What do you tell a 5 year old about same sex marriage?

Can't disagree with any of that

 

Conservatives dont believe public education should be used as a tool of government to indoctrinate children. They would rather educate them.

 

So, you don't view a man who adopts a child as fathering that child?

I think you'll find many adopted children who disagree with you on that one.

 

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

To keep the analogy applicable, a lesbian couple that has children involves two women that love each other the same as a heterosexual couple would (assuming the unions are healthy emotionally).

 

Maybe so, but yet explaining any form of adult love, regardless of how light-hearted you may explain it, to a 5 yr old would only be confusing to them and like I said, they're to young to understand what 'love' means anyway.

To them 'love' is loving their mommy/daddy/baby sibling/grandparents, their little puppy, chocolate, favorite cartoon, etc etc...

I just don't think 5 yr olds need to have 'love' b/t adults, regardless of gender, explained to them. They would have the understanding that Leroy and Henry are 'good pals' - that's all they need to know.

 

you tell them that it's all a big joke, a passing fad

 

And you have a means of doing that without books? Sounds a bit primitive.

 

Books not selected by the school board to indoctrinate the children.

 

I agree with you about school boards, but we must have had very different experiences. The school boards I have seen interfering into the textbook selection process are those who want to assure that evolution isn't mentioned, that all of America's wars end happily and we are the good guys, that global warning is a myth and, since they are far wiser than scientists, that no mention of global warming occur, that the founding fathers were, without exception, good Christian men given particularly to fundamentalist beliefs, etc. My experience tells me that Mark Twain was correct. "The Lord created idiots. This was for practice. Then he created school boards." These school boards go out of the way to assure that learning does not occur - of science, sex, history, philosophy, social science, - I guess they are ok about math. Hard to give a political side to math. Oops. Forgot statistics. Can't have them learning statistics.

 

I know that's what you THINK happened....

 

I suspect that I would have explained to my daughter that marriage is an agreement between two people to live together for the rest of their lives, and that children aren't allowed to marry until they are old enough to decide that they have found the person that they want to spend the rest of their lives with and to enter into a legally binding contract to do so. I would expect most five year olds to be able to at least grasp the basic concept of a legal contract. I probably would have gone on to explain to her that it is not necessary to marry someone in order to be lifelong friends.

As for what others might think of hearing a very young child announce their marriage intentions, I don't think I'd lose much sleep over that. Young children say all sorts of things that are quite silly from an adult's perspective.

 

My son went there for 6 years after that no more issues. Don't tell me you are the teacher that I had issue with. If not how do you have any idea what really happened?

 

You should never EVER be afraid to discuss anything with your child. Parents are too afraid of talking to their children. I have two kids and nothing is off of the table. We've talked about sex, divorce, drugs, homosexuality, atheism, etc. Children are curious. Why should we hide things from our children?

 

As she gets older I have no problem talking with her. She has not brought it up since so I still believe it was just a statement not question. I will get the chance at a latter date when she will understand and retain more of the information. Each parent must decide what their child is ready for and she has no knowledge of the things you mention with the exception of being told about god at school. She did pursue that and I talked with her. Gave her the basics and her finally question was if he was real. Given the complexity of that conversation I answered the only way I could being truthful "daddy honestly does not know baby".

Her knowledge of other things many would find too advanced for a almost 5 year old. She knows more about raising food and the origin of the meat she eats than many adults. She has seen the entire process because it really interest her and she eats meat so I teach her. Each parent must decide what is right to teach and I judge by if they are likely to be exposed to them. Then I let my children decide how much is taught by judging their desire to learn it. I consider where food comes from to be the most basic. Yet understand if another parent does not want their child to be exposed to that.