Wednesday, October 8, 2008

"Mom, what does gay mean?"

So, I'm in the bathroom this morning when Sam knocks on the door (this is progress, they don't just walk in anymore!) and says, "Mom what does gay mean? Cuz Time keeps calling me gay."

I said, "we'll have this conversation when I get out of the shower."

So while we are all in the kitchen getting ready to walk out the door I ask Tim what he thinks gay means, and as I figured, he didn't know.

So I said, "Well, it has two meanings, first it means, really happy. And second, you know how Mommy loves Daddy and I'm a girl and he's a boy. Well, sometimes, boys can love boys and girls can love girls and sometimes you can't pick who you love. So they use the word gay to describe that."

Then I was telling this story to my daycare provider and another mom, and they both sort of balked at the fact that I told them the truth. They thought I should have just said it meant happy and that we don't call people that.

And I sort of realized that I want to be the kind of parent that is honest and upfront about difficult conversations. So I feel a little bad, but not too bad.

3 comments:

JSmith5780 said...

In my book, honesty is the best policy. I would have explained it too!

I have to laugh about the shower thing. I sometimes wonder why I bother to shut the door at all. Saturday morning as I was showering before the garage sale, Ben comes barging into the bathroom asking WHY OH WHY are we selling his dumptruck. Hmmm guess it's time to start setting the alarm while I am in the shower!

trackrich said...

And yes, her ability to answer these questions is on the list of reasons why my wife is the best ever ;)

diane said...

being honest is the best thing.
I am honest and I don't have to worry about what I said instead. Plus we have some pretty good discusions.