The Lesbian Talk My Neighbor Never Though She'd Have with Her 6-year-old Daughter

by Kim D.

Whenever another friend shares any parenting woes, I tend to think back to my mother and wonder what issues she dealt with that were disturbing to her.  We had no cell phones, no social media, and "texting" wasn't in our vocabulary.  We still had bullying, friends we thought could possibly be gay, and tended to be Mallrats.

I'm sure my mother had talks with a "young" me that made her want to bang her head against a wall lamenting "why, oh why, is this even a thing in my child's world." I also imagine this was my neighbor's reaction the other day as she was trying to explain lesbianism to her daughter on a level that she could understand. Evidently one of her friends has an aunt who recently got married.  So, my neighbor's daughter came home confused and asked "can women marry other women?"

I recently had a similar experience when a transgendering man briefly interned at my son's school. In my opinion, it's best to tackle these talks head on with as much truth as one thinks his or her child can handle. When my son was confused as to why a man would want to wear makeup, I simply said a select few men do and we don't have to understand why but we can respect it.  My attitude was "we can do us and let them do them." I know that is considered borderline politically correct on one side and noninclusive on the other.  We parents can't win so we shouldn't try to beat the narratives and help our children understand the world they are experiencing for better or worse.

Another parent who has a six-year-old daughter was telling me she was angry that Elsa would be "coming out" in the next Frozen movie. Falling prey to the chatter on Facebook, she didn't realize that Elsa having a girlfriend is only a movement much like giving Captain America a boyfriend, nothing more than an attempt to "gay" everything while the momentum is on the LBGT train. We will have to wait until 2018 to see if Disney decides to hop on this narrative.