homophobia begins at home
Private schoolshave 2 weeks of vacation
in a row!
After preparing for a week
it seems to take a week for the kids to settle in
they miss their routine
their friends
one week of play
and then another to
orient them back
to the world.....
Our world came with a bit of a bummer moment this week
1st day back from break
my son
in his crunchy private school
was exposed to big batch of home grown homophobia
really the worst kind - or maybe the only kind
a girl in his class, a friend actually
told Zion that two moms can't actually have a child
so that means that "his family tree is broken"
and that "we broke it!"
she went on in her monologue to tell him why having a dad is better than 2 moms
"dads play sports with you and let you play with toy guns!"
Ahh where to begin
Here is what we did NOT say
- Dykes love sports and we can kick your dads ass at any sport any time anywhere
- Idiots play with guns and even bigger idiots lets their kids play with them
- Zion is adopted - a straight family could not handle having a baby and chose us to raise him - guess their tree is broken honey - we had the power to make a tree with ovaries only -now that's power!
Jessie, my wife did call her parents with the hope of offering some language to help their daughter understand. Jessie did not blame. She actually said that their child was not bulling and that she just wanted to be helpful.
Dad - our daughter has never known anyone like this and "alternative lifestyles" are new to HER. And she "did not learn this at home"
Jessie spoke to the mom at drop off today - Mom was frozen and clearly not understanding why we were still discussing it. In a panic to end talking to the lesbian she stated repeatedly "we will talk to her"
Luckily for us the school rocks and today the teacher will read Tango and few other books that might help.
The teachers will begin to educate the child whose parents raised her and trained her and taught her to limit, judge and look down upon others
we have our work cut out for us people
lets get out there and fight
love, S & J
Labels: homophobia at school, homophobic parents
posted by Stacey @ 7:16 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Stacey and Jessie,
I am so sad to hear of this incident.
It breaks my heart to think of Zion hearing those words. He is such a great kid! I am glad that he and Ben have become friends.
Our family is very happy that yours is at our "crunchy" school.
Monique
How do we prepare our kids? From a very young age,they can absorb a safe context for later processing ignorance and bigotry. Good stories and books can help them know such things exist before they have to face them. And convey confidence and empowerment.
When our daughter was about 10, she heard about a local custody case. One mom died, her parents gained custody and the other mom was fighting to keep her child. Our daughter turned to me, her birth mom, and asked, "You mean Mommie M isn't really my Mom?" In an instant, her world-view was shaken. Who was her family? Had her moms lied? Our answer: Mommy M always has been and always will be your Mom, just like Mommy L. Some people don't understand about all the ways people can good have families. Remember that book about the girl with two daddies and their angry neighbor? And that student-teacher in your first grade? This judge is like that. He doesn't know any better and he is wrong. It is not fair and we are working with other people (to make things better.) Do you want to help?
Our words didn't take away the shock and pain. But I think it helped all three of us.
Lin
No one likes their kid to be told that their family is wrong but honestly, it seems like it was an uneducated statement that could have been quickly cleared up by simply saying "no - there are different types of families, so there are different types of family trees."
And I suspect that the attitude that the tree was broken in fact did not come from the parents directly - probably they never talked about families different than theirs. Maybe they should have but sometimes we don't remember to explicitly explain our beliefs to our children.
And probably that mom was not horrified by being caught talking to a lesbian but was genuinely confused why the conversation needed to keep going after the phone call.
It's the statement that you make about how the great school is going to teach this child because her parents are teaching her to be homophobic and judgemental. That statement is loaded and judgemental in and of itself and does little to keep a dialogue open.
Dear Anon:
CLEARLY you are not aware of ALL that occured, nor what it is like to face oppression. The judements in your nameless e-mail speak volumes. This issue was MANY months ago and the four adults involved, I believe, have moved on. If you feel the need to discuss the matter in detail, feel free to e-mail me directly.
Stacey
CLEARLY I'm only aware of what you chose to write in the blog, so I'm commenting on that. You've presented your side in a blog, I assume, because you invite comments - otherwise I'm not entirely sure of your decision to blog.
I also assume that since you've left the blog entry up and running, you assume that people discover your blog at different times, and would, logically, comment on them as they read them for the first time.
As for your patronizing attitude that I'm some lily-white straight, wealthy person who's never known what REAL oppression is like - as clearly only you can know - you have no idea what my life looks like. People who've faced oppression or discrimination don't all agree.
It's interesting to me that you don't recognize your judgemental attitude in this blog entry and yet accuse others of being judgemental as if you aren't also. THat's just silly to pretend only others are judgemental - we all are and part of what makes this whole world work is acknowledging the ones that we have.
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