Teaching Kids the Truth About Marriage

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Early. Their were two mommy couples at toddler story time. I corrected as appropriate.
 
Interesting. How did the affiliation of these couples come to the attention of your kids?

Did your kids ask you something? How did that go?

I think I’d stop going to that storytime
 
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Well it’s everywhere…even in homeschool groups and story time. You can’t avoid it.

At that age, It’s more like “Alameda called that girl mommy Jenna and that girl mommy Sue. Two mommies!”

In private I said something like “God gave Alameda a mommy and daddy. But her mommy decided to live with another mommy and not her daddy.”

This applies to divorce, too. It’s even more gut wrenching when you have a 3yo who has mommy and Johnny and Daddy and Lisa. The instability that poor kid has dealt with…

I’m in an area where it’s inescapable. Our homosexual population is pretty dang close to 5% so even if only 1/5 have children were talking one out of every 100 families having same gender parents.
 
Yeah, I think that’s appropriate.

I am glad I live where we don’t see that very much.

I still think that explaining “State Law” or “a judge” is not something a 5 yr old can grasp. But I don’t think you’ve handled things poorly at all, as far as you’ve related.
 
rcwitness said:
Yeah, I think that’s appropriate.

I am glad I live where we don’t see that very much.

I still think that explaining “State Law” or “a judge” is not something a 5 yr old can grasp. But I don’t think you’ve handled things poorly at all, as far as you’ve related.
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We do talk about Police rules vs church rules. That came up pretty early because during the holidays the police do traffic control. I think it first came up during Easter when we went to confession previously. That was pretty simple. Mommy has rules. Jesus has rules. Police/judges have rules. Mostly they agree. Sometimes they do not.
 
Mommy and Jesus’ rules don’t agree!? I take it that’s not what you meant.

I think that’s a good way to introduce the issue. I just would start with establishing that marriage is only between a man and woman. Let that be their foundation, without this world’s complications along side the truth.
 
Well. Listening to Mommy makes Jesus happy, but they know that it’s mommy’s rule not to shout inside.

This helps them with dealing with different rules at different homes. Grammy’s house means you can eat all the cookies you want. You can turn up the music loud at Janie’s house. Allie’s mom doesn’t allow toys in the living room. None of these are Jesus’ rules, nor do they offend Jesus. They are just “Mommy rules/house rules”

Small kids really struggle with different rules for different places. Breaking it down to show different people are in charge but still respect Jesus or the Police is really helpful. They know someone is in charge and that comforts them.

Their foundation is being built with divorce and gay marriage as a thing. The only way to have them understand is to explain church marriage (Jesus’ rules) and civil marriage (Judge’s rules). Two women or two men can get married civilly. That train has come and gone. Teaching that it’s wrong to civilly do is just wrong and confusing. Teaching that a sacramental (Jesus approved) marriage is only between a man and a woman is all that’s left. There are two types of marriage…pretending there isn’t is just confusing.
 
QwertyGirl said:
The kid is going to find out eventually that mom is wrong. People of the same sex can and do get married. The issue is that the Catholic Church and the State have two different definitions of marriage. The Catholic Church doesn’t ACKNOWLEDGE the state marriage. Mom needs to do better in addressing the truth while informing child of Catholic teachin.
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If two six year olds play wedding, even make a pretend marriage “license,” does that make them married? It’s pretend. Similarly, two people of the same sex who go through the ceremonies of marriage are not actually married, it’s pretend. That’s why many people put gay “marriage” in quotes. The state can’t change marriage any more than it can make a square triangle.

Of course explaining this to a 5 year old is a different story, but we want to be clear that we don’t normalize gay marriage in the kid’s head as just another option that happens not to be accepted by the Church.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
Well. Listening to Mommy makes Jesus happy, but they know that it’s mommy’s rule not to shout inside.

This helps them with dealing with different rules at different homes. Grammy’s house means you can eat all the cookies you want. You can turn up the music loud at Janie’s house. Allie’s mom doesn’t allow toys in the living room. None of these are Jesus’ rules, nor do they offend Jesus. They are just “Mommy rules/house rules”

Small kids really struggle with different rules for different places. Breaking it down to show different people are in charge but still respect Jesus or the Police is really helpful. They know someone is in charge and that comforts them.

Their foundation is being built with divorce and gay marriage as a thing. The only way to have them understand is to explain church marriage (Jesus’ rules) and civil marriage (Judge’s rules). Two women or two men can get married civilly. That train has come and gone. Teaching that it’s wrong to civilly do is just wrong and confusing. Teaching that a sacramental (Jesus approved) marriage is only between a man and a woman is all that’s left. There are two types of marriage…pretending there isn’t is just confusing.
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A 5 year old is not able to understand all this. Give them the truth about what real marriage is first. When they can understand that State law opposes what Jesus Teaches, then that can be introduced.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
Their foundation is being built with divorce and gay marriage as a thing. The only way to have them understand is to explain church marriage (Jesus’ rules) and civil marriage (Judge’s rules). Two women or two men can get married civilly. That train has come and gone. Teaching that it’s wrong to civilly do is just wrong and confusing. Teaching that a sacramental (Jesus approved) marriage is only between a man and a woman is all that’s left. There are two types of marriage…pretending there isn’t is just confusing.
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I fully disagree with this part.

Would you say the same about abortion?
 
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rcwitness said:
A 5 year old is not able to understand all this. Give them the truth about what real marriage is first. When they can understand that State law opposes what Jesus Teaches, then that can be introduced.
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What “marriage” civilly truly is is a set of complicated tax, insurance and inheritance laws. Quite frankly, I have no issue with this part. In fact, I think these sort of laws should be more all-encompassing letting any two people share benefits at their discretion. For instance, my friend (also female) lost her job with a small child. She had been abandoned and divorced by her husband. At the time I had really good health insurance. I would have LOVED to put her and her child on mine to protect them. When her child was diagnosed with a chronic illness, I was prepared to do whatever legal hoops I had to in order to protect that child. Fortunately, after fighting with the government and 6 months of underemployment the child got Medicaid.

While the initial social benefits of marriage were “for procreation and raising of children” it’s just not that way anymore. The laws often work against poor families and abandoned single parents and unnecessarily create legal loopholes for the rich.

In short, I do not feel like gay marriage is the same as abortion. Abortion kills a person. Civil gay marriage allows people to access entrenched social benefits that are being held outside of their reach for stupid reasons.

We use the same words, they are two different things. My kids can comprehend that.
rcwitness said:
I fully disagree with this part.

Would you say the same about abortion?
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There is Marriage within the Catholic Church and there is marriage outside. Again, we are using the same word, but it doesn’t mean the same thing. My kids seem to be able to understand this.

Abortion kills a person. It has nothing to do with sociatal benefits since a woman and man can opt not to raise the child.
 
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LisaB said:
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QwertyGirl:
The kid is going to find out eventually that mom is wrong. People of the same sex can and do get married. The issue is that the Catholic Church and the State have two different definitions of marriage. The Catholic Church doesn’t ACKNOWLEDGE the state marriage. Mom needs to do better in addressing the truth while informing child of Catholic teachin.
Click to expand...
If two six year olds play wedding, even make a pretend marriage “license,” does that make them married? It’s pretend. Similarly, two people of the same sex who go through the ceremonies of marriage are not actually married, it’s pretend. That’s why many people put gay “marriage” in quotes. The state can’t change marriage any more than it can make a square triangle.

Of course explaining this to a 5 year old is a different story, but we want to be clear that we don’t normalize gay marriage in the kid’s head as just another option that happens not to be accepted by the Church.
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But it is “just another option” that is legal. And it isn’t accepted by the Church. That’s the truth.
 
The Church doesn’t merely say they don’t “accept it”, but that it’s a deception. It cannot happen, no matter who tries to promote it, or legalize it.
 
I would tell them that only a man and a woman can get married, but that some people are confused about what marriage is. When they are old enough to understand more, you can explain that in recent years, U.S. law expanded the definition of marriage to say that two people of the same sex can get married, but that is not what marriage actually is.

I would not frame it by saying it is “against the rules” of the Catholic Church. Obviously we would want to discuss Church teaching about marriage, etc. when age-appropriate, but don’t frame it as though it is just an arbitrary rule that the Church made up. Because it is not–rather, marriage between a man and a woman is a basic truth of natural law; and “marriage” between two persons of the same sex is basically a legal fiction.
 
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It’s like a woman having surgery to attempt to become a man.

No matter what all the advanced surgeries can change, that woman is always a woman.

We shouldn’t tell our children, they used to be a woman, but now they are a man. Even if the State would recognize her as a man.
 
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Well I have heard of some instances where children were being taught about gender fluidity and transgender, and one little girl came home crying because she was afraid that she might turn into a boy.
 
If Supreme court judges can be decieved, how much easier for a 5 yr old? 🙂
 
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JimG said:
Well I have heard of some instances where children were being taught about gender fluidity and transgender, and one little girl came home crying because she was afraid that she might turn into a boy.
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She and/or the teachers failed the lesson, then.
 
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