i think getting toddlers at nursery to line up and get 'wed' is inappropriate.

[weeonion]

Spending a day at home with a bad back. It struck me that getting pre schoolers to take part in pretend weddings organised by staff seems like a backward step. whatever else i may think about the wedding 2morro, i am uneasy with little girls and boys lining up to be married. what do you think?

They need to know the structure of a Christian wedding ceremony. They remember it better if we act it out. The boys play the bride, we go into detail about civil partnerships etc.

They know that two men can't have a legal marriage, only a civil partnership. They are 15.

Do you tell them about the history of marriage too practically?

I really wish that was taught in schools.

I do think it's inappropriate. DD came home from preschool yesterday saying 'there's going to be a wedding on Friday and we're going' - Apparently they had 'done' the Royal Wedding at school which was interspersed with practicing dancing round the MayPole (talk about mixed metaphors). Poor little bugger doesn't know whether she's coming or going.

Why on earth would kids of two and four need to know this stuff?

Well, we so arranged marriage too, and we talk about the history in terms of "love marriages" being quite a modern thing.

They look at the vows and plenty of the girls pick up on "obey" and we talk about that.

We do civil partnerships too, and the recent case of a heterosexual couple wanting one.

So even in secondary school, pupils need to act out a heterosexual union, but not a homosexual one?

I spoke to DS's RE teacher quite recently. He said the syllabus they were doing was about representations of religion in literature, film and art, so hopefully DS won't need to do too much on ceremonies and moral teachings.

Children will do role play all by themselves - they don't need teachers to pretend to marry them. I don't think I'd be that impressed if DS's nursery did pretend weddings but then I wouldn't be completely horrified either. I'd probably think they could be doing something else more interesting. DS made a crown in nursery today - that was cute :)

Lining up girl toddlers to marry boy toddlers TODAY is not a lesson in compulsory heterosexuality. It is in fact acting out the royal wedding where Will is actually a boy and Kate is a girl. It is not telling the kids that they can't choose to marry someone of the same sex at all IMO - it is just them acting out the actual event that is taking place tomorrow. It isn't a lesson in marriage. It's a lesson about one particular wedding.

Anyway, I'd be pleased if they'd lined either of mine (3 and 5) up to do the royal wedding. Likewise, I'd be happy for them to receive a lesson in marriage - stating that you can marry whoever you want to regardless of sex. Or you can choose not to get married at all.

I don't really see what feminism/heterosexuality has to do with any of the above really!

they are only kids let em live my ds who goes to a sn school are having there wedding on tues bless them its only role play

GCM, I'm sure we would all like our children to be told that you can marry anyone regardless of sex. But you can't.

How is my reg office wedding to DH different to a CP?

GCM, a civil marriage involves two heterosexual people turning up at the same time and making specific vows. A civil partnership does not. In a civil partnership, the two people do not even have to be in the same place at the same time to sign the document. If a woman marries a man, that man is legally his husband. If a man marries a man, that man is legally his civil partner. The word 'marriage' still legally means the union of a man and a woman.

Civil marriage is a choice for most unmarried heterosexual people. Civil partnership is not a choice, because legally, it is not possible to have a religious gay marriage, despite some churches and synagogues wanting to carry them out.

Hopefully this will all change soon, and heterosexual people will be able to have civil partnerships and homosexual people will be able to marry.

Oh dear ..... !

Had this arguement with DP last night, because of the main photo on local paper www.gazetteandobserver.co.uk/Wedding. Which I find creepy, he mentioned playing weddings at school but did conceed it was nowt to do with the teachers and involving the local vicar was a little creepy.

DS2 seems quite taken with the idea if you marry a prince, youbecome a princess and as of yet I have not explained the differences btwn a civil partnership and wedding to a 3 yr old. Agree it promotes one version of partnership, ds1 has told us to get married after we've had 9 children, who will all sleep in our bed and we can sleep in his. Lenningrad you wouldn't be being pushy and at least there would be age appropiate books hanging around. Though I think same sex relationships are one of the easier to explain things to a pre schooler, have struggled much more to explain death and illness, ming you he's going to marry his little brother when he grows up

sigh, you need to navigate to home page to see picture