What do we want our children to know about our sexual orientation? About its origins. About the question of choice. About the path that led us to where we are today. These are questions worth thinking about — and once we're clear about our answers, we must decide when and how to engage the kids in a proper conversation.

I've been thinking about all this since seeing Hollywood's latest nod to homosexuality, "The Kids Are All Right", starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple raising children. With stellar reviews from all corners, the film is already a critical success. But it left me troubled about its message — to our kids, as well as to countless others — about the nature of lesbianism. (For those who haven't yet seen the movie, I'm about to reveal a major plot point.)

In particular, what will our teens and young adult children (the film is rated R) make of the fact that two lesbians in a long-term relationship watch gay male pornography during their love-making? What will they make of the fact that one of those lesbians enters into an affair — including some very frisky sex — with a man? Throughout the world, homophobes and deniers of homosexuality still maintain that gay men and lesbians "haven't met the right person yet." It's a refrain many of us heard when we mustered the courage to come out to our families and were urged to keep "playing the field" until we find that special chemistry with the "right" opposite sex person. I worry that the film perpetuates — to the uninformed — an unrealistic view of lesbianism (and, by extension, gay male homosexuality) as a lifestyle choice, a transient "preference" as accidental as a flip of a coin.

Too often, the images youth encounter in film and media don't represent who we are, or convey what we want our kids to know — about us, and about our view of sexual orientation in general. If your children, whatever their age, have or will be seeing "The Kids Are All Right", consider the "teachable moment" that presents itself: time to chat together about the many engaging themes of the film, including what sexual orientation represents for you.

Summer. For many families, it's a time of travel — a road trip to a favorite beach spot, a flight to destinations far and wide. To protect yourself and the children, don't forget to pack the essentials: sunscreen, band-aids, your Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare.

Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare?

It's what Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond failed to bring along in February 2007, when their Caribbean cruise was hijacked by the brain aneurysm that Pond suffered moments before the ship leaved port. In a Miami hospital minutes later, Langbehn and their three children were refused access to Lisa's bedside. "You're in an anti-gay city and state," Langbehn reported being told by a hospital social worker after pressing to go to her dying partner's side. Without a Durable Power of Attorney, she had no way of legally challenging the staff.

The magnitude of this injustice didn't escape the White House's notice. On April 15, 2010 — three years later — President Obama telephoned the Langbehn-Pond family to say, "I'm sorry," and inform them of a memo he had signed directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to take action to redress inequities in hospital visitation.

"There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital," the President's directive states. "In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean — a loved one to be there for us ...

... uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives ..."

For families who have already suffered the experience endured by Langbehn and her children, a presidential directive might seem a meager afterthought to tragedies that cannot be undone. For countless other lesbian and gay parents and their kids, the President's initiative is surely a hopeful sign.

In the meantime, before enlightened practices become widely embraced, and before the protective umbrella of legal marriage shelters lesbian and gay partners and their children, we should not leave home without it: the Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare*.

Bon voyage this summer — and be safe.

(*Learn more about creating a Durable Power of Attorney at http://www.hrc.org/issues/2725.htm.)

Move over Hallmark. Mother's Day is coming, and for millions of school-age children, it's not about the store-bought greeting card. It's about the arts and crafts project fashioned with felt or clay or yarn under their teacher's watchful eye — a gift they'll be presenting to mom as part of our nation's annual ritual.

It often begins like this:

"We're going to make something today that you can bring home to your mother for Mother's Day," says the well-intentioned teacher. And minutes later, the classroom is abuzz with youngsters smearing Elmer's Glue on construction paper and shirtsleeves.

But what about the child — like so many of ours — with two mothers at home, where one gift may not suffice? Or the child with one (or two) dads and no mother in her life? How do these kids relate to the task?

It's easy for our children to feel separate and apart — a kind of invisibility — in moments like this, deviants in the social world to which they are highly attuned.

Our son was seven or eight when he came home from school years ago with his Mother's Day project in a brown paper bag. Somehow, he sneaked it into his bedroom and set in on the floor in the corner, where it remained for days until we discovered it and asked a few questions.

"Something I made at school," he said, turning his eyes away.

When we pressed for more, he shrugged and indicated that it was some "dumb" Mother's Day project. His face told of sadness and a kind of regret: it was a waste of my time.

Whether his quiet emotions reflected some core pain at the absence of a mother in his life, or the alienation he felt participating in an activity he saw as irrelevant, we didn't know. We complimented him on the nice job he did and asked if we could make the item ours. He offered a nod.

The Mother's Day ritual — "We're going to make gifts for you to bring home to your mothers" — remains one of many ways old assumptions about family life fail to reflect contemporary realities. Lesbian and gay parenting is not typically on teachers' radar, and so it falls to us to help our children's teachers expand their awareness.

We learned our lesson after our son's first Mother's Day setback, and made a point each year of sending a note to his teacher, something like this: "With Mother's Day approaching, we'd like to make a suggestion so that our son won't feel left out if you have the children make cards or gifts to bring home. Perhaps you can broaden the instruction and let the kids make something for both moms (if there are two) or dads (if there's no mother) or even a grandparent. Let's make it a day for expressing appreciation to whomever it is that gives our children special love and care."

It's part of the challenge of lesbian and gay parenting — doing what we can to make the world a safe and supportive place for the kids we love.