More of a wwyd? Ds 8 what gay means...

[ThePickledPoet]

Reading a story earlier and the character was described as being gay. Ds asked what it meant so in line with the story I said it meant the character was happy and jolly. Ds then quite openly said "it doesn't just mean that" so asking what he meant he said " 'xxx' in school said if a man and a man marries then they're a couple of gay boys" taken back at this i explained how that wasn't a very nice thing to say. And that everyone deserves to be happy. And it was the same love as anyone else who loves each other just like mummy an daddy (I didn't want it getting too deep a discussion and knowing ds who is pretty sheltered when it comes to this kind of topic didn't understand at all how offensive and hurtful comments like that are) but... Curious I asked what did you think it was? To which he replied... "Gay is when a man works in a factory and drinks beer"
Not sure where he's heard that???!!!!
(He then asked can we finish the story mummy?)

Firstly he took me so by surprise I'm not sure I answered as well as I could have done, but if I'm to go over it tomorrow it's just drawing attention to it? We are not homophobic in any way at all, the topic just hadn't come up, but now it has I feel like I've handled it completely wrong. Wwyd or what did you say?

I was telling my DD's (8&6) that a woman I work with was being filmed for CBBC's "Marrying Mum and Dad" and that she was marrying her female partner. After great excitement and speculation about dresses and themes etc, my 6 year old casually pointed out that they would need to alter the name to "Marrying Mum and Mum". My work here is done!

When DS1 was very little he overheard me telling DH that I'd just read a story online about a pair of gay penguins. He asked what gay penguins were so I said, "It's when instead of having a mummy penguin and a daddy penguin that love each other, you have two daddy penguins that love each other." He completely accepted this and just asked what it was called when two mummy penguins loved each other (I said I thought they would probably be called gay penguins too). After that, it was an easy transition to him finding out about gay people later on and I don't think he's ever used gay as an insult.

A child at work asked me last year what I'd call a gay person and I said, "Well, the gay person I know best, I usually just call him Scott [not his real name]." I think he was a bit surprised that (a) I knew an actual real live gay person and (b) I didn't call him names, but I'm hoping that by having been matter-of-fact about it I will have got him thinking differently!

My NDN's DD asked similar when she was about six. She asked me if DP was my sister and I said no, she's my partner… [blank face from child] so amended: like my wife. To which she said I was stupid because women can't have wives, only husbands. I explained that mostly when boys grow up they want to marry girls and girls want to marry boys, but that sometimes boys want to marry boys and girls want to marry girls, and that it's unusual but it's fine.

Her mum was MASSIVELY embarrassed and came out all flustered to tell her to stop asking questions, but I really don't have a problem with giving a straightforward explanation to a straightforward question. (And wasn't remotely offended by the "You're stupid" comment, she was six, not sixteen!)

Did he watch the Simpsons yesterday? Homer moved in with some gay men, I'm guessing that's where 'work in a factory and drinks beer' came from

Eight seems awfully old to not have had a few conversations about being gay (among other things) although it sounds here that the ds has had some exposure to at least one more modern meaning and was just confused because they were (presumably) reading an older book that used gay in it's older 'happy and blithe' meaning.

I found the OP's response confusing. Two men getting married might well be two gay boys (more likely men really), and sure they deserve to be happy (like anyone else) but why jump to that?

Personally having had that sort of 'misfire' conversation I would look to find an opportunity to talk more, because there is so much homophobia around in schools I think it's very important that our children are informed and sensitive. Plus there is always the possibility that our own children might be gay, or that they have gay friends and I want my children to be allies and supporters, not inadvertently add to difficulties.