An Answer for Snoop Dogg

Rapper Snoop Dogg has drawn widespread criticism for his recent response to a grandson's questions about same-sex parents in a movie. His phrasing was insulting, but he also seemed simply frustrated that he didn't have an answer. I'm here to help, Snoop.

Snoop's comments came during an interview August 20 on the "It's Giving" podcast, when he spoke about watching the Disney film "Lightyear" with one of his grandsons. The protagonist's boss and best friend is a woman astronaut who is later shown to have a wife and kids.

During the film, Snoop related, his grandson asked him, "How she have a baby with a woman? She's a woman!" The boy kept questioning while the movie played, and Snoop tried to hush him. Snoop complained to the podcast, "I didn't come in for this shit. I just came to watch the goddamn movie.... I'm scared to go to the movies now. Y'all throwing me in the middle of shit that I don't have an answer for."

He continued. "These are kids. That we have to show that at this age ... like, they're going to ask questions. I don't have the answer."

Podcast host Sarah Fontenot also said she wouldn't know what to say in that situation, and when she (or her team) posted a clip of the segment to YouTube, it was provocatively titled, "Disney exposing kids too soon?"

Let me be very clear: Saying that there's some age when kids are too young to know about same-sex parents is the same as saying that kids shouldn't be raised by same-sex parents.

Furthermore, this isn't just about helping kids understand what they may see on screen, but about equipping them for life in the world today. There are 5 million children under 18 being raised by 2.6 million LGBTQ+ parents in the United States, in every region of the country, per UCLA's Williams Institute. Millions of adults have been raised by them. Teaching children about LGBTQ+ families and family diversity more broadly is something every parent and guardian should do.

I'm sympathetic to Snoop's feeling of annoyance, though, when a kid asks a question about something that we adults don't have experience with or an answer for. I therefore want to educate, not just castigate. My advice to Snoop is to tell his grandson essentially what I told my own son. "Sometimes a woman falls in love with another woman or a man with another man, just like a man and a woman can fall in love," I would say. "And there are different ways they can have kids together."

That might be enough to satisfy a child's first inquiry. If they wanted to know more, I'd elaborate with something like, "It takes three things to make a baby: a sperm, an egg, and a womb. Sometimes a couple has all of those things, but sometimes, a couple or single person needs to find a special person called a donor, who gives them an egg or sperm, or someone called a surrogate, who offers to carry the baby for them in their womb. They can also adopt a child who needs a home."

Additional conversations can add nuance and details—this shouldn't be a one-shot info-dump, but rather the start of a series of discussions as a child grows.

There are also a number of picture books that can help adults and children have these conversations. I'd start with ones about the many types of family structures, such as "Families," by Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly (Holiday House), "Love Makes a Family," by Sophie Beer (Dial), and "Love Without Bounds: An IntersectionAllies Book about Families," by Carolyn Choi, Chelsea Johnson, and LaToya Council, illustrated by Ashley Seil Smith (Dottir Press).

For explaining biological creation in ways inclusive of all identities, I particularly like "What Makes a Baby," by Cory Silverberg, illustrated by Fiona Smyth (Triangle Square), and "You Began as a Wish," by Kim Bergman, illustrated by Irit Pollak. (Visit my Database of LGBTQ+ Family Books at mombian.com for even more titles that cover all kinds of family creation.)

Parenting and grandparenting are hard. Sometimes we need to talk about things we're not prepared to, or that make us uncomfortable. We owe it to the children to educate ourselves, however, and to have those conversations.

Snoop himself seems to have apologized and expressed a willingness to learn. When transgender actor and television personality Ts Madison chastised him on Hollywood Unlocked for his initial remarks, Snoop left a comment on the show's Instagram account, saying that he was "just caught off guard" and that "all my gay friends no [sic] what's up they been calling me with love ... my bad for not knowing the answers for a 6 yr old ... teach me how to learn I'm not perfect." (Deadline later reported that although the comment came from the rapper's verified account, "a source close to Snoop Dogg" said it was fake; I have no further information either way, although I have confirmed that the comment is still there as of this writing, despite Deadline saying that it had been deleted.)

Regardless of that comment, however, I'll quote Snoop's words from a 2019 interview with Fader magazine several years ago: "You can teach an old dog new tricks if that old dog listen." Snoop, I hope you're listening.

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian (mombian.com), a two-time GLAAD Media Award-winning blog for LGBTQ+ parents plus a searchable database of 1,800+ LGBTQ+ family books.