Reader Laurie left a comment on the open thread earlier this week, and I wanted to bump it up to a full post so more people would see it. She raises a question many of us ask:
I have a friend who is struggling with what to tell her 3 year old about not having a dad. She is raising her 3 year old and 1 year old on her own after a bad breakup. Her 3 year old daughter (my god daughter) is coming home from day care talking about dads. What advice is there out there about how to handle this subject?
My own approach, for a three-year-old, is simply to explain that families come in all different shapes and sizes. I’d emphasize that she has a parent and other relatives who love her, rather than that she is “missing” something that other kids have.
It may also help to see images of families like hers. Todd Parr’s The Family Book
Other suggestions? What’s worked (or not) for other readers?
We love Todd Parr, especially that book.
My 3 year old asks a lot of daddy questions, and has announced occasionally that various men in our life are his daddy. We gently say no, that’s so-and-so’s daddy, but you don’t have a daddy. You have 2 mommies instead.
Noah also likes a book for older kids, I think published by Alyson’s kids imprint, called The Daddy Machine.
First, I would let the child lead and try to listen to the emotion behind the words the child says. If s/he says, “I wish I had a daddy like Tommy” that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love both moms. What is he feeling when he says that and what would a daddy mean to him? Maybe Tommy’s dad and he went to see Elmo on Ice so now your son thinks that only daddies go see ice shows. If you say, “Oh really? Why do you wish that?” or he might say that Tommy’s daddy and he eat peanut butter staight from the jar. Once you know what he’s missing or thinks he’s missing, you can say that you or both of you or an uncle can go see Elmo on ice (or not if you’re not willing to do whatever) or eat peanut butter from the jar. But then it’s about the peanut butter and not the daddy.
And maybe your child just needs his/her emotions acknowledged. If the answer is, “It’s hard being different and everyone else has a daddy.” You can agree that it can be very hard being different. It doesn’t help your child to say, “Well you have two moms and that’s just as good and they just don’t understand that.” Validate his emotions.
Our son has basically had two daddy-topic discussions with us.
#1 is “where did I come from?” That we answer honestly but without going into more information than a 4-5 year old needs.
#2 is renaming one of us to Daddy. So we become Ima and Daddy or Mama and Daddy. That one is just kind of fun to us and since we frequently play with having different names, it’s just another name game.
we tell the kid that she does have a daddy. because she does. she has met him, though probably doesn’t remember. she has a picture of the two of them that she pulls out now and then. puts on her bulletin board, takes down.
we explain that he doesn’t live with us and remind her where he lives.
so far so good. she’s 5. a friend of hers with a mom/dad setup got very upset the other day that he had to HAVE a daddy – and why couldn’t HE have two mommies??!! — so, you know… there are always going to be questions. i say tell the truth as age appropriate.
IF the kid needs some emotional support, by all means do so, but if its just a question, answer it with as much explanation as needed. EVERY kid is different and that’s what makes people interesting and i would press that idea far more frequently than i would stress to my kid that SHE- in particular- is different.
The donor siblings registry network has a series of booklets called “Telling and Talking” that deal with this and other issues. There are four booklets, aimed at different age groups (book one is 0-7). They have some good, practical advice and are free to download. You can find them here: http://www.donor-conception-network.org/telltalkpubs.htm
Oh, great resource! Thanks!
When talking about how “all families are different,” I made sure to include variations in siblings. For example, “some kids have a mom and a dad and a brother and a sister, some kids have 2 moms, some have a mom and stepdad and two brothers.” Almost always my son was the only child in his class at daycare or school who didn’t have exactly one mom and one dad, but there was always variation in how many brothers and sisters all the other kids had. So seeing that difference in siblings, and talking about differences in siblings as well as parents, really helped make the “all families are different” lesson a lot more believable to my son.
Also, it’s one thing for us to explain things to our children, but it’s another for them to have age-appropriate explanations they can give classmates when necessary. If the other kids at daycare are asking the girl questions about whether she has a dad, it may help to do some role-playing with her so she has some stock responses to their questions that she’s comfortable saying. “All families are different, and mine doesn’t have a dad.” And when the questioners ask why not, some simple answer to that as well: “I just don’t” or “I have two moms instead” or whatever.