My kids do. They were younger than 4 years old when I explained it to them and they didn't have any trouble understanding. Kind of makes me wonder why so many adults have so much trouble.
My seven year old explained it to me the other day. Snapped at him half paying attention, thinking he was calling something gay disparagingly. Asked what that word meant to him and he said "when two of the same gender people love each other. Like two boys or two girls."
"How do you know that??"
"Ms. --social worker at school name-- told me about it"
"Oh.. well. Great. Carry on then. Oh! Wait! You know you can love whoever you love right? And Daddy will always love you?"
"Yeah of course, can you be quiet so I can watch my show please"
This morning I noticed a black trans lives matter sign on a hallway wall and felt really proud of our school. Fwiw it's one of the lowest income and most diverse schools in our affluent city, debunking "Poors and POC are inherently bigots" bullshit from the academic left.
The academic left? Friend, your kid is well adjusted. More so than you (which is the goal, so good on you)
The academic left doesn't exist. I don't even know what that means, but it's not a real group. It sounds like it came from fox "news"
You're trying. Your kid has been raised to not see the issues we (myself included) get tangled up on. We have to get past the bigotry subtly hammered into us growing up... If you're not pushing our baggage onto the next generation, you're doing great as far as social issues go
No leftist wants anything except for you to be paid more fairly and for your kid's school to be better funded. Doubly so if we're educated enough to recognize systematic issues.
You're on the right side of history... But whatever news programs you've been watching, please stop. They're owned by billionaires actively trying to sow division for their own benefit
"If your child gets turned gay by watching a lil Nas x video just show them the WAP video to turn them straight again. Y'know cause that's how it supposedly works"
I know I butchered the quote but the point is still there
When I was little, I got to know some of my mother's gay friends.
she just said smth like "they are a couple", and i got it. It's not difficult to teach the existence of gay couples. Unless you teach that couples are specifically man and woman.
I have gay family, and I didn’t need that explained to me. Even growing up in a very christian household, and being in a church that was conservative for most of my time there. I have never seen anyone argue this in good faith, and I don’t think it’s possible to argue this in good faith.
Maybe they wouldn't have trouble understanding it if they weren't constantly told all their life that men need to love women and women need to love men 🤣
What makes it confusing is when it contradicts everything they've been taught their whole life. Don't fill their heads with that shit and they will handle it perfectly fine.
I understood my (much older) brother's best friend and his boyfriend were gay when I was 6 years old. It took about 10 seconds for my parents to explain the concept.
"Some boys love other boys instead of girls and the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides."
As a kid, my mom explained that sometimes two men or two women fall in love too, the same as if it were a man and a woman, and that's all I needed to understand.
My kid is gay. It doesn’t bother me…mostly. Like, I’m 100% fine with it on a social level. I never criticize her, I support her, but when I think about not having biological grandchildren something on a primitive level cries out in me. Her mother is dead, she had one child. As an animal, on a very basic level, she wasn’t successful in reproduction if her genes stop with her only child.
If we’re looking at it beyond just what we can see, people are terrified that their children won’t reproduce. I could be wrong, I’m just an idiot.
As humans we have to contend with our intellect and our nature. A lot of us have very little of one and a whole lot of the other.
I personally feel like I have to be above my fear. My fear is primitive. Humanity is fine if none of my genes ever travel on down the line. My daughter is perfect like she is.
Whether or not a child decides to have children of their own will never be something a parent gets to "fear" or control, straight or gay. All 8 billion humans are conscious enough to realize that individuals aren't responsible for perpetuating the species, and that one specific person's genes aren't any ideal that needs to live on.
I'm glad you support your daughter's chance at happiness rather than her reproduction quality!
That’s the whole point about being above my own fears.
I know it isn’t my decision.
My fear is something I can’t control. How I react to that fear is a whole other story.
I feel like that’s the whole solution across the board. Teaching people that their nature will lead them to fear things irrationally. Their intellect is the answer.
You know that being a gay or lesbian doesn’t prevent you from being able to have children, right?
Having a personal issue with her not having children (if that’s what she decides) is ok. Blaming it on her being gay is just bigoted. She could have been born straight and still decided not to have children and you’d be in the same place.
That deep primitive fear you talk about isn’t animal, it’s social.
We’re taught that idea. Family is defined by the state as biological relationship so we all have experience with that structure and conflate it with the biological. States throughout history have done such a good job of reifying the idea that family is blood relation that we don’t question it!
If the cognative notion that your kid wouldn’t have more kids could influence the “animal” fears like fight or flight it wouldn’t come out in dread or anger, it would be hormones and other purely biological effects in your body.
I’m not saying this to be jerk or call you crazy, but fr talk to a therapist about this. Someone who can help you figure out what your feelings mean is really helpful.