Where do the months go? To tell or not to tell?

So here we are on April 1.  I've managed so far to not be April Fooled but then I've barely left the house.  I hope you are all just as lucky or have had a good laugh.

Where has the time gone since my last post?  Family life hey?

More food for thought for my book.  Our son had a friend sleep over recently.  We had a great chat with the friend's mother about discussing the topic of our son having 2 mothers.  Now I appreciate a lot of people don't see this as an issue on the surface but no matter how accepted we are there are still circumstances that need to be considered so to speak.  It raises the question, what does the parent of the child do?  Let him know that he is going to a house where there are two mums who will sleep in the same bed etc. or leave it be because it's no big deal.  I personally am a little conflicted on the approach, which will obviously be different for every child.  My inner equality rebel says, NO, nothing should need to be discussed a family, is a family, is a family regardless of the makeup.

However I get that there could be some young children who, raised in the heteronormative society that we live in might be a little confused heading off for a sleep over to find two mums.  Clearly we want our kids to be comfortable and our kids friends so a little heads up just to check all is good seems like an OK plan to me.

I recall arranging our daughter's first play date in daycare and 'coming out' to the mother on the other end of the phone.  Who, thankfully, was completely fine, as are most people.  There was that chance though that the family may have been strictly against gay people and not want their children 'exposed'.  While it sounds so strange for me to say, I don't doubt there are people who fit this category.  We all know there are people who fit this category.  Thankfully the greater majority do not.  Who was I to know that the family weren't some worshipers from the Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church! 

As we got talking with the mother of the boy who came over she was fantastic and shared that a chat had occurred with their son.  It was really nice to be able to speak with a parent who felt comfortable enough to say that she and her husband had thought about just letting their son know in case he wasn't aware or wanted to ask other questions.

I've also found myself recently having conversations with people who I find so accepting about same-sex relationships and families but as individuals and as parents they do want to talk about some of the not so obvious details.  When we've talked I hear that they do have questions and feel somewhat uninformed, not through purposeful ignorance but simply a desire to understand more.  Even something as simple as what our children call us is a very valid question and I want people to feel comfortable to ask the questions and not be shy.

This is a key area of my book.  Let's understand together what is helpful information, what questions people do have on their mind, not in any negative way but instead just wanting to know more.  I truly believe before we make it to complete cultural acceptance we need to go through a phase of open communication where people can feel free to ask and learn more.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

A

© Adele Fisher 2014