Marriage.

[rivka]

Alex knows our position on marriage equality. We have a sign in our window that says Civil Marriage is a Civil Right, and after she asked us to explain the sign a couple of times she started to be able to explain it on her own.

"Some people think that boys should only marry girls and girls should only marry boys. But we don't believe that, right, Mom?"

Sometimes she will add a bit of her own, suggesting that maybe people who think that boys should only marry girls will come past our house, see our sign, and change their minds. I like her optimism.

A month or two ago, she asked me, "How come Zoe's mother and father have the same last name?" I explained, thinking how cool it was that, to Alex, that isn't the default.

But it turns out that when you're four years old it's hard to really get a grasp on the concept of marriage. Today, in the car coming home from the grocery store, Alex's little voice piped up:

"Some people think that you can only get married if you have the same last name. But we don't believe that, right, Mom?"

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'm so tempted to make a joke about West Virginia, but I won't.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Heh. Peck just commented to me....

"And those people are from Arkansas. :-)"

[nelc.livejournal.com]

Did you know that in Korea you can't marry if you have the same last name? It's some ancient measure to prevent inbreeding or something like that.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

That sounded kind of dodgy to me, given that a huge proportion of Koreans share a very small pool of last names, so I checked; it's not last names, it's clans (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081214063509AARL6QR). While all clan members do share a last name, each last name has a bunch of different clans (http://www.unsu.com/names.html).

[timill]

Change it to "Some people think that you can only be married if you have the same last name. But we don't believe that, right, Mom?" and it's probably true.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

"Some people think that you can only get married if you have the same last name. But we don't believe that, right, Mom?"

Sporfle! Oh my God, that's ridiculously hilarious.

[pameladean]

That cracked me up so much. So logical, and so wrong. What a great kid.

P.

[ailbhe]

That's fab. It's so very logical. I love the way she checks her facts with you.

I think we explained marriage as "when adults make other adults part of their family - so you can't do it with people who are already your family." But we may have been explaining non-legal marriage at the time; I think it was in a poly same-sex context. I don't think we've addressed the law on that matter yet.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what we've told her about why she can't marry either one of us. Maybe we borrowed that explanation from you?

[ailbhe]

Maybe I borrowed it from you!

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

My half-sister changed her name legally when she turned 18, and not long after, met a nice boy. She's still with him now, years later, and I *think* they're married, but I'm not sure. At any rate, he has her last name, coincidentally. ("Adams" -- not uncommon.) For the first many years of their relationship, whenever they applied for an apartment, or were otherwise in situations where it would be convenient for folks to assume they were married, they let folks assume so.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

That child is awesome. You should write a book :)

[tendyl.livejournal.com]

/me laughs

I love what kids come up with sometimes. Thank you, I needed the laugh.