The EYFS (2021) ‘seeks to provide equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported’ and requires that ‘Providers must follow their legal responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010’.
It also promotes partnership working with parents and/or carers. Therefore, it should surely follow that every effort is made to include and represent lesbian and gay families in early years settings, but regrettably this is not the case. This is a topic that is given far less weight in discussions of inclusion and diversity in early childhood policy and practice. And, whether unconscious or not, such acts of omission contribute to heterosexist bias.
Historically there are legal and social contexts that have exacerbated this situation, but thankfully, the 21st century has brought significant changes in the law and more enlightened views across generations and communities in the UK. So why does addressing issues of equity in relation to lesbian and gay families continue to take a back seat in early years settings?
Partly, this may be due to issues of ambiguity and in/visibility. Because you cannot see sexual identity like you can see most ethnicities and many disabilities, there is commonly a presumption of heterosexuality. This can allow heterosexism to go unchallenged; giving free rein to unconscious bias and allowing less favourable treatment to go unchecked.
For example, when I was asked to write this article, the brief suggested I present it through the child’s and parent’s eyes. For me, this raised questions about how personal to make this – should I explicitly use my own experiences as a lesbian parent to illustrate the article, or should I make those examples anonymous? If I was explicit, this would mean ‘coming out’ and ‘revealing’ my sexual identity to all the readers. If I was more ambiguous, I would protect myself from potentially negative reactions but also deny who I am and my family’s experience.
PARENT’S VIEW
Although I have never met with direct prejudice or discrimination while using an early years setting for my children (helped, I believe, by being well-known as a fellow professional), I encountered many instances of ‘everyday heterosexism’. This was most commonly revealed in the absence of any mention, acknowledgement or recognition of same-sex relationships, such as forms that ask for ‘Mother’s and Father’s name’, or unthought-out ‘Dad’s’ sessions.
It was also manifest in the way ideas of family were talked about with children and represented in the environment and resources. While books, posters and play artefacts reflected families from different ethnic groups and/or with disabilities, for example, there were no representations of lesbian and gay households. Although I was happy to do so and had the financial means, this meant that the onus was on me to provide these resources for the setting.
This, and other similar situations, imposed a constant pressure about ‘coming out’ and, however open and comfortable with yourself you are, this is always anxiety-provoking to some degree. It makes oneself vulnerable to stereotyping and prejudice and worse; however much things have changed, violence and abuse towards LGBTQ+ people continues to be a common experience in the UK.
This means that LGBT parents may choose not to ‘come out’ as they may worry about practitioners’ responses to their child and so may identify one partner as ‘Auntie’, ‘Uncle’ or ‘the Nanny’ (as a friend of mine did) for protection. This may be even more the case for black or minority ethnic lesbian and gay families, who may be less visible either through choice or necessity and also have to deal with racism in wider society as well as homophobia.
Other LGBT parents may take the view that they shouldn’t have to ‘come out’, so let others make up their own mind. But whatever approach parents decide to take, practitioners should remember that LGBT parents are not only dealing with all the usual family stresses; they will also be dealing with the oppressive experience of stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination and bias in their daily lives and maybe without the support of family and community.
SUPPORTING FAMILIES
A key way in which settings can support families with LGBT parents is by reducing the need to ‘come out’ through ensuring representation and eliminating the assumption of heterosexuality in policies, practice and provision. This starts with examining your own views and checking your language.
Consider these questions:
- Do any of the children in your setting have LGBT parents? How do you know?
- If a parent hasn’t been explicit about being a lesbian or gay family, do you assume they are heterosexual?
- Do you assume that all black or minority ethnic or Christian/Muslim parents are heterosexual?
- What are your views of different kinds of families? Note three words that immediately come to mind when thinking about families with same-sex parents; are these negative or positive?
- What do you know about how LGBT families are formed?
While there are many different ways in which LGBT people come to be parents, the important thing is the quality of the relationships within each family – research shows that is what matters in terms of children’s health and wellbeing (Golombok 2000). And, like all parents, LGBT parents using early years settings want their children to have a sense of belonging, and for this, they need to see their parents being treated with respect and their families acknowledged.
CHILD’S VIEW
When she was very young, my daughter remembers the occasional tiresome argument with a classmate who insisted she couldn’t have two mummies and sometimes being questioned in detail about how that could be! But, on the whole, she recalls feeling that, although her family was different, this was something positive. This would be partly due to changing attitudes at the time, but also due to living in an urban, diverse community and to her parents being open and creating strong friendship links in the nursery and school communities.
Such links meant that when one of her classmates in Year 1 began running around the playground shouting ‘gay’ as an insult, we were able to raise this with his parents directly and my daughter was hardly aware of the situation.
She tells me, though, that she has been ‘coming out’ about her family since the age of about ten. And, although this usually hasn’t been a problem for her, she remembers it as being something she had to think about and sometimes chose not to do. But, on other occasions, she found it gave her kudos among her trendy teenage friends! She believes that growing up in a ‘different’ family has influenced her in having more open views and attitudes to other people’s differences.
CHALLENGING PREJUDICE
My daughter’s experiences chime with many of the children in Stonewall’s research (Guasp 2015), who, on the whole, saw their families as special and different because all families are special and different and whose friends at school were fine about them having gay parents.
However, bullying and exclusion continue to be an issue for many children of LGBT parents, let alone for young people who identify as LGBT+ themselves. So, what they want adults in early years settings and schools to do about it is:
- Don’t make assumptions about our families.
- Talk about and celebrate our families early; in nursery and primary school.
- Challenge homophobic language and bullying as rigorously as other forms of prejudice.
- Have posters, displays and assemblies that promote a positive attitude towards LGBT families.
- Be a role model; having openly gay teachers helps other children have a positive attitude towards gay people.
LGBTQ+ people are often commended by others for being ‘brave’ for coming out or challenging heterosexism, which is supportive and well-intentioned.
However, what we want is to not to have to be ‘brave’, and for that to happen, LGBT parents need heterosexual friends, colleagues and service providers to be allies. This means early childhood educators incorporating an anti-heterosexist approach into their daily practices in early childhood settings.
REFERENCES
- Guasp A (2015) Different Families: The experiences of children with lesbian and gay parents. Stonewall
- Golombok, S (2000) Parenting: What really counts? London: Routledge.
RESOURCES
- Stonewall’s best practice toolkit and resources: https://bit.ly/36fTaPv
- Gay’s The Word bookshop: https://bit.ly/3hjuEmP