Letting daughter watch "gay friendly" shows?

[TheLittleLady]

I would not expose small children to anything but what we live as a family.

When my child was in public school he was the only child he knew in school or in our neighborhood who had only two parents and only 4 grandparents and only 16 great grandparents. He would have been a very lonely child if we kept him apart from blended families, single parent families, etc.

 

[gam197]

Children talk all the time about their friends but I rarely hear the talk about their friend’s parents or grandparents accept to acknowledge them if they have met them.

They go to school to learn and have very little time even for that. They go to after school programs to also learn whether it is an art or a sport program.

Getting into who is married to whom and how long they have been married and are now married to is an adult conversation not a child’s.

I am not saying they may have heard from another child something about a sibling being a step sister or half sister or the word divorce but for the most part children deal with each other, They talk about many things usually dealing with themselves, their interests.

This changes as they mature into the teen years and start to ask questions on relationships,

 

[on_the_hill]

I am old enough to remember when preachers railed from the pulpit about Billy Crystal’s role on “Soap”.

And as a child at the time, I had absolutely no interest whatsoever. That’s one good thing about kids. They often are uninterested in what’s too old for them.

 

[TheLittleLady]

This varies by community.

In the places where we lived, parents socalized along with kids. For school friends it was meeting at birthday parties and school social events. Everyone’s kids knew the other kids’s parents.

In the neighborhood even moreso.

 

[gam197]

Sure they socialize. They attend all kinds of social events but the children don’t get into who is married to whom. They often know the either the mother/father depending who regularly attends the events. Some of the parents are teachers.

The children don’t really delve into who is married to whom and all their family history.

 

[edwest211]

The mainstream media has obviously decided what it likes. Kids are not considered innocent. Some who work in the media don’t care. It’s very wrong to deny children their innocence as kids. Sure, they may have gay friends and know other gay people but the normalization process continues. Kids are one of the targets. And this is especially wrong for kids who have not gone through puberty. Kids in kindergarten are seeing things they cannot understand and are not emotionally equipped to deal with.

 

[QwertyGirl]

I was a five year old during the height of the civil rights movement. I came home one day and asked my mother what a mixed marriage was. She proceeded to tell me it was when two people of two different religions got married.

My mother knew that wasn’t the kind of mixed marriage I was asking about. She avoided the difficult conversation of the day (or at least the conversation which would have been difficult for her).

My advice is for parents to always be truthful when children come asking questions about the facts of life, or any other topic.

At 5, I knew my mom was, with the best of intentions, being intellectually dishonest. She is the most honest person I have ever met. She is a saint. It was out of character for her. Years later, when I was an adult, we shared a good laugh over it. But it wasn’t OK.

Tell the truth.

 

[gam197]

You can answer questions but if they don’t ask, if it does not come up then why bring it up.

I was 18 years old and I never knew what a homosexual was. This did not affect my life. I am heterosexual so it had nothing to do with me.

 

[JimG]

That’s interesting. All the time I was growing up and going to Catholic schools we were always taught that a mixed marriage was one between a Catholic and a non-Catholic! It never meant an interracial marriage. And it worried me because my father was non-Catholic at the time.

But when I was about 8 years old I heard another boy talking about someone who had a half-brother. That really didn’t make any sense to me. How could there be such a thing as a half-brother? I dismissed it as nonsense.

 

[QwertyGirl]

I believe some kids are just born more worldly than others. I wanted to know everything about everything. If an adult wasn’t willing to share their knowledge with me, I would go to the library and look up whatever I wanted to know.

Looking back on it, I was the kid who shared all of my worldly knowledge with the less wordly kids. LOL. I know my parents got more than one phone call from other parents expressing displeasure that I had taught their kids what a transvestite was, or how birth control worked and, (my personal favorite) the difference between a legal separation and divorce. Still amazes me that parents didn’t want their kids to know these things. They are facts of life.

 

[prayerrider]

Never watched it but if they’ve put out one LGBTetc agenda-pushing episode, there will no doubt be more coming. That’s how their master the devil wants it. Not as if he’s content with just a little or one-time wickedness.

 

[gam197]

I was the girl who never asked and didn’t care. I lived a pretty sheltered life and it did not affect me. I had a good childhood, enjoyed my teen years and became an adult.

I am glad that people allowed me to have that period of childhood.

 

[Allegra]

We had a close family friend who we referred to as “Uncle Randy”, who was gay. I knew he was called “gay”, but I had no idea what that meant, other than he played the piano and wasn’t ever going to get married. We were invited to Mardi Gras parties at his apartment were we hung out and sang showtunes with all his gay friends, and no one ever felt the need to clue in a bunch of kids. I’m pretty sure I believed being gay meant devoting your life to musical theater instead of getting married. I never liked Uncle Randy’s roommate. He told us he was cranky because he hated kids. At least he was honest. He had a poodle named, “Gus”. My sister asked Uncle Randy if his roommate was gay too and he confirmed that he was. My sister then asked why the roommate didn’t ever sing like the rest and Uncle Randy said, “Yeah, Phil? Why DON’T you?” My mom was literally 28 years old before she figured out what was going on with Aunt Mary and her lifelong friend, Kansas.

 

[Wozza]

The mainstream media has obviously decided what it likes. Kids are not considered innocent. Some who work in the media don’t care. It’s very wrong to deny children their innocence as kids. Sure, they may have gay friends and know other gay people but the normalization process continues. Kids are one of the targets. And this is especially wrong for kids who have not gone through puberty. Kids in kindergarten are seeing things they cannot understand and are not emotionally equipped to deal with.

You do know that young kids would find nothing wrong with a gay relationship. Unless they were told it was wrong.

 

[Thorolfr]

Kids in kindergarten are seeing things they cannot understand and are not emotionally equipped to deal with.

A lot of kids are probably not going to try and understand some things because they aren’t even interested. I’m sure that when they are interested, they’ll ask their parents about it and accept whatever answer they get.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

You do know that young kids would find nothing wrong with a gay relationship. Unless they were told it was wrong.

You do know that young kids would find nothing wrong with lying, stealing and hitting.
Unless they were told it was wrong.

 

[amt1985]

Whenever I hear someone ask questions like the OP, I cannot help but wonder how they would respond should their child ever come out to them as gay and/or trans. Gay and trans kids don’t magically stop being gay or trans just because their parents didn’t let them watch a TV show, for the exact same reason they won’t stop having whatever hair color they have. But they might be much happier if they know there are many other people just like them and that they shouldn’t feel ashamed for being who they are or for things they did not choose and can never change. The leading cause of suicide and homelessness among LGBT+ youth is rejection by their parents, and things like TV shows, library books, and positive role models can be a major factor in countering that. Repression/avoidance quite literally costs lives.

To summarize: Imagine how you would respond if your own child ever came out to you, and you’ll likely have your answer.

 

[TheLittleLady]

I came home one day and asked my mother what a mixed marriage was. She proceeded to tell me it was when two people of two different religions got married.

My guess is that the term “mixed marriage” held long time meaning about religious in communities where there were Catholics.

I was a little kid in the late 60’s early 70’s, as a evangelical protestant kid, I knew exactly one Catholic, a distant family member whom we saw at Christmas. I never heard the term “mixed marriage”.

Interracial marriage was talked about as we had family friends who had lived through being incarcerated for entering into one. My parents were very big on current events, we all watched the nightly world news together, read the newspaper as soon as we were old enough to read, etc.

 

[TheLittleLady]

LOL.

I remember when our 13 year old son came home from a visit with friends. Somehow “vasectomy” came up in a car conversation, my son proceeded to describe the procedure in precise medical detail AND told his buddy that a vasectomy was mutilation and a grave sin. Love me some educated kids!!

 

[13pollitos]

Honestly, most kids find it gross for any adults to show affection to one another. It’s not something they want to think about with any type of couple.