First year leader wants your opinion: We recently had a “she and me” night in honor of Mother’s Day. I have 7 Kindergarten Daisies. When I sent out the email invites, I made sure not to say “mother’s day” and any guest was welcomed. Well, I found out after the fact that one of my girls has “two Dads”. When one of Dad’s emailed back explaining the situation, I told them they were welcomed to attend. The night of the event, I overheard girls asking why her dad was there instead of her Mom. When she said that she had two Dad’s, the other girls said things like everyone a Mom, you cant have two Dads, etc. The little girl seemed comfortable enough explaining it to them so I was glad for that. And they got back to having fun. No big deal. The Dad stayed close by but let his daughter handle it. The next day, I had a mom call who thought it was a completely inappropriate situation for her daughter to be in and wanted to know why I “allowed” it to happen. Apparently her daughter came home with a bunch of questions the mom didn’t know how to answer. I don’t know what was the right way to handle this. How would you have handled it?
This topic created a lot of feedback on our Facebook page:
A leader responded: When my daughter was that age, she told about her new friend that “had two moms” before I could respond, she told me how lucky the girl was. One mom is good, but to have two moms was really great. At that point, I realized my daughter wasn’t asking me anything. She was teaching me something. I learned something really important, our kids are born without prejudice and intolerance. It’s our job not teach them otherwise.
Tammy writes: Kudos to you for “Allowing It” and Kudos to the dads for spending time with their daughter. The child who asked the questions is of course curious and there is no harm in that. Hopefully the child will grow up more accepting than her mother.
Lauren’s help: You simply let her know that someone else’s sexual orientation is not any of your business and you certainly didn’t “allow” anything. You let her know scouts is inclusive of all girls. If scouts makes her uncomfortable, she is free to make the best choices for her family in the future.
Amanda’s troop: I have a girl in my troop with two Mom’s. When she told the rest of the troop that, I had a couple of girls start to make fun of her. I shut it down. I told them every family is different. Some families have a Mom and Dad that live together. Some have a Mom and Dad that live apart. And some may have two Mom’s or two Dad’s. How a family is made up doesn’t matter as long as there is love and support. I had a Mom call me upset, and I told her if she wasn’t comfortable having her daughter in our troop she could remove her. I think it’s part of our job to teach tolerance to our girls.
Bridgett: As a clinical therapist (mental health) and a Daisy leader and a Parent to a 6 yo.; you handled it just right. Unfortunate the world is changing at a much faster pace then in the past and our children are being exposed to things that were once taboo and every place; in the news and in the classroom and at some dinner tables. That’s a perfect teaching moment for that mom to talk about acceptance and family differences. Her opportunity to begin to raise an empathetic learner and leader. To teach love. Also an opportunity for the mom to reflect on her own feelings and examine why she felt it was inappropriate.
Cecilia: There is a book called in our mothers house. I used it for our family badge for brownies. Amazing book. I think closed minded parents need a little circle time while someone reads this book to them.
Furthermore what if it had been a single dad whose wife had passed away? Would the little girl be excluded? No. We should not be tolerating our differences. We should be celebrating them. Good job to you!Valerie’s idea: I have always had FROG and princess events. Favorite Relative or Guest. It started because we had a girl in our troop (1996) who’s parents were divorced and she didn’t have a dad to bring to a daddy daughter dance. I didn’t want anyone to be left out. I think that parents are going to need to understand that in our society today, they always need to be prepared to discuss these situations with their kids because that could have happened at school or even church. You allowed the girls to handle it and didn’t interfere and honestly I think the parents would be more upset if you tried to explain it and it wasn’t they way they would have done it too. Sorry you were in that position, but you handled things just fine. Yours in scouting.
Shelly’s experience: One of my girls was excited to hear that one of my other girls had two dads. Of course she thought it meant chocolate cake for dinner every night and free passes on teeth brushing. 🙂
Katie’s input: I think you handled it perfectly. How is that any different than two mothers, an interracial couple, a divorce situation or any other nontraditional family? There are so many different kinds of Non-Conventional Families. Children will ask about differences and are very open to the answers.
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