The other day my daughter asked me why I wear a ring. I told her it\u2019s because I\u2019m married, and I called my husband over and showed her his ring, too. I told her that when two people get married they wear rings.<\/p>\n
But of course this meant I had to explain what \u201cgetting married\u201d meant. So I told her that when two people love each other very much and want to be life partners, they get married. I told her that when she grows up and finds someone she loves very much and wants to share her life with, she can get married too.<\/p>\n
I watched my language carefully. I carefully avoided using male pronouns. I wanted her to know that she would marry someone she loved very much, but that that person didn\u2019t necessarily have to be male.<\/p>\n
And yet, as my daughter and I finished our conversation about getting married, my husband chimed in to add something else I had completely failed to think about:<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you don\u2019t want to, you don\u2019t have to get married. Not everyone gets married.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here I was trying so hard to avoid being heteronormative, but I still couldn\u2019t avoid making marriage normative and thus excluding people who choose to remain single. And I\u2019d also excluded polyamorous individuals as well.<\/p>\n
Raising progressive and inclusive children can be hard, especially when that\u2019s not how I myself was raised. It means I have to be on my toes and watch what I say. It means I have to avoid the programming in my head and instead think <\/em>about what I say.<\/p>\n The other day we were watching a TV show and there was a sex scene. It wasn\u2019t very explicit, but my daughter looked very confused about what was going on. So I told her that they were having sex. But of course, that didn\u2019t mean anything to her, so I had to find a way to explain to her what sex was.<\/p>\n I carefully avoided the pre-programmed language playing in my head \u2013 \u201csex is something mommies and daddies do\u201d or \u201csex is how babies are made\u201d \u2013 and told her that sex is something grown-ups do, and that when she grows up she can have sex too, if she wants to.<\/p>\n Similarly, the other day she was pointing to my belly and talking about how she\u2019s not \u201cbig enough\u201d to have a baby in her <\/em>belly yet. I told her that when she grows up \u2013 when she\u2019s twenty-five or thirty or thirty-five \u2013 then she will be big enough to have a baby in her belly. And then, I hastily added, only if she wants to.<\/p>\n That brings up something else, though. I tell her I have a baby in my belly, her baby brother. But technically, it won\u2019t be a baby until it\u2019s born. But how do I explain this to a young child? The word \u201cfetus\u201d would mean nothing to her. Not saying anything makes no sense \u2013 I want her to be prepared for her new sibling. This is one where I\u2019ve thrown up my hands and decided there\u2019s time enough to help her understand the intricacies of fetal development and the politics of female reproduction when she\u2019s older.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t think I\u2019m paranoid for being so careful about how I phrase things around my daughter. I grew up in an extremely traditional home and had traditional messages fed to me from the get-go. I want to avoid sending my daughter those same traditional messages, but even our very language makes that difficult to do. And rather than feeling paranoid or worrying about messing my daughter up, I see this as a challenge and an opportunity. In thinking carefully about what messages I send my daughter, I have one more opportunity to grow, think, and process myself.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The other day my daughter asked me why I wear a ring. I told her it\u2019s because I\u2019m married, and I called my husband over and showed her his ring, too. I told her that when two people get married they wear rings. But of course this meant I had to explain what \u201cgetting married\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,108],"tags":[24,110,106],"class_list":["post-2737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-parenting","tag-children","tag-lgbtq","tag-marriage-2"],"yoast_head":"\n