When to tell the children ??

[Jayne Wordan]

Hi everyone. Newbie here. was having a discusion with with my SO the other day and couldnt come to an agreement with her when would be best to tell our children. Does anyone have an opinion on this issue ?? (daft question really )

Im the one who believes they are old enough to tell yet young enough to adapt. My only doubt is that they out me by accident to their friends at school.

[Jocee]

Im the one who believes they are old enough to tell yet young enough to adapt. My only doubt is that they out me by accident to their friends at school.

Kids are really observant. My kids picked up on it when they were very very young. We have never really hidden anything, but rather showed discretion my activities. So, in our closet are a large (ah, huge) collection of clothing, my hairpieces, etc. Laundry hamper are full of undies of various sizes, etc..... I however have never crossdressed in front of my kids, as a personal preference.

I'd discussed my CD'ing with one of my kids at her request, and with the other I have not, but will if he desires......

Dunno if that helps........ it's a difficult choice.....

[Jayne Wordan]

Thanks for that Jocee. My problem is that the urge to dress seems to be getting stronger all the time. I do dress at night after the kids are in bed but i suppose at some point they could possibly come down and see me.

Think im going to leave it for now and respec my SO's opinion. Just dont get why it has to be so hard :sad:

I dont have many outer garments atall but really enjoy my time in the clothes i do have.

[Sally2005]

Tell them what?

It depends if you are going to live full time or just dress up sometimes. I keep my dressing around the kid to halloween time to make it simple to understand. Any other dressing is on my own.

[sherri52]

Daddy how come you have lipstick on. My first slip. After a few more slips and none of my children being grossed out, I convinced myself to tell them. Thier ages were from six to 16 for those five. The others found out later. I have eight between two marriages.

[Jenny Brown]

Never. Do it in private. Absolutely NO point in burdening the children.

[Mya Summers]

I never do it in front of the kids unless it's halloween, but they have seen me dressed in the middle of the night when they got up to go potty, my boys didn't say anything, and my daughter laughed and said u look like mommy daddy, but she is only 3 so at that age they say funny things. But My SO and I have a mutual agreement on this, no dressing in front of the kids and thats fine w/me.

[Jonianne]

What does your SO say?

[Sandra]

If your not willing to come out then don't tell them because you can't expect them to keep your secret.

[Angelofsomekind]

Absolutly talk about it with the SO first. But for us, we plan on having kids, just haven't yet, but we will be letting them know about if right away. Not telling them (to us anyway) is lying to them about who I am, they should know who I am. We also think letting them know right away makes them realize that it is no big deal, and like someone else mentioned before, it isn't.
I don't activly let people know I dress, but if I am ever exposed, I really don't care, I do what I can to hide it, but my life won't change in any way if people do find out. So in that way I don't have a problem. But to protect the child from others I would let them know that it is something that is ok, but at the same time it is something we don't tell others about. It's like going to the bathroom, you do it, but you don't tell people about it.

A back up to this is to dress up on Halloween, that way if the kid ever mentions something about you dressing up you can say you dressed up for halloween before, and thats what they are talking about.

[Jayne Wordan]

Well what can i say. some very mixed responses. To Jonianne, my SO says that she rather we left it till later on so they can decide for themselves how they feel about it. I think this will probably be the way i go to be honest as to not upset the apple cart so to speak.
Angelofsomekind, i believe you have the most understanding SO and if i had realised before we had children that i was always going to be this way then i think my SO would have been ok telling them.
Thank you to everyone else for your great comments and look forward to posting again. Its been very helpful :battingeyelashes:

[baby beluga]

don't, kids don't need to know everything

[Engendered]

To those people saying "never tell them", I'm curious as to why. If we can't open our own kids' eyes to the diversity of the world and to see a whole variety of things as "normal", how can we expect other people's kids, the next generation of people, to treat us any differently than they do now?

Having said that, it's much easier to talk about ideals than actually do something in practice. I would ideally want to be open with it from the very beginning, but that will be a long discussion with any SO I have at the time.

[Rogina B]

There is no correct answer as well as you have not said how much,often,and to what extent your dressing plan is.Holloween is coming up and you may be able to dress then and get a better feel for it all.Not sure of your kid's ages and sex which matters a great deal. We are very lucky with just a 7 yr old daughter.She is good with there being 2 1/2 girls and a !/2 boy in her family.But,what works probably won't elsewhere.Good luck,it is difficult to carve out girl time at home.

[Kimberly Marie Kelly]

They were both in the early 20's, at first I told them that I was a crossdresser and they both told me they knew for 15 years. You think you hide it well but you don't, they know. Later I told them I was transsexual and transitioning. Both my kids have accepted me and still love me dearly, so personally I think its worth the effort to tell them. Why live a lie or be someone your not.. Kimberly Marie Kelly :battingeyelashes:

[Jamie001]

We need to stop being ashamed of CDing. We are not doing anything that is illegal or wrong. We need to conquer the stigma that we create in our own minds.

[SherylynJade]

my fiancee and I have talked it over many times, and for us, we're going to let the kids know early on, espcially since I do plan on going full time in the near future.
Does that work for every family? No, but that's how it will be for ours.
:hugs:

[linnea]

I think that Katie B has given very good advice. I JUST told my grown children. They never knew because I kept the secret from everyone because (KB's first point) I was worried about being outed. In a lot of ways it was a "crap solution" just as she has said.
Now, however, my children are grown, married, and have families of their own. I was tired of the secrets and lies, I did not want them to find my stash after I died and have all kinds of questions, and MOST IMPORTANT I want to share this part of my life with them in a positive way.
I am glad that I've told them and grateful that they have been wonderfully accepting and supportive.




This has been discussed before on this site and if you search you'll find more answers than you probably want. Here's mine, for what it's worth.

First - do you worry about being outed? If you do, keep the kids in ignorance for their entire lives. This sounds like a crap solution to my mind (secrets and lies, secrets and lies), but it's a truth.


If you're not worried about being outed, there are two possible times:

Either you never actually tell them, you just dress when they're around and they'll get used to the fact that it's normal from a very early age. (And it is normal, isn't it?) In the interests of protecting them from school bullies, you might tell them that it's a family thing and you don't talk to strangers about it.
Or you wait till after they've got over their puberty - the period when it's so hard for them to talk about sexual issues, and anything concerning their parents' private lives scores high on the yuk factor. It's not fair to load them with this extra info at that time, so wait till they're over 18.
(But they'll probably say: "Huh? I knew that already!" in any case.)

[AmandaM]

Never will. But, the clothes on my side of the closet may be a clue since I don't hide my clothes.

[Olivia]

I told mine when both were in their mid-20s. The honesty felt great and both are supportive and accepting. I feel blessed.

[Angelofsomekind]

Angelofsomekind, i believe you have the most understanding SO :

Yes I do! She kicks ass!

[Rebecca Jayne]

If you are going to go 24/7/365 definately Tell Them, help them understand, deal with it, they have to live with it also


If you are cross dressing when they aren't around, simple
"don't ask, don't tell" a child innocence has a short lifespan, why extinguish it.

There was a man from Karesh
Everyday he wore a pretty dress
His children exclaimed
We love you the same
You should of told us, our life is a mess

[Carroll]

I have a 10y boy and a 7y girl and they have grown up (at least for the past 5 years) with me dressing every now and then. Niether one has ever told anybody that I know of, and they dont even bat an eye when they have seen a crossdresser. They may ask if thats a man, and if I am sure, I'll say yes and they just say cool and go about with what ever they were doing

[Olivia]

I have a 10y boy and a 7y girl and they have grown up (at least for the past 5 years) with me dressing every now and then. Niether one has ever told anybody that I know of, and they dont even bat an eye when they have seen a crossdresser. They may ask if thats a man, and if I am sure, I'll say yes and they just say cool and go about with what ever they were doing

Cool kids Carroll! :)
Olivia

[TSchapes]

I was not going to tell my son until he was at least 18, but then he walked in on me while I was dressed. It was a good thing though, this is how we found out he is gay. Sometimes honesty pays off.

-Tracy

[Jayne Wordan]

There is no correct answer as well as you have not said how much,often,and to what extent your dressing plan is.Holloween is coming up and you may be able to dress then and get a better feel for it all.Not sure of your kid's ages and sex which matters a great deal. We are very lucky with just a 7 yr old daughter.She is good with there being 2 1/2 girls and a !/2 boy in her family.But,what works probably won't elsewhere.Good luck,it is difficult to carve out girl time at home.

at the minute i only dress either when my makes time for her and the children who are girl 8 and boy 4 (by the way) to go see family in another city so i can spend whole weekends doing what ever i like. Problem i have now is that i feel that this is something i NEED to do not WANT. Halloween will hopefully be my 1st time out as im going with a friend of my SO who said she wouldnt mind taking me. As for my need, i think lots more to talk about with my SO.

Again thank you everyone for your advise. You girls are great and i feel better for knowing your opinions :daydreaming::)

[Sally2005]

Kids don't care about your CDing, that's the issue. They may openly talk about it with friends who tell their parents who tell their kids it is wrong or who tell them not to be friends... it's not about feeling shame or guilt, it is about protecting our children from society long enough for them to be able to respond effectively. So, I don't lie to my child, I just provide some specific situations where they can see it as a fun activity and learn a little about 'dad' and at the same time it gives them an excuse to tell their friends if one of them happens to say something negative. When they are older you won't have to tell them because they will already know...given you do it on every halloween and sometimes before to 'prepare'... ;-)

[occdresser]

Never. Do it in private. Absolutely NO point in burdening the children.

I agree!!