RICHMOND, Va. -- Some parents and teachers use coloring books to educate kids. Mark Loewen created a coloring book series that celebrates LGBTQ families and educates others about them.
"One day I was looking for coloring books and I wanted something positive," Loewen said. "Something that was about families. And there was nothing at all that had families like ours."
According to U.S. Census data, 66% of female same-sex couples and 44% of male same-sex couples live with children.
Fewer than half of kids younger than 18 are living in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage, so two moms and two dads can reference stepparents as well.
"The image of one mom, one dad, one son, one daughter, one cat, one dog is not at all the majority," Loewen said.
He came up with the idea for the coloring book after his daughter told him kids had questions about her living with two dads. He will be the first to tell you that a coloring book like this might not be for everyone.
"I think of two kinds of families that would want a coloring book of LGBTQ families. One, the families that have LGBTQ family members, because they can see themselves. And number two, the families that want their child to be exposed to families that are different to theirs," he said.
"It's awesome!” mother Chrissy Moseley said. “The moment she picked it up she was excited because she saw that she was like, 'Look mommy, there are two moms in here. There are two dads.'"
"Parents need to make their kids aware that love is love in any form it wants to be," Chrissy’s wife Brenda said.
Coloring outside the lines, in all colors of the rainbow, is Building Better Minds.
This story was first reported by Rob Cardwell at WTVR in Richmond, Virginia.
