May 30, 2006: The latest issue of Parenting Magazine, June 2006, has an article called The Birds and the Bees and Curious Kids, all about questions children ask about sexuality. Amongst such stumpers as “Why is my penis getting hard,” and “How does the sperm get to the egg anyway?” Parents poses the scenario “Your child tells you her classmate has two mommies. ‘How can that be?’ she asks.

OK, so lets leave out for a moment the unfortunate inclusion of same sex parents with an article specifically on “sexuality.” As Dana at Mombian points out, this issue would have been better addressed in a story about families or relationships.

How is Parenting’s answer otherwise? Pretty good!

How to respond: Homosexuality may seem like a confusing subject — especially for kids who haven’t even gotten the concept of heterosexuality down yet. But your explanation doesn’t have to be complicated: “In Ginny’s family, her two mommies love each other the way that Daddy and I do. So they live together, and both take care of Ginny.”
The topic may also come up after your child hears a homosexual slur. Christi Cole’s daughter Caitlyn, 6, said a boy at school had been telling kids in her class, “You’re gay”—so of course she wanted to know what that meant. The Augusta, Georgia, mom explained that sometimes boys fall in love with boys and girls fall in love with girls, but that the boy at Caitlyn’s school probably didn’t really understand what he was talking about. Then she reminded her daughter that calling people names isn’t nice and might hurt someone’s feelings.

Kudos to Parenting for this sensitive and sensible advice.

BTW, they never actually do give an answer to the poor kid who asks about his erection. All he gets is ” “Oh, that happens sometimes. It will get soft again soon.”

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