\u201cI wasn\u2019t allowed to go to my friend\u2019s house anymore,\u201d said Anna. \u201cHer mum and dad forbade me from going anywhere near, and that hurt me because she had been my best friend for a long, long time. I lost that friend. And then, of course, there was a chain reaction. Everybody found out. They said, \u2018Don\u2019t go near her, she\u2019ll turn out like her mum.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
John was bullied when schoolmates found out about his lesbian mom. \u201cSchool was one big nightmare really, because I got picked on so much,\u201d he explained. \u201cI had cigarettes stubbed out on the back of my neck, and high-heeled shoes thrown at me, and a bit of hair cut off, and my head chucked down the loo, and that sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Children have felt the need to clam up about their families because of widespread prejudice. Stacey explained: \u201cMy brother and I knew some people in our school that had gay and lesbian parents and that did get bullied quite a lot, and that scared us from telling people. So, we never told anyone. It was hard keeping secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSchools, parents, and wider society still have a lot to learn about supporting children through their experiences.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/span>Effective school challenges to prejudice<\/span><\/h2>\nSchools must create a positive, supportive environment for such children. It pays off. Carol, 14, highlighted helpful action by her school: \u201cBasically, they spread the word how it\u2019s not very good to say, \u2018Oh this is so gay\u2019 or \u2018that\u2019s so gay,\u2019 even though it\u2019s used as a different meaning. They tell them that\u2019s wrong and why you shouldn\u2019t say that.\u201d Mike, 17, recalled how a new English teacher, who was gay, made a difference: \u201cHe has one of the Stonewall \u2018Some People Are Gay, Get Over It\u2019 posters in his classroom. Just seeing the poster in his room is really cool.\u201d As part of our research project, the UK campaign for equality of LGBTQ people, Stonewall, published 10 recommendations from children on how schools can support them and their same-sex parents.<\/p>\n
Children of transgender parents have been bullied and teased in similar ways, and inclusive attitudes by schools can help them. Wendy explained: \u201cI put my hand up and said, \u2018I don\u2019t have a dad because my dad\u2019s transgender,\u2019 and I got an award for it \u2018cos it was actually really brave of me to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Tell children what\u2019s happening<\/span><\/h2>\nParents also should consider being more open about what is happening in their families. \u201cIt would have helped if he had explained things a bit better,\u201d said Henry, 18, reflecting on when his father transitioned to being a woman. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t so much him wearing dresses, but more him being a bit manic and doing strange things.\u201d Chris, 18, advised other children in a similar situation: \u201cTry to get them to communicate with you as much as possible because it\u2019s worse if things are happening and you don\u2019t know why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Children tend to accept, in a matter of fact way, their father\u2019s or mother\u2019s change of gender if it happened while they were little or a long time ago. \u201cChloe\u2019s always been Chloe,\u201d said Susanna, 14, who was a toddler when her father transitioned. \u201cI don\u2019t remember when it actually happened, so it\u2019s basically been for as long as I remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Experiencing transition can worry them<\/span><\/h2>\n\u00a0<\/strong>But some children find it difficult when they experience a parent\u2019s transition. They can have fears of loss, which typically pass, but which can be very real during gender transition. Jade, who was six when her father transitioned, was upset about losing her dad: \u201cWhen she transitioned, I felt like there was a hole in my heart because I missed my dad and every time somebody talked about their dad, I got really upset.\u201d But she grew more accepting. At age nine, Jade reflected: \u201cWhen she transitioned, it made her a lot happier \u2018cos, when she was a boy, she was really unhappy. Ever since she\u2019s transitioned, she\u2019s come home from work, hugged us, and been really happy. It\u2019s changed a lot since she transitioned.\u201d<\/p>\nAnother upset can be rejection of parents by their wider family, so children lose contact with some relatives. Theresa, whose father transitioned when she was six, explained: \u201cPeople on my mum\u2019s side of the family really struggle with it. Her parents and brothers, and basically everyone over there, cut us off. It made me sad and kind of angry because it\u2019s really no reason to be horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen children found out later, as teenagers or adults, they felt more negatively about how they were conceived and their relationship with their parents.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/span>Children should not have to explain their families<\/span><\/h2>\nChildren may also feel responsible for explaining to the outside world issues such as gender transition. \u201cMy problem,\u201d explained Susanna, \u201chas been having to explain to other people constantly because no one really understands.\u201d Josh reported: \u201cSometimes, random people ask me questions and I have to explain to them. That gets tiring for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our research has highlighted issues for children born through assisted reproductive technologies, such as egg, sperm, and embryo donation, or surrogacy. Some children as young as two or three years might ask of a single mother by choice: \u201cDo I have a daddy? Where is he?\u201d Some – but by no means all – especially as they get into their teens, are eager to fill a gap in knowledge about themselves by finding out more about their donor, surrogate, and any half-siblings born to the same donor or surrogate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to me now . . . I\u2019m always thinking about what she looks like,\u201d explained Sarah, 14, who was born through egg donation. Alex, 14, conceived by sperm donation, said: \u201cI would like to know who he is . . . quite a lot . . . Recently a lot more than I used to.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Tell children early about their origins<\/span><\/h2>\nWe have found that it is generally better to start talking to children early about how they were conceived and born. Children who find out later, as teenagers or adults, tend to feel more negatively about how they were conceived and in their relationships with their parents than children who have had the conversation about their beginnings early. Many parents hold off telling their children, fearing that the children will love them less. However, these fears are unfounded because children who are told early tend to be very accepting, often not particularly interested, and unshocked by learning more as they grow older.<\/p>\n
The risks of not disclosing this information to children have grown with the advent of ancestry sites offering DNA tests, which can suddenly lead unsuspecting children to discover half-siblings and relatives of whom they had no inkling. Children may find their identities destabilized, and learning about their beginnings in this way can undermine their trust in their parents.<\/p>\n
The story of new forms of family is largely good news, of children flourishing, much as we might expect them to do in traditional families, and sometimes doing even better. The composition of their family does not upset them. It is other factors, such as people\u2019s reactions to their family or the lack of information about their origins, that cause them distress. The solutions lie in better understanding, greater societal acceptance of diverse families, swift challenges to prejudice, and openness within families about where their much-wanted children came from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to a new book,\u00a0We Are Family, many want schools to challenge prejudice against new family forms and want parents to provide more information about donors, half-siblings, and surrogates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":15457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5768,438],"tags":[35,329,4346,33,36,27,267,476],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15454"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22410,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15454\/revisions\/22410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}