For the way I described HIV to my daughter?

[maloofshoof]

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?

I have spoken with my 11 year old about it in these terms so that he better understood how badly this affected gay mens lives in the 80’s and early 90’s. It was huge and entirely blamed on and made out to be a disease of homosexual men. It’s only with education that we can stop those attitudes.

we have watched bbc documentaries on the language used at the time and how fearful the gay community were and just how much backlash there was for them. The sheer shame they must have felt 💔

Yeah ok it’s mostly controlled now with medication but it was life changing and policy changing and affected entire communities and how they lived, so “it’s a disease” isn’t enough.

YANBU

My gay brother has HIV and I don't think you were homophobic op. It's hard when kids put you on the spot. You can always have the conversation again if you want to.

Oh fgs. You didn't mess it up at all OP. What you said is very accurate. You were hardly expected to give an academic lecture on the subject, which is what most folk on here seem to think you should have done. Hardly homophobic either.

Given she is 9 and thinks sex is kissing I think she is too young for that length of explanation Rob be honest.

but I don’t think that what you said was actually homophobic at all but rather a rejection of those times

I totally understand that feeling of being on the spot! But I imagine that, by giving her quite a complicated answer, she’s possibly remembered only bits of it- sounds like she’s remembered the part about gay men, and has relayed that to your ex. Could he have thought that’s what you’d said because that’s how she’s relayed it?
He’s a tool for not listening to you and realising that’s not what you’d said though.

as previous people have said, I’d try to keep it as simple as possible whilst still being honest and open when stuff crops up like this again- less chance of them getting jumbled.

Also there was very much a view of the innocent victims of AIDS ie those who contracted through blood products particularly people who had haemophilia and babies born to Hiv positive mothers and the non innocent victims ie drug users,Gay men
It was terribly stigmatised
The Terence Higgins Trust eas bult on the experience, s of the gay community who suffered terribly .

@maloofshoof if any of my DC had asked about HIV when they were 9, I'd probably have said it was a virus that some adults can catch, but not something that normally affects children.

However, it's easy for me to say this with the leisure of thinking time - and no, you didn't fuck up. It sounds as if your ex husband is trying to score points.

Your 9 year old will be learning about sex in school very soon btw

You're doing him a disservice by not educating him properly on such an important topic at home

We don't, but we can spot holes in knowledge and fill them in and we absolutely should not go along with nonsense about kissing being sex when it clearly isn't and the child is nearing puberty. This conversation arising is a clear flag that this child needs a lot of very basic information.

I think the way you handled it was good. I don’t understand why people are saying you didn’t…..

“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.”

Did your DD’s Dad close his ears when you told him you’d said this?!?!

That is, as far as my 10 year old ish self can recall, in addition to other research I’ve done since, exactly how it happened. There WAS the homophobic hysteria, borne of fear, and then years and years of work to get rid of that belief.

Your ex is being a muppet.

She asked about HIV. You told her about AIDS. Back in the 80s, it was AIDS that was killing people. Not everyone with HIV gets AIDS. HIV is just the virus.

I was a nurse in the 1990s and the first patients I cared for with HIV were children who had received contaminated blood abroad after an accident. Other patients I cared for were refugees who had been repeatedly raped and tortured. Many haemophiliacs also. It was not just IV drug users and MSM. As PP have highlighted as a parent I would never have educated my children in the way that you did. I do understand the information you gave was indoctrinated into our existence in the 1980s and 1990s however, things have moved on a great deal since then.

I don't think there is anything at all wrong with what you said OP. It's not like you had a one time only shot at explaining HIV - very easy to go back to the topic and clarify any misconceptions/add any detail that you can think of later that would be pertinent.

I don't think it was at all bad to give her the backstory and how there was homophobic prejudice around it, as I am sure there still is in some quarters, so to arm her to be aware of that is useful. (Having asked you what HIV is she may well ask other people too - as a curious child I remember myself looking for info on the same topic from a number of different people).

I know my own DD (10) finds it hard to conceive that some people are homophobic, as we have gay and bi friends and family members (as I imagine most people do) and since she understood about relationships she has understood that some relationships are same-sex - just a totally normal element of life for her - so it shocks her that some people are prejudiced about that and I think she forgets that this can be the case at times. That innocence is nice in some ways but I don't think I would be doing her any favours by sending her out into the world not knowing that some people are homophobic, just as she knows some people are racist, sexist, class-prejudiced etc.....

The only slightly concerning thing in any of this is that your dd thinks kissing is sex. I know people have different attitudes towards when sex education is appropriate and to what level at what age - and I know cultural views, religious views etc can play a part in that too - so I really don't want to sound judgemental. But I would (tentatively) suggest that in terms of her own boundaries and safety, and in terms of just her general attitude to the world, at 9 it would be good for her to have at least a very basic understanding of the biological facts of what sex is, what body parts you do it with etc....

Oh and your ex sounds like a bit of a bully. Even if he felt aspects of your explanation weren't ideal, what was the earthly point in having a go at you at this point? And frankly, who does he think he is speaking to you like that? That is not cool co-parenting in my experience. I find my ex and I co-parent best when we interfere as little as possible in each others' parenting - we both trust each other not to do anything dangerous or damaging to DD - beyond that our somewhat different boundaries, values and approaches are our own business!

Go with it's spread by bodily fluids, blood that sort of thing, but not saliva as saliva isn't concentrated enough. It effects the immune system leaving you unable to fight off colds and flu. It used to be a killer once it had progressed onto AIDS, but it is now controllable with daily medication which also makes you unable pass it on. The life expectancy of somebody with HIV is now the same as everyone else.

Because she has just further perpetuated the stigma that many gay men fought for years to eradicate.

If your child asked you whether the earth was flat would you say 'no it's not flat' or 'back in the 1800s people believed the earth was flat'

As that's essentially what the OP has done

Given out of date explanations

When she should have said it's a sexually transmitted virus

There was no need to even bring gay people into this unless it was going to be a deeper discussion talking about the stigma, and how we now understand that's not true that only gay men suffered etc.

The bigger issue here is this poor kid thinks kissing is having sex.

You may want to set her straight on this before she says tells anyone else about your prolific sex life.

in the US, by 1995, 1 gay man in 15 had died from AIDS
thats not stigma, it’s fact.

My 9 year old learnt about sex last school year so I'm sure yours will

“we now understand that's not true that only gay men suffered etc.”

*now we understand that not only gay men can catch it

@GreenestValley

What do stats from another continent have to do with anything?

My 7 year old asked me what HIV is a couple of days ago. I told her it's a virus that can be caught through sex or drug users sharing needles. She does know what sex is and, realistically for her she, won't be at risk of HIV through men having sex with men, so "sex and drugs" seemed sufficient explanation at the moment.

What? You didn't say it was only spread between gay men though.

What you said sounds purely factual - HIV status is one of the basic bio questions on Grindr along with name and age! It is indisputably a bigger problem in the gay male community.

You didn't necessarily have to bring that part into it, but you were put on the spot and didn't say anything untrue at all, so your husband is being weird.

I don’t have the equivalent for the UK to hand but it unfolded in much the same way here. Why do you feel the need to consistently deny the reality of gay experience?
If anything it’s you who is homophobic by trying to deny history.

@nutellachurro At it again, I see... You'd start a fight in an empty room.