What do you teach your kids about love?

When I talk to my kids about love, as in romantic love, we talk about sweethearts. Not boyfriends or girlfriends. Not husbands or wives.  I don't want to teach them that heterosexuality is the default. I don't want to teach them that marriage is the default either. When I talk about their future, I talk about the possibility of them having a sweetheart, who could be a man or a woman. I want them to know that they can love women or men or women and men. I want to teach them that before society teaches them something else. I want to teach them that long before they are at the stage of feeling romantic love and perhaps feeling that their love is wrong or misplaced if they love people of the same gender or if they love people of both genders.

In the spirit of Bi Visibility Day (September 23), consider reminding your children that they can love whomever they want to love.

Comments

[Crystal]

Actually that is a sweeping statement and like most sweeping statements it will not be true for a lot of people. I really have no preference who whom my child loves. I have two boys and a girl. All I wish for my children is that they do find love somewhere in this big cruel world. I will completely support them. Children are not reflections of you, they are not pieces of you; they are individuals in their own right. All I wish for my children is that they are happy and satisfied with their individual lives. All of this really has nothing to do with me. I too am a heterosexual woman in a marriage but I would have no judgment in this at all.

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[Shawnda]

While I support the rights of the LGBT community, I don't want to encourage my child to think of homosexuality as an option before he even really understands such things. Most of the couples he interacts with are heterosexual, and I see no reason to introduce other lifestyles so young. I will absolutely love and support my son no matter his sexual preference, but that doesn't mean I want him to deal with the struggles of being gay. I know this response will upset some people, but I don't see anything wrong with wanting my child to live a life with less turmoil.