THE LAST TIME I experienced that embarrassed, unprepared feeling, William was nearly three and the question was "Why do we buybirds to eat?"
I got over that one, I think, but this was a lot more complicated. What happened? Let me tell you.
I was travelling on the Inter City with William, now five, and a friend who in the course of the conversation mentioned a mutual friend who is gay.
William was happily colouring and obviously keeping an ear tuned to the chat. On hearing the word gay, he looked up and said, "Which kind of gay do you mean, Mum?"
I lied. "You know, happy, having fun and all that. What other sort of gay is there?"
"You know, Mum, boys and boys and girls and girls and if you're related, you can get married, can't you, can't you, Mum?"
I asked the obvious question. "Who was telling you about this sort of gay?"
"My friend Ross, he knows everything `cos he's seven and do you know boys kiss?" he asked, puckering up his lips and doing a movie style expression of high passion.
I was flabbergasted. I just didn't know what to say - I didn't expect a question like this for at least a couple of years.
I spluttered, "Well, yes, of course I know about boys and boys and girls and girls, but it's also boys and girls, like Dad and me. It doesn't had to be boys and boys, you know?'; I felt hot and trapped. I didn't want to give any indication that being gay was somehow "wrong", because I don't believe it is.
Yet I don't want my son to be gay because it is, and will probably continue to be, a hard, sometimes lonely and necessarily secretive life for many gay people.
So what does this make me? Am I a Harriet Harmon, as in "It's OK for everyone else's son to be gay, but not mine?"
Of course, I don't want William to be a raving homophobe, but neither do I want him to think that being gay is somehow just the same as being heterosexual, because it isn't.
So, tell me, am I ridiculous to be angst-ridden about this? More experienced parents look knowing and sympathetic and say, "This is just the beginning, you know!"
So, where are the books that guide you through these issues? Or will he just decide himself, regardless of carefully thought out, politically correct parental replies to such questions?
By the way, what do you do?
