How do I explain same sex marriage to my seven year old?

[Annalisapur]

My son who is seven years old was watching a children’s show on TV… he thought it was so funny that someone could have two Daddy’s. He keeps asking me about it since then and I really don’t know what to say. I keep changing the subject but he keeps bringing it up again.

 

[JimG]

Well, I don’t know, because I feel the same way as the 7 year old. Biologically speaking, no one can really have two daddy’s. But a lot of people like to pretend that such a thing is possible.

 

[JMMJ]

You just say there are all kinds of families.

 

[blackforest]

My parenting philosophy has long been that if they’re ready to ask a question, then they’re ready to get an honest answer.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Let me guess, it was The Loud House.

At the age of seven, and with a boy, I would explain that babies can only come from a mom and dad, and that’s why men and women get married.
Sometimes people do something else, but they really shouldn’t.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I agree with just telling your child there are all kinds of families and we should respect other people’s families, even those that aren’t like our own family.

There are also family situations out there involving two men or two women sharing a house or apartment and raising kids together, but it’s not a gay relationship. Don’t give your kid the idea that just because two same-sex people are sharing living space and raising kids, they’re automatically a gay couple.

If his question is more about the sexual aspect of conception, like how can a kid be conceived when it’s two daddies, you can explain to him that every baby needs a mom and a dad in order to be conceived and born, but that sometimes the mom and dad break up and choose to live with other people to actually raise the children, although as Catholics we don’t believe in doing that and think a mom and a dad should stay together and raise the children.

 

[AdamP88]

You just say there are all kinds of families.

Every family is different.

I wouldn’t say these at all since it legitimatizes SSM.

I’d just say some men like men and try to pretend that they can get married and have babies but really only a woman and a man can have babies and be married. It’s impossible to have two daddies.

Same sex “families” have selfishly deprived a child of a mother and father for their own ego and pleasure. No point telling him “there’s all kinds of families.”

 

[poche]

I a world of divorce and remarriage and blended families it is possible to appear to have two daddies.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I a world of divorce and remarriage and blended families it is possible to appear to have two daddies.

Exactly. As I said above, there are a lot of families appearing to have “two daddies” where the “two daddies” are not a gay couple.
The “two daddies” could even be relatives, like the dad let his brother or his brother-in-law move in.

 

[JMMJ]

Every family is different.

I couldn’t disagree more. At his age, he is asking how can there be a family that is different from the kind of family he knows. Whether you approve of same sex marriage, or not, it doesn’t change the fact that the family with “two dads” is still a family.

At 7, kids go to school and discuss everything their parents tell them. I wouldn’t want my 7 year old going to school and telling the kid with two dads the things you suggested a parent should tell a child that age. It is unnecessary and really would be quite cruel. It would also be very likely to happen. That other child needs to feel love and acceptance just like everyone else. They don’t need to be sent the message that their family doesn’t count and isn’t real.

I would rather teach my child that families of all types deserve respect and that the people within those families love each other, just like they do in our family.

There will be plenty of time to teach the Catholic agenda on same sex marriage. At the ages 7, all children shoukd understand the basics of where babies come from. They should also understand the concept of adoption. One can tell their child that most likely the child with two daddy’s was adopted, which is true.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

At 7, kids go to school and discuss everything their parents tell them. I wouldn’t want my 7 year old going to school and telling the kid with two dads the things you suggested a parent should tell a child that age. It is unnecessary and really would be quite cruel.

Thank you, I almost posted this myself.
“My mom said your dad is selfish because you have two dads but no mom. If your dad wasn’t so selfish, you’d have a dad AND a mom. I have a mom and dad and my mom says that’s what God wants.”
I really would not want my 7-year-old saying stuff like that.

The other kid’s mom might not have even left voluntarily - she could be dead or in prison for all we know.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

When I was in the third grade (age 8), we learned about the sacraments and were told that divorce and remarriage was a sin.
I don’t remember if any kids with me in that class had divorced and remarried parents.
We were also taught that pornography (ie Playboy magazine) was a sin.
Here’s the thing, and I don’t have a perfect answer to this—at what age do we tell kids the Church ‘s teaching on sexuality and marriage?
There were certainly boys in my third grade class looking at Playboy. Kids played “show me yours and I’ll show you mine”.

The kid in the OPs post already had SSM shown to him on a supposedly “safe” cartoon. He didn’t seek it out. The parents didn’t show it to him. But it certainly made an impression, and it was displayed as perfectly normal.
When do parents who are philosophically opposes to SSM get their say?
Several years down the road when the kid has been thoroughly indoctrinated and now sees the parents as hateful bigots?

It’s grossly unfair to both the kids and their parents to put them in this situation of having to explain things a child isn’t cognitive ready to understand or put into a moral framework.

But Hollywood certainly got their say…

 

[Prodigal_Son]

The lesson here is not to put your children in front of a television that is unpredictable.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Several years down the road when the kid has been thoroughly indoctrinated and now sees the parents as hateful bigots?

Indoctrination can only happen if a child is exposed to indoctrinators. Throw out the TV, or only use it for Netflix/Amazon/Hulu shows that you preapprove.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Here’s the thing, and I don’t have a perfect answer to this—at what age do we tell kids the Church ‘s teaching on sexuality and marriage?

You can tell them at any age, but if they are too young to know how to use discretion in repeating stuff they hear in the house, you simply say, “We’re Catholics, and our Church doesn’t permit that”. It gets the message across adequately.

There is no need to use words like “it’s a sin” when the kid himself is not going to be committing the sin at age 7. My mother would occasionally have to talk to me when I was under age 10 about kids with divorced parents, or neighbors and relatives living openly in various heterosexual situations not accepted by the church, and she would say things like what I said above. “The Catholic Church doesn’t allow that.”

Once a kid hits the teens, you can start talking more deeply about things being sinful and why, and put it into a context of sex education that you can’t when a kid is only 7 and nowhere near puberty. He may not even understand what makes gay people gay, i.e. that they have SSA and presumably have sexual relations together, and may not understand how two non-gay same sex roommates are different from gay same-sex roommates.

 

[AdamP88]

Whether you approve of same sex marriage, or not, it doesn’t change the fact that the family with “two dads” is still a family.

I don’t recognise them as a family. Neither does the Church.

This is the dictionary definition of “family”:

a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit.

Since same sex couples could not possibly both be parents of a child then it’s obviously exclusive to opposite sex partners.

At 7, kids go to school and discuss everything their parents tell them. I wouldn’t want my 7 year old going to school and telling the kid with two dads the things you suggested a parent should tell a child that age. It is unnecessary and really would be quite cruel.

Well I’d have no problem with that. I’m not going to lie to a child to protect someone’s feelings.

That other child needs to feel love and acceptance just like everyone else.

Yeah, they do, but they don’t need to be lied to. The situation isn’t normal. It’s not their fault.

I would rather teach my child that families of all types deserve respect and that the people within those families love each other, just like they do in our family.

I’d change that to “everyone deserves respect and love but there is only one type of family that is part of God’s plan.”

Sorry, but I’m not teaching my son/daughter a watered-down version of the faith.

As a teacher I’m all too familiar with how that turns out.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

So, are you going to go to your child’s school on parents’ night and tell his classmate who is there with his two same-sex parents, “It’s not your fault, but your situation isn’t normal and your family isn’t a real family”?

 

[Elf01]

This is the dictionary definition of “family”:

a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit.

That would rule out adoption as well (same sex couples can adopt children as well as heterosexual couples) - or extended family. It would also rule out a married childless couple.

 

[goout]

Probably not appropriate to address same sex marriage with your 7 year old in an explicit way. At the same time, responding “there’s all different kinds of families out there” is not an adequate response either.
What you can do is begin to immerse a child in common sense and and natural law. Not in philosophical terms, but in ways that 7 year olds can understand.
You can instruct a child to trust what they see and what they hear. This is a key thrust of the Gospel: "you have heard it said… " “look at the birds…” Christ himself appeals to our common sense perceptions.

"Susie, what color is the sky?
Blue
What if someone told you the sky is purple? Would you believe them?

Susie, what if someone told you our cat is a dog?
Would you believe them?

Using simple common sense analogies can instill confidence in a young person in what they see and hear and know to be real. It will help make the Church’s teaching reasonable and approachable.

It will help them respond later in life when someone insists that children don’t have to have a mom and dad.

 

[JMMJ]

That would be a lie though. A family is a mother and a father and children.

A biological family fits that description. Believe it or not, there are places where a same sex couple can adopt a child and be a family. Or a child can be the biological offspring of one of the parents, and adopted by the other. This really is a thing. And it is a real family.