The most popular children's books - at least for children as young as E - seem to fall into two categories:
There are stories about the details of daily life: going to bed, pets, families, trips to the park. And the stories where animals take the starring role.
Most books in both catergories feature families with a mummy and a daddy. Whether human, bear or anaconda, hetreosexism rules.
To be fair, that's not really true. More and more books about different kinds of families are appearing all the time. And there are alternative families aplenty once you start looking: Meg, Mog and Owl are hardly the typical nuclear family and there are few more 'confirmed bachelors' than Frog and Toad.
And anyway, who would want to discount wonderful books like 'Peace at Last' or 'Peepo' simply based on the gender mix of the parents?
Yet, wanting some books on our shelves that reflect E's family life with two mummies, we bought Spacegirl Pukes. And that's when our problems began.
'Spacegirl Pukes' started to reflect family life a bit too closely. Let me explain, Spacegirl is story of girl with two mummies, one gets sick, then the other, then the cat. She even succeeds in infecting the ground crew, before successfully being launched into space.
E seemed to take on board the identification with spacegirl with gusto. A few weeks ago she got sick, then I got sick, then R started to feel queasy...
A pause, before it spread to uncle, grandad and finally granny - who had to miss her own wedding anniversary meal as a result.
This is how life is with babies. I know I can't really blame the book. But next on my list of recommended titles from Out for our Children is billed as a "funny story in the family life of one-year-old Emma, her Mama and Mommy, and her siblings".
It's called 'Mama Eat Ant, Yuck!'- and I'm just a little nervous at what might result after reading this one.
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