thing to have faces and names to put with the things you talk about.

I think you are doing a great job as a mommy!

Darshani

[DebraBaker]

Gay issues just get brought up like any other issues.

Recently the gay marriage issue has been rigorously discussed at our house. DH and I hold different positions so the kiddos get to hear that lively debate. (<G> I think most of them are falling on my side of the debate)

I think if you don't discuss this stuff at home the children will "pick up" their peers' attitudes and will assume you agree with the peers because you have never actually expressed an opinion (if that makes sense) and many kids in the neighborhood will not have nice attitdues against what they call "fags" and "queers" and "Butches" so I would highly recommend discussing the issues as naturally as anything else.

Debra Baker

[beccaboo]

Wow - such great responses! Thanks, everyone. I would love it if you all were parents at my kid's school as well - how awesome that would be! A mdc community school... <sighs longingly>

DB, I agree - I want to "lay a foundation" so that my kids' first exposure to things (especially topics that might be contentious) is from me, not from some kid at the park. I plan to get a couple books and read them to my boys (thanks for the recommendations, Sartori), and then we'll see what discussions arise from there.

Darshani and CindyC, I agree that just talking about something is very different than living it. [I toured a private school near our house a couple years ago that was at least 95% white. I discussed it a bit with one of the teachers, and she said, "Well, we think the most important thing is to teach tolerance and acceptance of diversity" or something like that. WHAT?! Like kids ever respond well to "do as I say, not as I do."] Luckily we live in a reasonably diverse area and my son's school is quite ethnically and socio-economically diverse.

Wende - you sound so open with your kids. That's awesome! How old are they? They must be older than mine (2 and 5).

ja mama, I'm not sure what else you could add. I do remember being rather uncomfortable around androgynous-looking people as a child. Would it be possible for him to talk to her a bit, just to help him see her for who she is (ie, a great gardener, good at telling jokes, or whatever) rather than focusing on her appearance?

Simcon - we'll definitely check out the Parr book! We already have several of his, and my boys really like them.

flight and bec - your posts made me realize that I often don't discuss issues (such as gay marriage) with my ds that I easily could. We don't watch the news when he's around, and I definitely shield him from some topics (he knows very little about 9/11 and the Iraq war, for example), but there are others that would make for good discussion with him.

Bippity - your church sounds great! I am what I call a "hopeful agnostic" and my dh is an atheist, but I have thought about joining a UU church that a friend attends because I really like the community aspect. We'll see. I usually work late on Saturday nights and occasionally have church jobs on Sunday mornings (I'm a freelance musician), so even if I'm around I'm usually tired on Sundays, but maybe I should give it a try.

Lisa, I agree that a casual approach is definitely the way to go. But so far he's basically had no exposure to homosexuality, so I'm going to be more conscious now about at least introducing the topic. Your suggestions are great.

I'll check at the library and see what books they have. Thanks for the discussion!

Becca

[wende]

My kids are 12, 9, (just turned)6, and 15 months. We started these conversations when they were about 3.

[Bippity]

Becca - my DH is an atheist too & he's loved & welcomed at our church anyway. He goes because he knows how important it is for our family to develop relationships within community & this is the best place we've found to grow that.

The UU church by us is too.... I dunno... just too much or too little something for us, this really liberal christian church is just a better fit somehow.

[lexbeach]

I already talk to my boys about all the different kinds of families there are, and they are only 19 months old. It's never to soon to start. Picture books are a great nonchalant way to introduce a child to different kinds of families, especially if most of the families the child knows in real life are pretty homogeneous. Another book that I really like is called "Everywhere Babies." The pictures show all different kinds of parents taking care of all different kinds of babies. My boys love to point out all the babies, and I just add in little comments about which babies have a daddy or two daddies or a mama or two mamas or a mama and a daddy. I don't think my boys understand much about family structure yet, but I think these early conversations will mean that it will never be a surprise to them that there are families different than their own.

Lex

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

We're lucky because we have an automatic entry into this question -- all 4 of my children's godparents are gay. And my DS was a ring-bearer in the godmommies commitment ceremony. However, even though he's only in preschool, we've had to explain that not everyone thinks this is OK. His best friend announced that men could only marry women. So we talked about how most of the time men marry women, but sometimes men marry men and women marry women (just like his godparents). And sometimes people live together without getting married at all, but they still love each other very much. And that is all OK. We've also talked about how God made all people different, and how cool that is. I think he's probably going to have to be able to defend this opinion at some point, and I'm trying to make sure he was the tools to do so, without going way over his head at the moment. As with any other issue, I'm trying to introduce concepts when he seems ready and put things into his terms. I think that's about the best we can do.

[iris0110]

I had always assumed that my kids would be exposed to homosexuality through my homosexual best friend. kind of like "here is Uncle Scott and his partner." Saddly he passed away when Ds was only 9 mon old. I still keep pictures of him around, and Dh and I talk about him often. I have pictures of him up dressed both as a man and as a woman. Dh and I are also friends with with his ex-manager who is very flamboyant. Ds really likes him, and he has offered to babysit if we ever need him too. (think I might take him up on that offer soon. ) Dh and I talk alot about the charged issues of the day, such as gay marriage and the war in Iraq. So Ds hears it all the time. I attend a UU church, and it is quite diverse. We even had a same sex marriage that Ds got to attend a few weeks ago. He was really excited to be part of the wedding. So I am hoping that he is just naturally getting exposed to a variety of people. He can't talk and so he can't really ask questions but I explain things to him all of the time any way. I hope that he will grow up to be tolerant of all people as individuals.