Kids: Oblivious to complex social issues
In Junior’s gymnastics class, one of the girls has two mommies. No big deal. Doesn’t bother me. They’re a charming couple and nice enough. However, I had reservations about having the gay talk with a six year old. I can’t imagine how the conversation would go since her understanding of anything relating to a relationship consists of moms and dads. And her understanding of the differences between the sexes consists of boys have wieners and making poop jokes. So, I was kind of worried about how that conversation would go and how awkward it would be for me. Still, I figured I’d have to man up and talk about it. And I might even have to get a copy of Heather Has Two Mommies to go with our monstrous library of kids’ books.
But an interesting thing happened. Nothing.
She’s never asked. It’s never come up.
June 29th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Unc,
That’s what mom’s are for.
June 29th, 2010 at 10:26 am
I don’t know that it’s so odd. When I played soccer as a kid there were certain parents who would throw hissy fits over calls and get red cards. Other than one notably egregious incident, I can’t remember ever talking to my parents about it. I even had a coach for several years whom I was pretty sure was gay but I never brought it up, either. Despite being aware of these things, it just never occurred to me that mentioning them would be something worth doing.
June 29th, 2010 at 10:28 am
yer, i’ve found the same with my girls … there’s a kid with two mommies at the school – they mentioned it once and said nothing more … doesn’t seem an ‘issue’ that needs discussing at this stage, anyway
June 29th, 2010 at 10:37 am
My 7yr old daughter and I were at a college Hockey games and two girls walked by holding hands and she said “they can’t babies, they dont have any sperms”. Other than that she has never mentioned anything.
Kids are amazing people, and I figure one of these days her mom and I will explain that there are different strokes for different folks. btw, as a libertarian, I couldnt give a rats @$$ what people do in their private life.
June 29th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I was probably 8 or 9 years old when it was explained to me that my assumptions about one set of uncles and an aunt were wrong.
I had been under the assumption that my Aunt Ardis had two husbands because Uncle Jack and Uncle Alden lived in the same house with her. I figured that maybe my two cousins, Alan and Karen, had different fathers. This turned out to be a source of great amusement to my parents and relatives.
I didn’t see why it was considered such an unreasonable conclusion. It seemed pretty reasonable to me.
It turns out that Ardis and Alden were brother and sister.
June 29th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Wait a year.
My daughter did not know race until she was seven.
It’s a developmental thing. Kid don’t know “how the world should be”.
June 29th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
And don’t care as long as it does effect *their* world. Kids care less about things like this than anyone else on the planet.
June 29th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
You mean if no one tells them they don’t realize it’s wrong? Kids are so amazing in figuring things out (but I guess that’s what a lot of people are worried about).
June 29th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Your post reminded me of the story about the 5 year old asking ‘Where did I come from?’ The frazzled parent goes through a long, overly-technical explanation for his audience, and the kid responds, ‘Billy came from Cleveland.’
June 29th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I asked a nice woman if she was black, and how she got that way at a very young age. Embarrassed Mom a bit, but the woman was very amused and happy to inform me that she was always that way.
I’m sure I thought that was pretty cool.
June 29th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
What??? You mean to tell me you’re not indoctrinating your children against TEY GHEYS???
Careful, Unc, you’re gonna have to return one of the wheelbarrows of cash you get from the GOP…
Kidding aside, it’s never been an issue for either of my kids, either. This past Saturday, AAMOF, we were at a family reunion at my inlaws where there was a gay couple, and neither kid even noticed…
June 29th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
The only issue I’ve had is my 8 year old asking “why is my weiner hard when I wake up? Its like it has a mind of its own”
Which is pretty much the truthful answer to his question.
June 29th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Countertop kills the thread, with a blow to the head.
June 29th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
When my eldest was in the 4th grade (in a school that was about 60% Hispanic, 35% Gringo, 5% Black), his teacher made a comment about the Mexican kids. My genius had to ask me at home that night what he was. It just had never come up.
Made me think I was doing something right.
June 29th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Back when my was only 75 or so, I bumped into his childhood acquaintance Ernie at a neighborhood reunion. Ernie said “Your dad and his brothers were tops in my book. They knew I was a Hungarian, but they never called me a Hunky like the other kids.”
As he walked away, dad poked me in the ribs. “We didn’t know what the hell a Hunky was, or I’d have called him that for sure.”
So much for the old innocence-of-youth routine.