Highlights Magazine — the waiting room publication of our childhood — recently stepped into an inclusive shitstorm with its non-committal response to one mother’s question of when we can expect to see the representation of same-sex couples.

On October 14th, Highlights subscriber Kristina Wertz posted on the Highlights for Children Facebook page suggesting the publication consider adding same-sex couples to its line of magazines.

My partner emailed you about the lack representation of LGBT families in Hello magazine last month and we have not received a response. Our one year old daughter loves Highlights! She carries her magazines all over the house and we read them countless times a day. One of the reasons we appreciate Hello is the diversity represented – families of all races, interracial families, and grandparents. We are consistently disappointed, however, in the complete lack of same-sex parents in Hello magazine. I think a lot about the things that create culture – the subtle and not so subtle messages that our kids get about how the world works. Since becoming a parent, I feel keenly aware of the messages kids’ books send to tiny minds. There is a deep need for books that positively reflect back the diversity of the world around us and I hope that Highlights embraces that diversity because we would love to keep it in our little one’s life as she grows.

Highlights quickly responded with this non-answer.

Hi Kristina, thanks for your message!

We understand your wish to see your family’s situation represented in Highlights Hello. For much of our readership, the topic of same-sex families is still new, and parents are still learning how to approach the subject with their children, even the very little ones. We believe that parents know best when their family is ready to open conversation around the topic of same-sex families.

Please be assured that it is very important to us that every child see his or her “face” in the pages of our magazines at some point—that every child feels that Highlights is truly for them. We will continue to think deeply about inclusion —specifically, how to address it in developmentally appropriate ways for our broad audience. Your note is a good reminder of how important it is.

Best,

The Editors

The #sorrynotsorry response drew understandable criticism from the LGBTQ community, its allies, and reasonable people everywhere. Many took issue with the idea that their family is any sort of “situation” while others pointed out the placating but ultimately inactive wording of the comment.

Highlights, realizing this sort of apathy was not going to fly in 2016, issued an official response on October 17th:

In the last several days, Highlights for Children has received many comments and questions about representing LGBTQ families in our magazines. In our initial response, our words weren’t reflective of our values, intentions or our position, and we apologize. We want to assure you that we have read every message and are listening carefully.

For those of you who know us—who read Highlights magazine as a child or have given it to a child—you know we have a long history of promoting inclusion and sensitivity. How to do this better and in a way that resonates with today’s kids is an ongoing dialogue in our editorial meetings—and has been for 70 years. Our mission never changes: To help kids become their best selves—curious, creative, confident, and caring. But we are constantly evolving. It may seem to some that we are evolving too slowly.

We want to reiterate that we believe all families matter. We know that there are many ways to build a family, and that love is the essential “ingredient.” This conversation has helped us see that we can be more reflective of all kinds of families in our publications. We are committed to doing so as we plan future issues.

As difficult as these past few days have been, we are always grateful for reader feedback.

On November 8, they issued a follow-up statement.

More information on Highlights commitment to diversity:

Our mission at Highlights is to help children become their best selves. We seek only to create the best possible content for children.

Some of you have questions about what we mean when we say we are committed to being reflective of all kinds of families in our publications. First and foremost, Highlights publications focus on kids. We are general interest magazines, and we publish fiction and nonfiction of all types, as well as games, puzzles, jokes, and crafts. Our target audience is kids under the age of 12; most of them are under the age of 8 or 9. The themes we cover in our magazines are broad and universal—relatable to children trying to navigate childhood. We do not discuss relationships between adults. The majority of our stories and illustrations focus solely on kids, in order to ensure that they can best relate to the content and characters. Our content focuses on the experience that children have in their world rather than on the relationships among the adults around them. This has been our editorial structure for more than 70 years, and we have no plans to change it.

When we represent families (or any character) in the magazines, we make it a point to include diversity. We strive to be diverse in every way; the goal is not to specifically call attention to diversity but to represent it within the context of the magazine the way we always have to help kids understand that while differences exist, we are all actually more alike than different. Whether incorporating families headed up by a grandparent or single parent, or including adoptive families, blended families, same-sex families, multi-generational families, and multi-racial families, our depiction of families is in support of our mission to help children become their best selves and understand that all families, including theirs, are important.

We hope this helps to answer your questions and that you continue to trust us to enrich children’s lives with our publications.

While many would celebrate this as a win for society, the right wing lost its ever-loving mind.

One Million Moms (a division of the hate group, American Family Association) issued a statement warning all good, pearl-clutching families that Highlights had caved to “pressure from homosexual activists.”

While Highlights has not explicitly said they are going to include gay sex scenes between Goofus and Gallant or hide strap-ons in the Hidden Pictures page, these million moms are really just doing a service to all the unsuspecting parents and grandparents who might buy the magazine for their families for Christmas.

Where is the last place parents would suspect their kiddos to be exposed to same-sex “families” portrayed as normal? In the current controversy, Highlights magazine decided to include same-sex families in their magazines. Babies and preschoolers will soon be introduced to this sensitive topic in the Highlights line of magazines. Parents are seeing more examples of children being indoctrinated to same-sex families as normal, especially in the media.

Right-wing “news” site, Life Site, took the topic further in an article dripping with disdain for the entire concept of same-sex families.

One homosexual’s complaint to Highlights for Children will result in the inclusion of same-sex families in its magazines with an audience as young as pre-toddlers.

Life Site’s write-up included frequent use of what I like to call “invalidation quotations,” or “written air quotes” around every term that might be seen as in any way acknowledging the existence of same-sex couples.

Note that Highlights did not say they were going to start writing stories called, “My big gay happy family” or “Why does Jimmy have two daddies?” They simply said they would include same-sex parents the same as they include any other family dynamic.

Since Highlights barely includes parents in the first place, it should be a non-issue to the cis, white family, but is a subtle nod to the kids who just want to see their family represented in waiting rooms across America.