Dear Roger: Monkey is Questioning

Its been a month of constant questions around here. The company I work for is unpredictable and thus the situation with my job is constantly up in the air, and being that this company employs a practice of evicting former employees within 24 hours, my living situation is up in the air as well. I'm working on changing all of that. I've redone my resume and I have been actively seeking other employment, some in the same line of work, some outside of it. My boss knows im looking and why. I never just sit back and rely on anything so I just like to have a fall back plan.
I've been enjoying my life even with all the upheaval. I've gone out with my friends and they are over quite a bit to visit, and we dog sit for them to keep their new puppy from being stuck at home alone all day long. Its not only good for the puppy, its good for Benny, as he has a couple of playmates to keep him occupied during the day. He's a very social little dog and hes made a few friends around the complex both human and dog, with his favorites being a Jack Russell named,"Jay" oddly enough, and a Cockapoo named "Milo". He would get to play with them more but he tends to try to hump everything and steal their toys. I've decided that Ill probably have him neutered this next month to cut down on the random humping of everything and everyone, even though the thought of him being cut on makes my stomach flip over because I do love him so very much.
My daughter has been quite a source of gray hairs this month. She has developed a bit of a crush on my friends and while she understands they are a gay couple, it doesn't change they fact they are quite cute and she is quite smitten. Shes only 8, so its one of those sweet little crushes where she writes their names with little hearts and butterflies around them and rainbows all around, she does everything she can to stall and stay up late so she can hang out with them and visit and she just so happens to leave her homework out so her favorite can check it over and just so happen to find a mistake she will need to correct with his help! Considering she has always gotten perfect scores on her homework previously, I suspect she has developed this as a tactic to just spend time around him. They kindly indulge her and she will be accompanying us to the opening of the gallery exhibit of Kelly Rathbones show here in Portland, and that has her over the moon excited! I think she has gone through her entire closet 100 times trying to decide what she is going to wear, she has nagged me about getting her hair done and she even wants me to go shopping and buy myself some,"Decent, fancy clothes" because she wants me to look less,"Embarrassing" , so I guess I will be buying some new clothes for the first time in a while.
She has been asking me a LOT of questions lately, questions like,"If I grow up to be..." questions and for the most part they have been okay, but after the boys left the other night she was sitting on the couch next to me and she looked at me and said,"If I grow up to be a lesbian, will you still love me?"
I didn't even pause, I reached over and grabbed her into a hug, and said back to her,"I will love you no matter who you love, as long as you are happy it makes me happy and that's fine with me." I asked her why she felt she had to ask that when she knew my closest friends were a couple of gay men and I am very actively involved in gay rights, and she said,"Well, some people freak out when its their own kid, iv'e seen that on tv, and I worried, what if Cole or Chance is gay?" I looked at her and said,"Aren't you worried about Conner too?" She scrunched up her face and said," Eww, NO! Hes always talking about girls and stuff, so its pretty clear hes not into boys, but Chance is soo prissy at times and Cole is just weird and he doesn't talk about girls at all yet, so I wondered?" Again I said to her, "Love is love is love and as long as its between two consenting adults, its none of my business and I support peoples rights to be happy and love who they want to love. If you are fortunate enough to find someone to love who loves you equally as much, I will support you and love them too and that goes for everyone."
She has asked me a lot of questions lately that haven't been as easy to answer and they have even provoked some arguments with her brother, mostly about schooling and career choices,(things I am much less liberal about), and since her brother just dropped out of high school to attend a training program for computer programming, I am already stressed out about the rest of my kids and the example set.
She has asked me,"Would you love me if I didn't go to college?" The answer was of course, Yes, but then it was followed up with questions of why wouldn't she go to college? (Art school which I explained is actually college), or going into acting which Ill admit I did go a little ballistic over. I don't want her getting into that mess. Its fun and cute for her to do her little entertaining videos while she is a child, but, its a sure path to destruction. I've just seen too much ugliness and destruction and pain come of it and I don't want her to see it as a viable choice. I surround her with people who do not drink or smoke or do drugs and we live healthy and responsible lifestyles and I hope by showing her that, she will find a path that will lead her to law school or medicine or even the sciences, but she argued with me pretty hard saying that she knows drinking and all that other stuff is bad and shes smart enough to avoid it but that she wants to do something,"Fun" for her career, she then followed up with the question, "What if I grew up to be a stripper, would you hate me then?" My eldest son about choked to death on his tea as I froze  and just looked at her, my beautiful, blonde haired, blue eyed, dimpled and angry at me for the moment , brilliant yet angry little girl and I said to her,"No, I would not hate you, that is because I would have failed you . I would hate ME. I would have gone so wrong as a mother and a role model that I hadn't given you any other tools to make it in this world, so I would hate ME for failing you, and it would probably break my heart enough to kill me."
She immediately lost the angry cast to her expression and ran over and hugged me. Yes, dirty pool going with the guilt, but any port in a storm will do.
Shes asked other questions, like "Who is the boy and who is the girl?" in regards to my friends,(thank GOD not to them when they where here), and I told her that it wasn't polite to ask and it was none of our business. "If so and so is gay and if they are, why don't they just say it?"  That one I told her is also none of her business and then we talked about bullying and how the world at large can be cruel and careers can be affected by such things though the world is changing and getting better and hopefully someday it wont even be an issue that people notice or discuss. She has asked about things like child support and poverty and why some fathers don't support their kids when others move heaven and hell to do the right thing,(my bosses husband is a great example of a man who works himself almost to death to support his kids), how insurance works, why people get piercings, gauges, tattoos and implants. When she can get a tattoo, a piercing,(she finds gauges to be gross), or when she will need a bra.
Im kept on my toes trying to keep up with her, and I want to make sure she gets the right information, but there are days when I am left wondering if having a gifted kid is a blessing or a curse?