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Original poster

For the way I described HIV to my daughter?

245 replies

maloofshoof · 07/09/2022 18:23

I met with my daughters dad today (we had some childcare issues to sort out). My daughter is 9, and last night she asked me what HIV was. I asked her where she had heard about that but she wouldn't tell me, kept saying she was unsure but had heard about it.

I was on the spot, we were driving to an after school club and so I said something along the lines of that it was a virus that erupted in the 80s and that they thought it started from gay men having sex but it turned out that it was a virus that could be spread by blood etc and so women, needle users etc could get it too. I said that in the 80s if someone had it they would die but now there is medicine that allows people with it to live a relatively normal life (bearing in mind I am no expert and was put on the spot with this question). Perhaps I should have said I'll explain later and done a bit of research but I didn't.

When I told my ex today he was really 'appalled'. He said he can't believe I taught our daughter that HIV was spread between only gay men when that was only propaganda and how the media portrayed it. He said I really messed up an educational opportunity with homophobic undercurrents (not homophobic in the slightest, in fact I have been with women and two of my close friends are gay).

I was taken aback and tried to explain myself but he was really upset and left on quite unpleasant terms.

Did I totally fuck up?

OP posts:
SoftSheen · 07/09/2022 19:26

What you said wasn't really age appropriate for a 9 year old. I would have said something like:

"It's a virus that affects your immune system. People used to get very sick with it, but luckily doctors now have medicine that can help people who have it stay healthier. It's usually grown-ups that catch it, not children.'

SirCharlesRainier · 07/09/2022 19:26

I'm a bit baffled by all the posters who are insisting you should have given a one sentence explanation and moved on. When my DC ask about something I always try to include a bit more background or go on a bit of a digression. It's how they learn, isn't it?

I don't think we've spoken particularly about AIDS but I wouldn't shy away from it if they did ask. Mine are a similar age and we often discuss how certain groups of people were treated badly or discriminated against in the past.

You gave a factually correct explanation, OP - well done. It's worth remembering though, if you are unsure about something, it's fine to say "I'll look into it and talk to you about it later".

Thelittleweasel · 07/09/2022 19:27

@maloofshoof

I think you did very well. You can now do the research and see how low the number of reported cases in UK is. Some 4000+ per year. I will not repeat the breakdown here between genders but it is set out clearly in NHS statistics.

As you so wisely set out it is now something that can be lived with and those who undergo treatment will not pass it on

Dothedishesandshutup · 07/09/2022 19:27

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cakewench · 07/09/2022 19:32

Saying "They thought it started from gay men having sex" really isn't incorrect at all. That's literally how it was treated at the time, for many years. With good reason, because virtually all of the cases for the first several years were gay men (I was a child at the time but my mother was divorced, we had gay roomates and plenty of gay friends and many of them spent their final months living in our house due to their families ostracising them. We were very much a part of the gay community in our major US city at the time and I have many related stories!)

That having been said, I do agree that I would have left that part out as it isn't immediately relevant to a 9 year old. It's relevant for history, and worthy of a talk because we should never forget how society shunned gay men and minimised their suffering ("It's just a gay disease, it won't affect me") but probably when she's a bit older.

FridayiminlovewithRobertSmith · 07/09/2022 19:32

I can get why your ex DH might think it homophobic and I’d add that at best this is quite a confusing explanation as you’ve focused on what it’s not before attempting to describe what it actually is. Even stranger and more confusing if you child doesn’t have a concept of what sex is. If she’d raised with her father separately she probably was confused and it’s likely the main bits she retained is the truncated bit of social history.

I agree that the best answer would have been along the lines the lines suggested above : “it’s a disease that affects the immune system which means your body can’t fight off other diseases. It used to be fatal but it is treatable now with the right medication”

Tinkity · 07/09/2022 19:34

Just to be clear, HIV & AIDS are NOT autoimmune diseases as a couple of posters seem to think.

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus therefore it is a VIRUS.

AIDS stands for Aquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome not autoimmune.

Autoimmune diseases are not infectious, viruses however are.

FridayiminlovewithRobertSmith · 07/09/2022 19:34

That way you can let her curiosity and reason for asking the question dictate the convo. That might include how we got things wrong and treated people badly in the past or it might not.

IncompleteSenten · 07/09/2022 19:35

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Ok first of all it is highly offensive to use that word and ridiculous to be on your high horse castigating others for bigotry etc while chucking that word at people.

And people are saying it was thought to be..

Which is true.

Doctors, scientists etc did think that.

It is not incorrect to state that.

People used the think the earth was flat

How dare you, the earth was never flat. How thick are you blah blah fucking blah

Darkstar4855 · 07/09/2022 19:35

Your explanation was reasonable for e.g. a 16yo who has better critical reasoning skills and will ask questions and retain more information.

For a 9yo who’s unlikely to understand it all and may take the wrong message away I would have gone with a simpler explanation like the one @SoftSheen suggested above.

StillWeRise · 07/09/2022 19:36

'it's a virus and it stops your body fighting off other diseases. When it was first discovered, ages ago, it was very serious because no one knew how to treat it. But now, scientists have found medicines to stop it making people ill.
does that answer your question?

followed by, if she asks or seems worried-
it's actually quite hard to get it as you'd have to get someone's blood or other body fluids- who had the virus themselves- into you
(worth adding this in case she thinks it can be spread like covid)

really all the history stuff and at risk groups was not at all necessary, especially since she doesn't know what sex is!

pigsDOfly · 07/09/2022 19:37

maloofshoof · 07/09/2022 18:40

Just to add when I said it can be spread through sex she said, 'well you must have it since you've had sex with loads of folk' 😬 she thinks sex is kissing.

If, at the age of 9, she is so ignorant about sex between men and women why would you tell her that HIV was originally thought to be passed by men having sex with other men.

Surely, that can only confuse her and clearly it did if she think kissing is sex.

When were you planning on starting to educate her on her own human reproduction?

That apart, it was completely unnecessary to go into so much detail and back ground information.

ManateeFair · 07/09/2022 19:37

Floralnomad · 07/09/2022 18:25

You should have done your research , appalling .

She did. She didn’t tell her DD that HIV was only spread by gay sex. She told them it was originally believed that it was, but that in fact it wasn’t. So not appalling at all.

Mummyoflittledragon · 07/09/2022 19:38

WorkingItOutAsIGo · 07/09/2022 18:46

I am genuinely confused by some of these responses. You seem to be falling over yourselves to deny that it was ever a disease which featured strongly on the gay community? Is that fact seen as homophobic now? Because I was a young adult in the 1980s and it was very clearly running rampantly though the gay community. Of course - even then - it was known that other people got it too, depending on their risk profile. But to deny the tragic experience of the gay community in this way seems very strange.

At one point in the early 1990s I counted up that I had lost 17 friends to AIDS. All were gay men. Thank goodness for better medicine now.

Can someone kindly explain why stating this history is wrong?

Exactly. Films have been made about how the gay community was treated and affected. The most recent one I can think was French. 120 beats per minute. I am a few years younger and don’t know of anyone, who died from my age group. Possibly because of the adverts. We teens were petrified.

Butitsnotfunnyisititsserious · 07/09/2022 19:39

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What the OP said was not incorrect. It was the truth as to how the disease was first thought of.
And as for you using a slur, says a lot about you as a person I guess

Lollypop701 · 07/09/2022 19:39

not perfect but then unexpected questions generally lead to an unthought out response. You’re a parent not superwoman. I’ve done similar and usually my kids will ask again if they don’t understand. My kids always used to ask ‘difficult’ questions in the car as they didn’t want to be face to face, so I suspect your dd knew it was somehow related to sex. My son asked me what pink eye was at 11, and yes I told him (didn’t give too much detail) I’ve always told my kids not to lie and that I wouldn’t either… it’s difficult when they are young but imo sets the stage for the more difficult teenage years. Overall you did ok, you’ll get better!

Mummyoflittledragon · 07/09/2022 19:40

Going back to your explanation, my dd is 14. Idk if I’d tell her all that information tbh as she’d not want to listen and it would be tmi as she doesn’t want to talk about sex at all. As a pp said, that’s more for a 16 yo.

ManateeFair · 07/09/2022 19:42

Ilovelindor · 07/09/2022 18:34

Surely you could have just said it was a virus? A bit like Covid.

I'm sure my kids asked what it was about and I said that. That was the end of the conversation.

But it’s not remotely like Covid. It’s transmitted completely differently and doesn’t go away of its own accord and it was also used to stigmatise a large section of the population (and still is), among other things. Why on earth would you mislead a child that badly? At 9 years old she deserves not to be given inaccurate bollocks in response to a pertinent question.

SapphireSeptember · 07/09/2022 19:44

@Dothedishesandshutup Bit rude mate. We're not clowns and we're certainly not 'r*tarded.'

LondonQueen · 07/09/2022 19:44

That was a clumsy explanation, no need to state it involved gay men.

Blueberry111 · 07/09/2022 19:44

I worked in a charity for people with HIV. A lot of those who needed support were male. Majority were gay. Reality is what it is.

Calphurnia88 · 07/09/2022 19:47

WorkingItOutAsIGo · 07/09/2022 18:46

I am genuinely confused by some of these responses. You seem to be falling over yourselves to deny that it was ever a disease which featured strongly on the gay community? Is that fact seen as homophobic now? Because I was a young adult in the 1980s and it was very clearly running rampantly though the gay community. Of course - even then - it was known that other people got it too, depending on their risk profile. But to deny the tragic experience of the gay community in this way seems very strange.

At one point in the early 1990s I counted up that I had lost 17 friends to AIDS. All were gay men. Thank goodness for better medicine now.

Can someone kindly explain why stating this history is wrong?

You're quite right, but expecting a 9 year old (who is asking what HIV is) to be able to understand the gravity of that history... I'm not so sure.

@maloofshoof I would probably have given a factual explanation such as the one provided by @knackeredagain below but pried a little more to understand the reasoning behind the question. I remember when I was little I went through a phase where I thought everything 'bad' I read or heard about in the news would affect me or my family. I'm not sure how common this is, but I remember it meant I asked a lot of questions for reassurance.

It’s a disease that affects the immune system which means your body can’t fight off other diseases. It used to be fatal but it is treatable now with the right medication.

I do think you should revisit this with DD, at the very least because she thinks sex is kissing, so you need to clear up any confusion caused by linking HIV to gay sex needs (and possibly have a chat about the birds and the bees whilst you're at it).

jennakong · 07/09/2022 19:49

Only in the sense that I don't think a nine year old needs to know about gay men having sex and catching an STD, or anyone for that matter. Nine is a child, nine is not thirteen or fourteen. But it WAS predominantly promiscuous gay men and people having anal sex who spread AIDS, and there is nothing wrong in saying that.

dianthus101 · 07/09/2022 19:49

I'm not sure why you said that “they thought it started from gay men having sex” as that's not the case at all. They didn't know how it started and they still don’t know for sure. While it was obviously more common among gay men, I certainly wasn't under the impression (as a teenager in the 80s) that it was only gay men who were at risk.

GreenestValley · 07/09/2022 19:52

The reason it was thought to be only passed through gay sex was because 99% of the people who had it were gay men. And they knew little or nothing about it for years after it emerged.

there was definitely homophobia in the way it was handled and stigma for those suffering but its not homophobic to explain the origins of the disease and the fact it affected gay communities worst. If anything it’s respectful to their memories vs pretending that for instance, straight women were as likely to carry or contract it.