I think it's fair to teach your children your beliefs and that it isn't diametrically opposed to bringing up a child who is open-minded and tolerant of other people's beliefs. I also think that if your child's public school is going to have children books that feature homosexual relationships in its library, and this bothers you, than pull your child out and send him/her to a private/parochial school.

Yet another reason why "how dare you tell my child there's such a thing as homosexuality!" is as stupid and futile a sentence uttered under these American skies. Kids are people; they move in the world.

I think you do have the right to determine at what age you teach your kids about homosexuality. For some parents a children's book written for 6 year olds is not the age when they wanted to have that talk.

Ginger, yes, you do predate me a bit, but my folks live by 22nd and Lover's Lane; my cousins went to Eugene Field, and I used to walk out dog past it on fall evenings.

It's still very much there, and FWIW, won, I think, top elementary school in MO award of some kind last year.

For some parents a children's book written for 6 year olds is not the age when they wanted to have that talk.

But those same parents are going to be equally aggrieved by front-page stories on gay marriage (indeed, many of them are) and by men holding hands in public.

As a parent, your job is to say "Other people believe that X, but we don't." You say that quite a lot. I moved from the Bible Belt to California to reduce the number of times I would have to say that.

Seriously I think it is a parental responsibility to know what your kids are watching on tv and reading in books.

I did say know -- not control.

Erin, we lived about four blocks from the school and about six blocks from this local ice cream store that everyone went to. It was across the street from a newstand with comic books, and I'd walk there every Saturday, buy an ice cream cone and comic books, and walk back eating ice cream and reading.

at 6 - you should be at the library with your child. t horrified librarian that see 4 yr olds in the library with 7 yr old siblings 'in charge'.

But I can't even know. I don't find out what they watched at the day-care center or at school or at a friend's house, half the time.

Didn't the child bring the book home from the school library?

This one is, truthfully, a tough call for me. There are large parts of America in which the book violates community standards, and I don't think a school library should necessarily be flouting those standards for elementary-aged children.

My parents might have suspected I'd gone through ALL their books by the time I was ten, pausing longer on the ones with pictures, and that's why they sold them before I turned eleven. Or they thought they were ahead of the game.

They certainly didn't know about the stacks and stacks of porn mags I'd also read by that time.

Sure, you gotta try, but it might be better to have that convo sooner than later.