Hello, all! Sorry if there is already a topic like this, but I just remembered something my SO and I had talked about a while ago about our plans for the future. We got to talking about this aspect of our lives and we were wondering what to do about informing children.
This may be different from some situations because the child would be born into the conditions and grow up with it so compatibility is much more an option. I was wondering what everyone else thinks or what has happened while telling their children.
I was thinking that if the child is a girl it would be no problem at all. However, with a boy I feel like they may feel pressured into thinking maybe they should do it too. Maybe that is an irrational thought but I think it makes sense. Then again, there is the whole "CDing gene" idea but that's a little different then.
Anyway, any input is appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Well, I've seen this problem before. Most of the questions like this are posed as:
1. Should I hide it from my children?
2. Should I openly tell my children?
3. Are my children going to do it too?
I imagine that most people tell their children. But I'm not to sure about whether or not boys would feel presured into doing it. Obviously if there is someone else in the family who has the same desires, it's easier to come out. For example, a friend of mine's mother has a boyfriend who is a crossdresser. When finding out about that, he decided to come out himself.
But if your son has these desires, it will more than likely become apparent to him. And of course, you being an actual crossdresser, you would be open to it and he wouldn't feel weird about it at all.
The same would go for bisexual parents (refering to M&F relationship where both or one are bisexual). They may or may not tell their kids latter. But if one of their kids was homosexual or bisexual, they wouldn't be angry and would be open to it.
Everyone should remember that it's all about the love and comming together as one to promote peace and love across the planet.
I tend to agree regarding the girls as against boys thing, because if a girl grows up seeing her father dress in women’s clothes then it’s not going to have the same ‘copy cat’ effect as it would on a boy. Children learn from their parents through repetition, and if it’s what a parent does repeatedly then it’s natural for a male child to grow up thinking that’s what Dad does so I can do it too. Children only learn that boys wear this and girls wear that, boys do this and girls do that because those things are taught to them, if the parents wore bear skins only, then that’s what the child would do too.
I know that raising children from the start learning that diversity exists amongst all animal and plant life is the right way to go, but in the world we currently live in where people can be ostracized for their actions and beliefs, it may be necessary for people to evaluate their personal position in the environment which they live in, and the ramifications which may result for their children. I think in this day and age until there is a more general change at the top in the way people think, we have to weigh up the effects anything we do may or may not have on our children’s development. Maybe we need to weigh up the damage which may be caused to a child’s emotional stability and life in general, if, through the actions of their father they may become an outcast from their peer group.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for telling children if it’s right to do so ( my 3 children know all about me), but I believe there is ‘ no one size fits all ‘ set of rules in how and when to go about it, each family and their set of circumstances varies. We all know our family and the environment we live in better than anyone else, so to me it’s a personal choice and a personal decision which has to be made having regard to those circumstances. If we bring our kids up from the start saying to them that Daddy does this but you can’t tell anyone, then is that in itself the right thing to do? Is that teaching them that Daddy does something which might be wrong etc? It’s a very tricky one with children because children are so vulnerable to outside influences as they grow and learn what life is all about, and on one hand it’s a natural parental instinct to protect our kids from anything which may harm them, and on the other hand we want to bring our children up so that they don’t have a biased and intolerant bigotry outlook towards others, which sadly, so many people in the general community have.
Kind Regards,
Sally.
Watch nature, because it’s our greatest teacher, it moves and flows and moves on again. We can never be free until we disengage, so allow life to flow as you find it. The way it is, is the way it is.
When I told my son at age 27, he had no problem with it. He said he already knew from stuff on my computer. He lives at home and sees me in a skirt quite often.
When I told my daughter at age 26, she's not mentioned any problem with it, but hasn't talked about it either.
I would have like to have told them sooner, but my wife was against it.
If we bring our kids up from the start saying to them that Daddy does this but you can’t tell anyone, then is that in itself the right thing to do?
I have recently come out to my 3 young kids and they have been great. The way I explained it to them was that while there is nothing wrong with what Daddy does, not everyone would look at it the same way. So, I gently advised them not to say anything to their friends only because I didn't want them to be teased at school. You know how kids can be! I think putting it that way made sense to them because it doesn't say that Daddy's actions are wrong or are anything to be ashamed of. In turn, that should hopefully reconcile any doubts they may have had if I hadn't qualified why they should keep it to themselves.
You handled that very well with your kids, and putting it that way to them also gives them the opportunity to realize that people see things differently, and that in life we all have choices. I’m sure as they grow older they’ll come to realize that in life there are many things which may be seen as right or wrong to some people but quite acceptable or unacceptable to others, and that gets back to choice, and to live and let live with those choices, doesn’t it. From my experiences, I believe that in most cases it’s best to either tell children at a very early age before their thinking is contaminated by outside influences, or else leave it until they are young adults and have some life experience in the outside world. From what I’ve seen, these two times seems to meet with good success.
It’s a very sensitive issue isn’t it, and as I said previously, each of our situations varies and, it, along with many other issues in life will need to be handled in a way which is suitable to the environment which each of us live in, but I can see the way you tackled it would be acceptable in a lot of cases.
You hit the nail right on the head about how kids can be, yes, kids can be very cruel to each other in what they say and how they say it, because due to their age and innocence they haven’t yet developed a tactful approach, and, as a result of what they say and how they say it, it can have a long lasting unpleasant effect on those children being targeted. As an example, there is a distant member of my family who has three children whose ages range from 5 to 9, and he openly and loudly uses words in their presence such as ‘poofta’, weirdos and the like, and it’s not uncommon to hear his children saying the same things as they hear their father say, and I often wonder what those kids are going to grow up like with the attitude he and they are implanting within themselves.
Kind Regards,
Sally.
Watch nature, because it’s our greatest teacher, it moves and flows and moves on again. We can never be free until we disengage, so allow life to flow as you find it. The way it is, is the way it is.
Like Sally said, I was thinking the whole "monkey see, monkey do" approach that kids take is what could happen with a boy. I would obviously ask my kids to keep it a secret among their friends and all of that stuff.
Hi Adora Jade, It’s Saturday here and my lazy day and a lot of stuff has been going through my mind lately and I don’t have anybody handy to talk about these things with, so I popped in here for the first time in a while and what you asked is something which I’ve had a bit to do with. I wrote a lot of stuff on another part of this forum about my Dad wearing womens clothes but I don’t know if you’ve ever read it.
To bring you up with things, it’s getting near three years now since my younger sis and I came home and found our father wearing Mums clothes. That Saturday Mum was out at a Red Cross fund raiser and sis and I went out for the day but things didn’t work out so we came home a few hours early, and when we walked into the lounge room the first thing I saw was the dress and it flashed through my mind that Mum had come home early too, and then I saw it was Dad in Mums dress, things then sort of went haywire and it’s taken a long time for me to come to terms with it, but the fall out is that they have now divorced, I’ve moved interstate and our once close family is split into bits. I’ve stuck by my Dad and we’ve even gone to the movies a few times together with him dressed up, he’s no fashion model but he gets by ok as long as he doesn’t bring a lot attention to himself, it seems to be great for him to get out and there’s been so much unhappiness the last few years that it’s great to see a smile on his face.
Dad and I ring each other every other week (I live and work interstate these days)and it was only a couple of weeks ago we were chatting on the phone and he had an attack of the sads and the old subject came up about why he never told us from when we were a lot younger, and left it so that we found out in a way that freaked us out and came as a terrible shock. I know that if I had grown up from a little girl seeing my Dad in a dress then I wouldn't have known anything else, and I love my Dad to bits and always will, but having known him all my life until I was 17 ( I’m now 20 ) as a certain way it’s still hard to completely come to terms seeing him in another way. I just know and wish that he’d have gone about it differently, and everything would have been a lot better. Even if he’d only told sis and I to our face at some stage and not had us find out in the way we did, because the shock really took some getting over.
Parents sometimes don’t trust their kids judgement enough and they try to protect us far too much from things we should really know. Soemtimes we know a lot more about things than they’d like tobeleive and they should know that from their own young days. Sometimes parents don’t realise how much their kids love them and what we’d do to protect our family. As an example, take my best friend. All her life since she can remember, her father has mucked around with her and the only person she’s ever told is me. Years ago I told her that she should tell someone but she never could, she says it’s her father and she could never do anything which might put him in jail. Even though she detests and hates what he did she still loves him even if she didn’t like him a lot of the time, and even though she’s now living away from home at University and out of his grasp, she still rings her Dad and talks to him and tells him about what’s going on with her life. That’s the sort of love we have for our parents, and I tell my Dad over and over that the right thing he should have done was tell us from when we could understand and we could have avoided all the crap our familys been through since that terrible day we found out the way we did.
If hed told us and then said that we had to understand that not everyone likes what he does and they would be nasty to us maybe if they found out and say awful things, then I know we’d have understood and kept it all in house, but he chose not to trust us with it and now everyone has paid the price.
Let me ask this. There are two kinds of love isn’t here? There is the non-sexual kind of love we have for our family members, our pets etc and there is a different love which has sexual tones to it which say, we have for our partner.
Does love conquer all or should it?. Should love be held above all else and should a girl concede more ground for the sake of love for her partner than he should.
Why I’m asking this is because my love for my Dad is so powerful that after the dust has cleared, anything he did would never kill off my love for him and even if he committed the most horrible crime I’d still support him because he’s my creator and my Dad. My love for him conquers all, just the same as my best friends love for her Dad.
But, take a different love, my love for my b/f. I tell him I love him and he tells me he’s crazy about me, but he continually says he doubts my sincerity. The reason he says this is because I work Monday to Friday in the cosmetics section of a Department Store and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights I work about 6/7 hours each night in a restaurant. I love working and I love the fact that it brings me in contact with lots of people and I have a lot of fun with them, and I also love the fact working gives me the money to buy things I like and need, it gives me my independence which is important to me and it also enables me to keep my bank account growing.
But my b/f says that I don’t devote enough time to him and if I loved him as much as I say I do then I’d find more time for him and he’d be more important to me than working nights. He actually gets quite testy about it at times and he gets in moods over it and that makes me feel awful and sad. It’s hard to do the right thing all the time and people use love as an excuse to get you to do things, but you do what you do because you love something but don’t we also have to think about ourself too sometimes?
I’ve been wondering lately that if my love for my dad is so strong that him wearing ladies clothes is ok by me and doesn’t have any effect on my love for him, then is my love for my b/f something lesser because it makes him unhappy that he can’t have more time with me, but yet I’m reluctant to give up part of my work so we can spend more time together. I said to him that maybe if he loved me as much as he says he does then he’d be prepared to forego some time together so I can save more money which is important to my future, or even possibly our future, but he says it’s easier for a woman to do without a man than it is for a man to do without a woman, but I’m not sure about that. He wants us to move in together but that’s not on my agenda at this time and that upsets him too, but I tell him that if he loves me enough he’ll wait, so am I being cruel to him or what? I’m not sure about this love thing, it can make you feel marvelous and on top of the world but it also brings it’s own set of problems too.
Anyway, I’ve get enough off my chest for now, but I just wanted to tell you that I think it’s best to tell your kids from the earliest time they can understand. It may have it’s own problems attached but I doubt they are anywhere near as bad as the problems which can be caused later in life, especially if your kids find out in a way which shocks and freaks them out, have faith, trust them, trust their love for you because you’re their Dad and no matter what, we only ever have one real Dad and someday we won’;t have him and we’ll wish we had him back, no matter what he wears.
Jenny.
JenniferMu,
thankyou for sharing your story with us and it is one that I am going to get my DH to read ---- we have discussed the telling of my children one is 10 yrs and the other is 22 yrs both living at home neither of the kids are my partners biologically, but my youngest thinks of him like as dad and alternates betwen calling him dad and his name.
I would like to tell both the kids about my partners cding but he has problems with this because
1) once told there is no going back
2) the eldest is not the most compassionate of peeps
3) it is a huge secret to ask the youngest to keep ( I have brought all the kids up with a no lie policy ----- not that that works all the time)
but taking all that into account and a few other things besides I am still of the opinion WE should tell them, WHY?
1) because I do not want them to discover this ---and no doubt one day they will---- I hated finding out how I did
2) If we tell them in a calm and rational manner they are much more likely not to freak
3) I hate the lies and decieving the kids
4) It would then enable my partner to dress more freely
hopefully we will be able to come to an agreement on this sometime soon
Jennifer - So nice to see you here again. Am glad that things 'seem' to be improving for you. I use the quotations because in your message there, you do seem in a happier place with your Dad and that's great. I know you've spoken at length in another thread about the issues you faced when you first found out and the subsequent devastating impact it had on you and your family. No question he didn't deal with all of this with the sensitivity you would have liked (understatement or what!) and he probably carries enough guilt to last him a lifetime, but the fact is what's happened has happened. There's no turning back now and we can only learn from the past as we gradually find a way to get on with our lives the best we can. I think you're doing a incredible job there so keep it up girl. The fact that you've gone out with him dressed is amazing, and I think, the proof that you're relationship with your Dad is moving in a positive direction. Good for you! I'm sure he appreciates it more than you know. Just don't forget to give him that fashion advice when he needs it and make sure he takes it.
Jess(SO) - in your case, I would agree with all the points made on both sides. There is no easy way once the kids get older. You can argue the points till the sun goes down but in the end, you must compromise and make sure you're BOTH in agreement about what you should do and/or whether to say anything. Without it - endless problems! I was ready (and anxious) to tell my own kids a couple of years ago but my SO was dead set against it, fearing the emotional impact it might have on their poor young minds. As a loving parent, how could I argue with that? So, we waited and did it only when we were BOTH comfortable and in agreement in how/when we would do it. How you get there depends on many factors within the dynamic of your own family relationship(s). One thing is certain though, the kids are likely going to find out at some point, so while it may or may not be pretty, regardless of 'when', sometimes, we may only be able to minimize the impact by telling them sooner rather than later. You certainly wouldn't want a situation like Jennifer experienced so everything has to be weighed up and then go from there. No one ever said life was easy. As a parent, we only want the best for our kids, but as Jennifer pointed out, we do often underestimate their intelligence (and resilience) in dealing with difficult issues in life.
Jennifer - with respect to the situation with your b/f, I think it's his emotional insecurities that are at work here with the guilt he tries to put on you. You've done a lot of growing up in a short time over these last few years and the experience has obviously made you wiser beyond your years. That said, if you continue to trust your judgment and do what's right for YOU, I don't think you'll go far wrong. Like you said, if he loves you, he'll wait till you're ready. At the same time, don't neglect to show him how much he means to you too. Yes, guys can be babies sometimes don't ya know, so a little extra every now and then might cheer him up!
We got to talking about this aspect of our lives and we were wondering what to do about informing children.
every now and then might cheer him up! 