Be Open with Your Kids

Be Open with Your Kids

  One of the most mind-numbing parts of parenting is deciding what stories from your youth to tell your kids. On one hand, you want them to learn the important facts of life the easier way than you did and on the other hand, you don't want to scar them.
  Yes, "scar," not "scare" (though that could happen also). There are a lot of emotional scars that could happen. Fewer, though, by being open with your kids than lying to them.
  Although the advice I want to impart about decideing what to tell can apply to a lot of topics, I want to hone in on the idea of sexuality.
  Most people have a story that could start out: "There was this one time in college..." and I am no different. Without revealing a bunch of details or anything, I have opened up to my kids about my sexual experimentation a little.
  I hope it doesn't make you cringe too much to hear that I, who have been in a heterosexual marriage of monogamy for eighteen years, have a "one time in college" story.
  Being open with my kids started long before the teen years (I am a firm believer in the axiom "Honesty is the best policy," even when there is pain or embarrassment involved). To the extent that revealing my past actions dealt with sexuality, I didn't bring up my homoerotic experimentation unil my youngest was thirteen.
  Sure, they cringed a little when I told them that I didn't "kiss a boy," until I was twenty, but that openness is good for our relationships.
  (My son said that it was "Queer," which is okay for him to say because he's trans.)