Since we’ve had some great comment threads here about parenting issues lately, here’s another topic for discussion:
What’s the question from your child(ren) that you’ve found most difficult to answer (LGBT-related or not)? OR What’s the potential question that you are most anxious about trying to answer?
Leave a comment—or your advice for others about their kids’ questions. (For “Why is the sky blue?” I refer you here.)
“Mommy, why are they so angry about you two holding hands?”
I’ve never been able to explain it to myself, much less to them. That, and I don’t swear around my kids.
I’m a gay dad (though this could apply to any parent), but I find that the questions are actually not so bad, it’s the statements that really get me. For instance, the other day my 3 1/2 year old, who was adopted from VietNam as a tiny baby said, “I miss my mom in VietNam.” – who, he of course has never met aside from the few days before he was placed into the adoption system – but we (and he) know this anonymous woman exists somewhere in VN. The “there are many different kinds of families” shtick comes up very short at times like those. All you can do is sympathize and continue providing love and support.
I’m most worried about explaining my own broken family to our future child in a way he/she will understand. When Baby questions ME about MY mother, how I will explain her decision to be absent from my life… that is what I worry about. I’ve thought up many possible answers… “some babies have only 1 parent, like me” or “my mother was kind of like your donor. She helped Grandpa have me, but wasn’t really my mommy”… but both of these seem like lies. And I just can’t wrap my brain around how to tell a child that my mom (it’s biological grandmother) chose to abandon me. I can formulate the words but I worry that it will confuse Baby. I just don’t want the inevitable follow-up question: “Didn’t your mommy love you?”
Just the other day my son wanted to know why we can’t get married. He felt that it’s ridiculous and why didn’t someone just veto that law and how can we change it. Honestly, he had a lot of good questions to ask but I can’t really come up with good answers beyond, “some people think it’s important to make the decisions they make.” But then he asks, “but why do they NOT want you to get married?” or “why do they care?” And I haven’t any idea.
“What’s for dinner?”
I’ve answered this one 4,000+ times already, and yet he still keeps asking it every day. :-)
ROFL!
Friends of ours have a known donor who is quite involved in their lives. We are about to TTC, and for our own reasons, we are going with an ID-release donor from a sperm bank. I’m not sure, yet, how to answer our child(ren)’s questions about why their friend knows her donor, but they don’t.
“Why?” It’s 7 AM and my 3 year old has asked that question 5,327 times already today. How many times am I supposed to answer that?!?
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