So 9YO mudgirl stayed home sick from school yesterday, she had a tummy ache (and she hates to miss school, so when she asks to stay home, I know she feels she needs to).
Anyway, we ended up watching the Ellen DeGeneres Show together. I love Ellen because she’s funny and she always tries so hard to make sure her audience has a good time. Her first guest yesterday was Kevin Nealon. When he came out, she hugged and kissed him, as she does with all her guests. Mudgirl (just becoming aware of sexuality in general) says “Oooooh, I think that’s her husband!” I told her, no, he’s not her husband. Ellen is already married, I explain, to another woman. She has a wife, not a husband. “You can do that?” asks mudgirl dubiously. “Well”, I explain, “in some states and countries you can. Ellen and her wife live in California, where it’s legal for two women to get married”. She thought this out for a minute or two and then said “I wish I lived in California” “Oh?” I question. “Yeah” she says, “Then I could marry Brianna” (Brianna is her ‘best friend’).
“You and Brianna are nine years old”, I explain. “You are both too young to marry anyone.” She says “Well, yeah, but if I was old enough to get married, I’d totally marry Brianna!” I said “I thought you had boyfriends?” “Well, yeah, I might marry one of them instead”.
I didn’t know where, if anywhere, to take the conversation from there, so I just said “Well, by the time you’re old enough to get married, it’ll be legal to marry anyone you want in any state of the country”, and that seemed to satisfy her.
I would revise rule number two to be: Her father reserves the right to kick the ass of anyone, buck or otherwise, who even dreams of violating rule number one.
Good job! You stated the facts in a way she could understand (and, likely, ponder for a while). She’ll likely be back for more info after this comes up in the schoolyard at some point.
Yeah, just leave it alone. She’ll figure it out in time.
When I was in grade school, I remember seeing some Jerry Springer-like talk show about gay marriage. At the time, I didn’t really understand the sexual aspect of marriage, so I remember telling my female best friend that, hey, this means when we’re older we can get married! Wouldn’t that be awesome, getting to be with your best friend forever?!?!
(Oddly, I don’t remember my best friend responding to that idea of mine - maybe she had caught on to what gay marriage really is at a younger age than I did )
I grew up. Somewhere along the way, I figured out gay vs. straight. Now I’m a straight girl dating my male best friend.
Uh, OK, I’ll try to do the best I can. Mudgirl’s background:
Her father and I are happily married, both firmly hetero, healthy sex life.
I have two sisters who are gay, one in a long-term relationship, and mudgirl considers my sister’s long-term partner as much a part of the family as anyone else she sees at family gatherings.
Her father and I are both pretty socially liberal. No reason gays shouldn’t have the same rights as straights, and we make no secret of that, though we don’t get on soapboxes about it, either Mudgirl has experienced sexual assault by two neighborhood boys (I can provide links to relevant thread if requested), but it doesn’t seem to have hurt her view of boys any; she has several boys she considers to be “boyfriends” and one who is, for want of a better word, actively ‘courting’ her (calling her on the phone, inviting her to his house, etc. He’s in her class)
She sees the comings and goings of her older sisters’ bf’s and gf’s (oldest daughter is bi, middle daughter is straight)
She has some loose concept of where babies come from and what married people ‘do’ when they’re alone
I can see why you would say that. On the other hand (with the caveat I am not a professional on this topic), I am not sure if it is actually beneficial to mudgirl to frame everything that happens to her in terms of that one traumatic experience.
It seems to me that might be giving that one incident more power in her life than it deserves to have, by dwelling on it instead of moving forward.
This is why, in response to that request for more background, I ‘framed’ that one traumatic experience; she doesn’t seem to see this as a problem with “boys” in general, just with those two boys in particular. She seems to be doing well with the cooperation and love of her family, and appropriate counseling.
Are we still talking about gay marriage here, because my mind kind of wondered when I read that sentence…
norinew - I think you did great at explaining something that could potentially be quite confusing. But given the context you’ve supplied about your family, I doubt the prospect of two women on TV being married is going to blow your daughter’s mind particularly. Her comment about marrying her best friend screams 9 year old logic to me, I imagine she’ll laugh hard when you replay that conversation to her in a few years.
It did not, but the sponsors of prop 8 filed a brief in December with the California Supreme Court asking for them to be annulled. Because preventing any new ones just wasn’t enough.
I think you did a fantastic job. Mudgirl may be thinking of how nice it would be to have a spouse who’s her best friend, or she may be legitimately attracted to girls, or she may have just been speculating without grounds. Either way, she knows that you love and support her and want her to be happy.
And I so need to hear the story about how your 17yo learned her aunt was bi.
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