when or if you should tell the children

[koolaidkid99]

I would like to have some input from all who may read.
My SO is MTF CD. It is a new revelation of sorts with us, we have been married 18 years, have a 3 and 5 year old.
I know telling them now and him CDing infront of them isn't a wise decision.
Should we tell them ever? Or just play it by ear?
Any thoughts?

[Sheila]

really it is up to you as parents as to when/if to tell the kids. A lot will depend on your partners desire/need/want for dress time and whether they intend going 24/7.

I have 3 kids and my partner (at the time) and I eventually told the 2 kids that lived at home with us, the youngest 11yr old was cool with it, my daughter 22 suspected already but did not want to meet Claire and we never ever got round to telling my eldest son 23 yr old. so mixed reactions, but my daughter did do Claires laundry if it was in the basket :straightface:

[MJ]

how comfortable would you both be around the children while cross dressing .

how do two mummy's look after children or how about two men raising a child ? how do they do it .
IMHO it's just fear i don't think that your children would mind treat it as normal . and it will be

[Phoebe Reece]

My wife and I decided before our children were born that they would be raised with full knowledge of my crossdressing. We felt that it was important that we developed trust in the family so that the kids would not be inclined to keep secrets from my wife and I. In our case, that strategy worked. Our daughter is 32 and our son is 28. I have always been "Daddy" to them both regardless of how I have been dressed. We have an excellent and trusting relationship to this day.

[Butterfly Bill]

My experience in alternative social situations like Rainbow Gatherings and some intentional communities that I have been in is that if adults act like something is normal around children, the children will come to accept it as normal, even if it is not considered so by the mainstream. This can be any of many things, like nudity as well as crossdressing. If you try to hide it from them like it is something wrong, they will also start to think that it is wrong.

[DeeInGeorgia]

Sandra Stewart at The Gender Tree has some good data on telling children. You may want to go to her web page to review the survey results and crosstab.

Deanna

[sissystephanie]

I told my dear late wife about my CD activities before we were married. she accepted it, but we decided that we would not tell the children and that I would not openly dress in front of them. Undies were all right!!

She passed away a little over three years ago. Earlier this year I finally told my grown daughter, who is the oldest of my two. She had commented on something that I had worn, which was definitely feminine. I told her, yes it was feminine, and that I wore a lot of feminine things because I was a crossdresser. She naturally asked why and I told her because I liked the fit, feel, and look of feminine clothing a lot more than I liked male clothing. I also told her that her monther had known all our married life and didn't care. In fact, she always fixed my wig and did my makeup when we out together. My daughters only comment was, ' well, please don't get too girly around the family." I haven't told my son, and probably won't because of his wife!

Stephanie

Lady on the outside, but man underneath!

[Robertacd]

Quite frankly I think children should get to keep their innocence and it's seems selfish to make them have to deal with this issue just so I can indulge myself.

My son is now 15 and we still have not told him.

[secretlypsycho]

for now at least, they're 4 and 1 years old. Our main reason for this is that for us, CDing is a private thing, nobody we know outside of the two of us knows about it. And it is not fair to place the burden of keeping a secret on our children. And so for now, it isn't anyting they need to know about - anymore than they need to know the details of our sex life or any other personal things.

As they get older, who knows. We'll take it as it comes, nothing is set in stone. And hopefully, we'll do a good enough job of raising them to be open-minded and accepting of others, that should we decide they do need to be told, they'll be okay with it.

[Ze xx]

My reservations for now of telling our nearly 6 daughter is that she has a big gob! She would think nothing of telling her entire school. She is of an age where she would probably accept it without too many questions, but she would assume that everyone else would accept it too.

Whether or not she gets told when she's older will I suppose depend on whether it impinges on her life. If he continues to just dress in private, then I don't really see why she needs to know, but then I don't want her finding out by accident either, so I don't know, we'll play it by ear.

[Genifer Teal]

I am not in your situation. From an outside perspective, I see it differently. When do kids know enough to understand all daddy's don't do this?

From the very beginninng kids only know what you tell them. At some point society teaches them more than you can keep up with. You have a few years before they learn what sex and gender are - hopefully a lot longer for them to learn what sex is. lol I think if you act a certain way from the beginning, that is all they will know. They can only accept how you dress as the way things are "supposed to be" until society teaches them otherwise.

If I had kids, they would know about my dressing from the very beginning. Then I would have to decide when they are old enough to explain it to them. That would wait until they learn boys don't usually dress that way. Maybe they would question it on their own. Kind of like how you know when to have the birds and bees talk. And then, just let your wife handle it! :eek:

Gen