Read LGBT family stories to ALL kids

Since the principals of We Love Children’s Books are also 2/3 of the engine behind Two Lives Publishing, we thought we’d make a post in support of Blogging for LGBT Families Day. Two Lives creates and sells books for children that portray their families; we sell a lot of books to LGBT parents but we have also helped supply these books to schools, where we hope they are reaching kids who don’t have LGBT parents.

We don’t have kids of our own but we have, of course, read the Two Lives books to our nieces and nephews and our (straight) siblings have been good about having honest and supportive conversations with their kids when questions come up about our relationship. Lately we’ve been talking about our commitment ceremony with our 6-year-old niece, who is very interested in weddings at the moment, and we were tickled when my sister related the following story:

In Kyra’s kindergarten class, one of the boys said something about his boyfriend. He was immediately teased by another boy in the class, who told him “Boys can’t have boyfriends.” So Kyra marched right over and said to them, “Boys can marry boys, and girls can marry girls, because my aunt has a girlfriend.” Go, Kyra!

Only a few weeks later, I was babysitting Kyra and her 4-year-old brother Keane, and we were playing with the Anne of Green Gables paper dolls I had brought. One of the dresses was a wedding dress, but Anne’s beau Gilbert wasn’t included in the paper doll collection – only her best friend Diana – so Kyra & Keane decided that Anne and Diana would get married. I volunteered to preside over the ceremony, since I’ve always been kind of in love with Anne myself…the kids enjoyed it all and it never crossed their mind that there was anything wrong with the game. Go, Kyra and Keane's Mom and Dad!

Anyway, the point is, by mixing books featuring LGBT families in with other books in the classroom and in libraries, kids from all kinds of families will have a chance to read them, to see what different families have in common, and to figure out that it’s no big deal if you have two moms or two dads. And when those kids grow up and have kids of their own, the world will be a better place for their open-mindedness.