In search for inclusive egaliterian children’s books for my daughter’s first Passover

cross-posted from sotah.net

Books enter the lives of children from infancy, often first in the form of “board books.” Their hard, shiny pages are impossible to rip and make a delicious chew toy in the early years.  Recently, my daughter received a few Passover board books.  In the Passover books, the father prayed and the mother baked; all the couples consisted of a man and a woman; all the people were able bodied.  Infancy and early toddlerhood is when children gain a sense of the normative.  In presenting tradition gender roles and tradition families structures, these books are not mirroring the narrative of normatively I aspire to teach Z.

Jokingly, my partner and I discussed if these books were “appropriate” for Z, despite their content.  Searching the internet, I found a contest soliciting submissions for inclusive Jewish children’s books; because, as my search revealed, such books are practically non-existent.  I am not speaking of books with explicitly feminist or queer content (these exist for older children), but simple Shabbat books and Passover books where the world depicted is one that reflects my reality and my values – where mothers say Kiddush over the wine and LGBTQ characters simply exist.

Do books like these exist for young children in general? In the Jewish world?

What explains this lack?  Is there a discomfort with introducing these concepts to very young children,   almost as if our values are “too complicated” for children to grasp – too gray, too pluralist?  Let our children think that gender roles are binary, that people are straight, and when they are ready we will tell them otherwise.

The eventual telling is not good enough.  I want for Z to have the opportunity to absorb my values through osmosis as she learns about the world.  This is an apple, this is a ball and this is a family. This is the normative world.  Teaching that other good people disagree on what is normative (and what is good) – this is the nuance and it can wait until she is ready.