The June 2006 issue of Parenting magazine has an article on how to answer kids’ “questions about sex.” One of the questions (clearly aimed at straight parents) is: “Your child tells you her classmate has two mommies. ‘How can that be?’ she asks.”
The core of their answer is: “In Ginny’s family, her two mommies love each other the way that Daddy and I do. So they live together, and both take care of Ginny.” This isn’t a bad response, and Parenting gets points in my book for tackling the issue. A few negatives:
- All of the other questions in the article are about physiology (“Why is my penis getting hard?”) and the mechanics of straight baby-making. By including the two-mommies question in an article about sex, Parenting risks contributing to the myth that all lesbian and gay relationships are focused around sex. Might have been better to include this in an article about relationships (marriage, divorce, dating, etc.) Then again, Parenting’s answer is sex-free, so maybe they’re putting the question where most people would expect it (in an article on sex), but deflecting it to where it belongs (an answer about relationships).
- Parenting still uses the clinical “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality.” Instead of “Homosexuality may seem like a confusing subject,” it might have been better to say “Lesbian and gay relationships may seem . . .” At least they use homo- and heterosexuality equally, and as abstract nouns. (It bothers me more when people use the concrete “homosexuals.”)
- In discussing how to respond if one’s child hears someone say “You’re gay,” in a negative sense, Parenting gives the example of one mom, who explained: “Sometimes boys fall in love with boys and girls fall in love with girls, but that the boy . . . probably didn’t really understand what he was talking about. Then she reminded her daughter that calling people names isn’t nice and might hurt someone’s feelings.” Not a bad answer, but it would benefit from adding that there’s nothing wrong with being gay; it’s just the way some people are. The name-caller was mistaken in thinking this was a bad thing to call someone.
You can contact Parenting magazine through their Web site to thank them for addressing the two-mom question and doing so in a positive manner. If you have criticism like mine, by all means let them know, but try to be constructive. Keep in mind that the conservative right will likely be sending them a few letters denouncing their tolerant approach altogether.
