How would you deal with this?

[Ignatius21]

At my son's school (he's just turned 5 and is in preschool, but next year he'll be with the same kids...it's a Montessori class). There's a woman who works where I do who is a lesbian, who is "partnered" to another woman, with an adopted daughter. And I just recently learned that her little girl is not only at my son's school, but next year will be in his class.

Now I don't expect them to be discussing their parents much. But at some point he'll see or hear that she has "two mommies." And it will simply be undiscussed in that setting...it'll just be another one of those normal things that really isn't any big deal. But he calls things as he sees them and will surely ask "Why does this girl say she has two mommies?"

So what's the compassionate but principled way to explain that to a 5 year old? It's of course not the only thing that will need explaining...eventually he'll meet kids with unmarried parents and the like...but at least there it could be explained away as "well they just aren't married yet" or some such thing.

Anyway, this just drives home to me that this is unavoidable in our enlightened, modern society and I can't be naive in assuming that we can avoid it if we just close our eyes. Perhaps something as simple as "We don't think that's right, but we can still be friends and just not talk about it..." etc.

Has anyone faced this yet? How did you address it? Or how would you?

 

[zaida]

Hi Ignatius 21 - Thats such an interesting question. (by the way, Im a new roman catholic, lurking on other forums, lol!) As someone who plans on raising her kids hopefully as Catholics (if their dad allows!) I know I will come up against the same thing. My problem is compounded by the fact that I have always had gay/lesbian friends, and a very close brother in law who I love very much who is a gay man with a partner - and I never, in my heart, could feel it is wrong - but I know what my faith teaches and understand about Gods will in terms of man and woman etc.

I think you are on the right track with what you said - something along the lines of "all families are different. We dont believe that their should be two mommies - but we must always be kind to people, even if we dont like what they are doing".

Another way to think about it - some kids have 2 mommies or daddys and its not because of gay/lesbian relationships. I knew someone who grew up with mom and aunt, from the time she was little, called them both "mom!" You can avoid the gay lesbian issue, focusing on how all families differ.

 

[1970jennifer]

5 years old? Don't say anything! Change the subject. That's waaaaay too young to even go there.

 

[choirfiend]

Sometimes children don't have a daddy with them. Or a mommy with them. Sometimes children are raised by their grandparents, or an aunt and uncle. Mommy and I love you very much, and children who do not have a daddy or a mommy are also loved very much by the people who take care of them. Sometimes it is sad that their daddy or mommy is not with them, so it's not ok to talk about it to them. (and probably leave it at that.)

 

[Anhelyna]

As Choirfiend says --------

that's an explanation that a 5 yr old would be able to understand .

The question make come up more than once - so you just repeat the explanation each time - eventually it will sink in

 

[Tigger45]

IMO if a child is old enough to ask the question you have to give them an age appropriate answer because if you don't someone else will. I would keep it simple and possitive and only deal with the question at hand. Deal with the other relationship sceanarios as they come up. By keeping it possitive I would just explain what God's perfect will is, and that is when a man and a woman love each other they get married and then start having children. Anyother way isn't God's way and we all need to keep looking to God to stay on track and even if other's don't we still have to be kind. Especially to the class mate who has the two mommies.

 

[rusmeister]

Speaking about what the state tolerates and encourages, a society that is always trying to make square pegs fit into round holes can't stand. In the end, you simply cannot have education together that openly defies such fundamental truths about the human family and what is normal. In the end, if we cannot politically prevent such "education" then the only choice will be to withdraw our children or accept that they are deliberately being taught the opposite of what we want to teach (which is generally speaking not something Orthodox parents should accept - EVER). They will be indoctrinated, and if we turn that over to the state, they will have the state's indoctrination. It is foolish to expect that our children will be able to withstand the day-in, day-out reinforcement of morality alien to our own.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Ignatius,
My kids attend a private Lutheran-run Christian school. I have never encountered a lesbian/gay person there. But echoing others, I think your child is too young to "get it" yet. If the curriculum is solid and there is no agenda rammed down their throats, I'd ignore it. But eventually ALL kids are going to run into the gay thing. We will, as Orthodox Christians, confront it and explain to our children that it's wrong, a disordered lifestyle, contrary to Scripture and the Church's teachings, and a dangerous plague on our national and global morality.

At school my daughter mentioned one time that some parent was single and living with a man. We talked about how it was sinful (although nothing sexual was mentioned OBVIOUSLY!), and my daughter now just cringes at the mere mention of people having children and not being married.

While I tend to agree with the "avoid the occasion of sin" (sorry, the old Roman Catholic in me!) admonition Rusmeister throws out, I disagree with his pessimism that human beings can't survive indoctrination attempts. It's cynical and I think it paints a scenario in which human beings are so utterly weak and pathetic that their parents' teachings, the teachings of the Church, the Bible, and their faith life will quickly melt to pools of butter in the wake of secular brainwashing. I humbly disagree. Most of the kids at my parish are in public education and they detest such things and are awesome Orthodox Christians who take their faith seriously.

Now, California recently mandated that we teach homosexual heroes and gay advocates and other LGBT folk heroes from history in the classroom. That is set to kick in in two years or so. Several of us have already said we will refuse to comply. I know I will. I will conveniently "forget" to teach it until I am caught. When I am caught and held to the fire and compelled, I will refuse and evidently my educator career will be in full swan song mode in public education....

But at this point, I think our kids need at least some "real life" exposure to these things so we can confront them, shoot these ideaologies down, and show our kids the way. When the full-on gay agenda becomes mandatory in the classroom, at that point I'd most definitely pull out my child and place them in private school, home schooling, or some other arrangement.

These things are complicated, and we can't go throwing out charges of idiocy or bad parenting or foolishness at parents who make different choices than we've made. I hope, prayerfully, the Lord will guide you Ignatius. Best of luck, brother.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I would agree with what choirfiend says. it kinda reminds me of the closing monologue from Mrs Doubtfire.

 

[Hledam]

And how would you explain that if it happened in their own family ? E.g. one of the parents wants to live with someone else who is the same sex ? What if the children will ask ??

 

[Ariadne_GR]

Gurney and choirfiend make excellent points!

 

[Cappadocious]

Just tell your kid that the two women live together, raise a daughter together, and share a lot in common via contract.

I.E. the truth.

 

[InnerPhyre]

I agree with Cap. If it comes up, you don't need to get deeply into it. They are 2 women who are friends and raise the child together.

 

[Ignatius21]

I agree with Cap. If it comes up, you don't need to get deeply into it. They are 2 women who are friends and raise the child together.

And probably he will just run off and play and not think about it again for a long time. At some point he may hear them both called "mommy," or be invited to a birthday party, or something that will begin to make clear that they aren't just friends, but are living together like husband and wife, only they're not.

I guess by the time he's old enough to start to put it together, he's probably old enough to understand that we believe they're not following God's design, but we are to live peacefully with all people and worry about our own sin.

Of course, at some point I will transgress the holy boundaries of pluralism and tell him that while we're supposed to love them and be compassionate, it is still W-R-O-N-G. :o

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Yep!

And probably he will just run off and play and not think about it again for a long time. At some point he may hear them both called "mommy," or be invited to a birthday party, or something that will begin to make clear that they aren't just friends, but are living together like husband and wife, only they're not.

I guess by the time he's old enough to start to put it together, he's probably old enough to understand that we believe they're not following God's design, but we are to live peacefully with all people and worry about our own sin.

Of course, at some point I will transgress the holy boundaries of pluralism and tell him that while we're supposed to love them and be compassionate, it is still W-R-O-N-G. :o

 

[rusmeister]

Ignatius,
My kids attend a private Lutheran-run Christian school. I have never encountered a lesbian/gay person there. But echoing others, I think your child is too young to "get it" yet. If the curriculum is solid and there is no agenda rammed down their throats, I'd ignore it. But eventually ALL kids are going to run into the gay thing. We will, as Orthodox Christians, confront it and explain to our children that it's wrong, a disordered lifestyle, contrary to Scripture and the Church's teachings, and a dangerous plague on our national and global morality.

At school my daughter mentioned one time that some parent was single and living with a man. We talked about how it was sinful (although nothing sexual was mentioned OBVIOUSLY!), and my daughter now just cringes at the mere mention of people having children and not being married.

While I tend to agree with the "avoid the occasion of sin" (sorry, the old Roman Catholic in me!) admonition Rusmeister throws out, I disagree with his pessimism that human beings can't survive indoctrination attempts. It's cynical and I think it paints a scenario in which human beings are so utterly weak and pathetic that their parents' teachings, the teachings of the Church, the Bible, and their faith life will quickly melt to pools of butter in the wake of secular brainwashing. I humbly disagree. Most of the kids at my parish are in public education and they detest such things and are awesome Orthodox Christians who take their faith seriously.

Now, California recently mandated that we teach homosexual heroes and gay advocates and other LGBT folk heroes from history in the classroom. That is set to kick in in two years or so. Several of us have already said we will refuse to comply. I know I will. I will conveniently "forget" to teach it until I am caught. When I am caught and held to the fire and compelled, I will refuse and evidently my educator career will be in full swan song mode in public education....

But at this point, I think our kids need at least some "real life" exposure to these things so we can confront them, shoot these ideaologies down, and show our kids the way. When the full-on gay agenda becomes mandatory in the classroom, at that point I'd most definitely pull out my child and place them in private school, home schooling, or some other arrangement.

These things are complicated, and we can't go throwing out charges of idiocy or bad parenting or foolishness at parents who make different choices than we've made. I hope, prayerfully, the Lord will guide you Ignatius. Best of luck, brother.

You know, there are things I agree with, and things I wouldn't argue with.
But parents can make wrong choices. Fact. Some parenting choices ARE foolish, and when they ARE, we can say they are foolish. This is an issue that requires a good deal more knowledge, wisdom and insight than more obviously bad choices. Nobody's pointing fingers here; if the shoe fits...

Gurney, you yourself are now admitting what I saw ten years ago - that it will become impossible for traditional Christians to work in the school system. Teaching as you see fit "until you get caught" may seem noble, but, begging your pardon, it is not very perspicacious. And the overwhelmi majori of teachers are not going to do what you do. At first, many people will resist passively, but because even current schooling and the media are working together against you (and I assure you, the television has your students' attention far more than you do), within a mere five to six years most will stop - they will either give up or have been pushed out, and replaced with new and younger teachers more thoroughly indoctrinated in the new ideology.

Now there is no doubt that people "survive" indoctrination. And they are NOT "attempts". The persistent day-in, day-out repetition of the same ideas simply succeeds - and lucky is the person who, after having gone out and lived the life of sin frantically urged on all, realizes that it IS destructive and comes back to faith.

I am very glad for your children now. But to say they "need" real-life exposure to evil is not wise. They will get it, whether you will or nill. What they NEED is to know what is good, right, and normal, so that when they SEE the abnormal, they will know it as such without any preaching. And the corollary is true. Regular exposure to evil ideas seen as normal leads to their being perceived as normal, everyday phenomena, and not as abnormal at all.

I also ask where the children of your parish, God bless them, will be in ten years. That they are now being raised by pious parents is good. But I have one grown-up child already, and though we brought him up in the Church, he was a regular public school kid here, and the secular siren has pulled him away from the Church. We have no guarantees. But exposure inures. It jades. I hope in the promise that a child brought up in the way he should go (which says nothing about exposing him to where he shouldn't go) will return to that way, but even if he does, who knows what damage he'll do to himself (and others) along the way?

It is wrong to ignore the enormous influence a society opposed to the parents' morals has on our children, to simply hope they prefer our way to the world's way. Parental influence is a great thing. We may hope it to be the most influential, in the end. But if our kids spend the majority of their days exposed to the internet, TV, friends and peers, school teachers who DON'T think like you, within a system that denies truth itself, then we ARE foolish if we think that our guidance and even examples, on their own, are sufficient in that effort to bring up a child in the way he should go.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I think, Rus, that you speak anecdotally because you have a couple of kids who have turned their back on Orthodoxy. Was it your fault or society's? Who knows....But I think you make the mistake in thinking that I'm exposing my kids to this stuff. I'm not. My kids don't hang around people with same sex attraction (notice I didn't say "gay" folks! at least give me some merit points for that! ). Or perhaps by "your children" you meant my students? I'm simply saying to Ignatius that it's his call and that kids will hear this nonsense one way or another. I think you overestimate Satan's power and understimate God's power in the family and Church life. Do you do this out of your own current frustrations with your family? I don't know. I think you've seen a lot of falling-away and conclude it's more awesome than it is.

The young people I mention are mostly teens in my parish, not tiny kids. The teenagers in our parish are very straight arrow kids. They're wonderful. And almost all were public school kids.

My priest, Father George, would have a war of words with you at coffee hour. He HATES private schools and hates home-schooling. He has STRONG opinions on it. In fact, some parishoners just don't bring it up with him at all! He constantly says that our kids are to take the fight public, that they are to be a city on a hill for the kids not shining bright, an example of Christ working in their lives. He has a point: how can we be a city on the hill and a bright-shining example of theosis at work if we hide at home in the living room from the public kids? It's one perspective...and I respect it.

Perhaps kids could go to public, but ask to be excused from the gay history component? That would speak louder than anything....or if it affects their grade in sixth grade, just suffer the "F." It's for a principle.

And where indoctrination is concerned, I do feel it is an attempt. At my school, there are only like 2 out of 30 teachers who are pro-gay. Good luck getting that agenda and excited enthusiastic pedagogy underway in our town....I think you're right....that over decades it will finally take hold. There will be a lot of resistence and "oops, I forgot to teach it" going on in the central valley of California. In San Francisco it will be a key central curricular joy, but in my area, ignored and hidden.

We are not all called to be hermits. We can't all cut and run and hide and exist as Orthodox Christians in the shadows. We take our faith to work. I use the Lord's name daily in my class. I talk to my kids about Truth with a capital T as I call it. And in our studies of ancient religions, I usually approach it from a Hieromonk Damascene (Amazon.com: Hieromonk Damascene: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle) approach. I look at what attributes exist in these faiths that could be used to find Christ and how one could reach out to them from the Christian Orthodox perspective. When we studied Akhenaton (Pharaoh Amenhotep IV), I talked about his obsession with the Aton, the sun god, and how his worship of a monotheistic god was POSITIVE step in the right direction, planting a seed of the possibility of one god in the hearts of Egyptians, so that the Coptic faith that would one day come to Egypt would be planted and grow. In science, our book talks about "adaptations" and how talons on an eagle, incredible sight from hawks, shells on turtles, walking stick insects with camouflage are all evolutionary adaptations for their surivival. Well, I tell them this is pure speculative theory and then I counter that we have zero evidence of this and that God's perfectly creating them thus is just as possible. When they go to science camp, they challenge the "adaptation" angle and critically think.

I do this with every subject. I try. I work WITHIN the system and try.

We've been through this before. You think I'm spinning my wheels in folly, I disagree. I usually stay in my classroom until around 5pm each day. I get at least ten kids from high school or middle school who come to see me each week telling me I changed their lives and how they think. I just let the results speak, not cynicism. We're all a work in progress. I just fight within the system.

When I can no longer fight and am shackled and gagged, I'll bow out and fight the war elsewhere. But at this point, I have a lot of fight left in me!

You know, there are things I agree with, and things I wouldn't argue with.
But parents can make wrong choices. Fact. Some parenting choices ARE foolish, and when they ARE, we can say they are foolish. This is an issue that requires a good deal more knowledge, wisdom and insight than more obviously bad choices. Nobody's pointing fingers here; if the shoe fits...

Gurney, you yourself are now admitting what I saw ten years ago - that it will become impossible for traditional Christians to work in the school system. Teaching as you see fit "until you get caught" may seem noble, but, begging your pardon, it is not very perspicacious. And the overwhelmi majori of teachers are not going to do what you do. At first, many people will resist passively, but because even current schooling and the media are working together against you (and I assure you, the television has your students' attention far more than you do), within a mere five to six years most will stop - they will either give up or have been pushed out, and replaced with new and younger teachers more thoroughly indoctrinated in the new ideology.

Now there is no doubt that people "survive" indoctrination. And they are NOT "attempts". The persistent day-in, day-out repetition of the same ideas simply succeeds - and lucky is the person who, after having gone out and lived the life of sin frantically urged on all, realizes that it IS destructive and comes back to faith.

I am very glad for your children now. But to say they "need" real-life exposure to evil is not wise. They will get it, whether you will or nill. What they NEED is to know what is good, right, and normal, so that when they SEE the abnormal, they will know it as such without any preaching. And the corollary is true. Regular exposure to evil ideas seen as normal leads to their being perceived as normal, everyday phenomena, and not as abnormal at all.

I also ask where the children of your parish, God bless them, will be in ten years. That they are now being raised by pious parents is good. But I have one grown-up child already, and though we brought him up in the Church, he was a regular public school kid here, and the secular siren has pulled him away from the Church. We have no guarantees. But exposure inures. It jades. I hope in the promise that a child brought up in the way he should go (which says nothing about exposing him to where he shouldn't go) will return to that way, but even if he does, who knows what damage he'll do to himself (and others) along the way?

It is wrong to ignore the enormous influence a society opposed to the parents' morals has on our children, to simply hope they prefer our way to the world's way. Parental influence is a great thing. We may hope it to be the most influential, in the end. But if our kids spend the majority of their days exposed to the internet, TV, friends and peers, school teachers who DON'T think like you, within a system that denies truth itself, then we ARE foolish if we think that our guidance and even examples, on their own, are sufficient in that effort to bring up a child in the way he should go.

 

[ArmyMatt]

And probably he will just run off and play and not think about it again for a long time. At some point he may hear them both called "mommy," or be invited to a birthday party, or something that will begin to make clear that they aren't just friends, but are living together like husband and wife, only they're not.

I guess by the time he's old enough to start to put it together, he's probably old enough to understand that we believe they're not following God's design, but we are to live peacefully with all people and worry about our own sin.

Of course, at some point I will transgress the holy boundaries of pluralism and tell him that while we're supposed to love them and be compassionate, it is still W-R-O-N-G. :o

yeah, I remember back when I was a kid, and I had no idea what divorce was or having kids out of wedlock or any kind of homosexual relationship. I sometimes heard it (being a product of the 90's), but usually I'd just run around and forget about it after a few jumps off of the swingset at recess, or a few rounds of four square or horse. my folks had the same attitude. when I was young, if I brought it up, they would give a very generic, don't judge anyone til you walk a mile in their shoes answer, and let me on my merry way.

it was when I was older, and I took these things more seriously, that my folks sat down and gave me more serious answers.

 

[rusmeister]

I think, Rus, that you speak anecdotally because you have a couple of kids who have turned their back on Orthodoxy. Was it your fault or society's? Who knows....But I think you make the mistake in thinking that I'm exposing my kids to this stuff. I'm not. My kids don't hang around people with same sex attraction (notice I didn't say "gay" folks! at least give me some merit points for that! ). Or perhaps by "your children" you meant my students? I'm simply saying to Ignatius that it's his call and that kids will hear this nonsense one way or another. I think you overestimate Satan's power and understimate God's power in the family and Church life. Do you do this out of your own current frustrations with your family? I don't know. I think you've seen a lot of falling-away and conclude it's more awesome than it is.

The young people I mention are mostly teens in my parish, not tiny kids. The teenagers in our parish are very straight arrow kids. They're wonderful. And almost all were public school kids.

My priest, Father George, would have a war of words with you at coffee hour. He HATES private schools and hates home-schooling. He has STRONG opinions on it. In fact, some parishoners just don't bring it up with him at all! He constantly says that our kids are to take the fight public, that they are to be a city on a hill for the kids not shining bright, an example of Christ working in their lives. He has a point: how can we be a city on the hill and a bright-shining example of theosis at work if we hide at home in the living room from the public kids? It's one perspective...and I respect it.

Perhaps kids could go to public, but ask to be excused from the gay history component? That would speak louder than anything....or if it affects their grade in sixth grade, just suffer the "F." It's for a principle.

And where indoctrination is concerned, I do feel it is an attempt. At my school, there are only like 2 out of 30 teachers who are pro-gay. Good luck getting that agenda and excited enthusiastic pedagogy underway in our town....I think you're right....that over decades it will finally take hold. There will be a lot of resistence and "oops, I forgot to teach it" going on in the central valley of California. In San Francisco it will be a key central curricular joy, but in my area, ignored and hidden.

We are not all called to be hermits. We can't all cut and run and hide and exist as Orthodox Christians in the shadows. We take our faith to work. I use the Lord's name daily in my class. I talk to my kids about Truth with a capital T as I call it. And in our studies of ancient religions, I usually approach it from a Hieromonk Damascene (Amazon.com: Hieromonk Damascene: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle) approach. I look at what attributes exist in these faiths that could be used to find Christ and how one could reach out to them from the Christian Orthodox perspective. When we studied Akhenaton (Pharaoh Amenhotep IV), I talked about his obsession with the Aton, the sun god, and how his worship of a monotheistic god was POSITIVE step in the right direction, planting a seed of the possibility of one god in the hearts of Egyptians, so that the Coptic faith that would one day come to Egypt would be planted and grow. In science, our book talks about "adaptations" and how talons on an eagle, incredible sight from hawks, shells on turtles, walking stick insects with camouflage are all evolutionary adaptations for their surivival. Well, I tell them this is pure speculative theory and then I counter that we have zero evidence of this and that God's perfectly creating them thus is just as possible. When they go to science camp, they challenge the "adaptation" angle and critically think.

I do this with every subject. I try. I work WITHIN the system and try.

We've been through this before. You think I'm spinning my wheels in folly, I disagree. I usually stay in my classroom until around 5pm each day. I get at least ten kids from high school or middle school who come to see me each week telling me I changed their lives and how they think. I just let the results speak, not cynicism. We're all a work in progress. I just fight within the system.

When I can no longer fight and am shackled and gagged, I'll bow out and fight the war elsewhere. But at this point, I have a lot of fight left in me!

I actually have no problem with your trying to work within the system. It is a good thing for people in the system when good people are in a bad system. But it may wind up leaving you and your family without an income. That's probably the main concern there. A fight you cannot carry on after the point at which you are caught is a lost fight.

But children are another matter, and with all respect to your Fr George, I would indeed stand up and say that children cannot fight adult battles; they are not equipped (usually even the adults are not really able to stand up to these things; how can we expect children to?) Sure, I'd like to imagine that my children could rise up to the level of the martyrs Vera, Nadezhda and Lubov and Sofia their mother, but frankly, I don't think they can, or that any children today can. If kids are confronted by even slightly clever unbelieving adults, their efforts to defend the beliefs you are rightly striving to indoctrinate them in will come under fire they won't be able to handle, for they will be taught to doubt the authority they have hitherto accepted as primary - YOU. Children are NOT called to be adults; at the very least, WE certainly should not expect them to carry adult burdens or take flak that is not easy for adults.

The indoctrination is vast, Gurney, and the percents you see are certain to change. They certainly have for every other form of the fall of sexual morality. If we polled teachers 90 years ago opposed to easy divorce, we would have found a small minority in favor, and everybody would have sworn up and down that no one would ever support open fornication and open cohabitation without marriage, let alone homosexual relations. Yet we have come to this pass. We need the ability, the historical vision, to see that all evils, all the way to those of Sodom and Gomorrah are likely to come to pass in the world, because we accept rule that openly denies God.

None of that is to say that we are only to hide in our living rooms. That is to run from the extreme we really do accept now, that of letting the world dictate how our children will be educated, and then bombarded with tempatation at every moment even when they walk outside of the institution of school by media, internet, TV, and peer pressure influenced by those forces, to an opposite extreme of totally closeting off from the world, which I do not propose. But if our children encounter these things one or two hours a day, instead of six-seven hours of school and three or more hours of media-driven influence, directly or via friends whose parents do not restrain it, then the effect of the very real indoctrination will be much weaker. Lies, temptations and so on repeated infinitely eventually burrow their way even into more resistant heads, and it will not even be decades now, but a single generation - 18 years. The influence IS massive. Public school runs at LEAST six hours a day, and children's access to media is unprecedented in history, as is the unrestrained character of that media.

By the way, I have no doubt you are one of the teachers in the system that I talk about, struggling heroically in spite of the system. (Don't let that go to your head, sir! Vanity, down! ) But you have the tremendous advantage over your kids of being mature. We are responsible to guard as well as guide our children until they are truly capable of fending for themselves.

And as for my family, I think my problems with my older son stem from the time when I did not believe - that he saw me, when he was old enough, take him and mom to church and then go outside to make cell phone calls, and so on, never mind the periods when we did not live together. But I think that's rather "ad hominem" to the discussion.

 

[Cappadocious]

They are 2 women who are friends and raise the child together.

Well, I never meant that one should say they are friends.