However, I don’t relish her learning that she will have to decide between relinquishing a magazine she loves and supporting inequality and injustice.” Children have no problem absorbing this idea, unless they are first trained to think of families different from theirs as “weird” or “wrong.” I have a more difficult task ahead of me: to share your response with my daughter and ask her if she wants to keep receiving Highlights. If a child whose parents aren’t two women looks at a story and says, ‘Hey, this girl has two moms’ the parent says, ‘That’s right, some families have two moms.’ If the child wants to know why two women appear to be life partners, the simplest answer is ‘They love each other.’ If the parent speaking is married, ‘. This is a great opportunity for you to educate parents in ways to respond to children’s questions about families different than their own. You have a choice to make and I hope you will make the right one. But now that I read that you are dragging your feet because some families don’t want to see families like ours, I feel dirty sending you money. What they said was, “We will continue to think deeply about inclusion - specifically how to address it in developmentally appropriate ways for our broad audience.” One mother’s comment on the Highlights for Children Facebook page sums the situation up perfectly: “I am sorry to say that we are so used to not seeing any families like ours in media that Highlights’ omission of LGBT kids and parents had not stood out. Why? Because it basically said, “we know a certain part of our audience is against gay marriage and we don’t want to lose their money.” Okay, I’m paraphrasing. Their first response was laughably offensive. This is how you respond when your brand is not inclusive - you listen and evolve. We are committed to doing so as we plan future issues.” We know that there are many ways to build a family, and that love is the essential “ingredient.” This conversation has helped us see that we can be more reflective of all kinds of families in our publications. “We want to reiterate that we believe all families matter. It may seem to some that we are evolving too slowly.” “… Our mission never changes: To help kids become their best selves-curious, creative, confident, and caring. We want to assure you that we have read every message and are listening carefully.” In our initial response, our words weren’t reflective of our values, intentions or our position, and we apologize. They’ve also released a statement on their website: “In the last several days, Highlights for Children has received many comments and questions about representing LGBTQ families in our magazines.
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