Ugh! I have tried intervening in those threads before and learned that I should stay away. (I do tend to get sucked in by2 or 3 a year, but, I try to limit it to that.)
DD doesn't know what "gay" is. She knows her God Father has boy friends and she has 2 moms and her other friends have a single mom, and some have moms and dads etc. Her response. "They've know known me since 2nd grade and E since Kindergarten. What's their problem?"
Yeah, most kids I know have quite a broad acceptance of what their friends' families look like. But, I find that as they become teens some component of their desire to fit in socially makes them ignore the acceptance they've already integrated.
Some people just don't think through their statements and they don't realize the harm they're doing. The gay-straight alliance around me has been running a "that's so chair" campaign to try to make people aware of how ridiculous "that's so gay" sounds. One of my colleagues was talking about it and said, "well, now we just say 'chair' whenever something is 'gay'". When I reacted to that and tried to explain that the point was that it isn't okay to equate something you don't like with a whole group of people, he looked at me like I had gone off the deep end. This is a man who knows that I'm married to a woman and doesn't seem to have any overt homophobic tendencies, but, he just couldn't understand why it was harmful. He couldn't think it through.
DP volunteers in the kids classrooms 3 times a week and practically lives there doing other volunteer stuff the rest of the week. The kids love her. So it's the hear say they're getting from their parents and older siblings.
I've discovered in the last few years that many kids don't make any connections between the people they know and the things they hear. I have had several kids (ages 8-12) rather suddenly realize, "hey, you're married to a woman...oh!" It's a bit amusing to watch their eyes as they put things together. These are kids who also know my DW and who know MANY same-sex couples, but, somehow the connections just didn't get through before. (One 10 year old last year actually followed up her comments of awareness by saying, "I went to your wedding!" It was humourous.)
You know, I would try to post. But I lack the "diplomacy" gene. ...
DS will come home with a renewed sense of the importance of being who you are,
Oh yeah, being diplomatic is hard!
I'm very glad, for his sake, that your DS gets so much positive reinforcement about being himself.
Let me have a go at em'! Where is it?
Alright, go Jen!
I asked my daughter tonight how she feels about gay people. (She is 9 and in our small town there aren't that many, but one of her friends has two mom's). She said "What do you mean how do I feel about them? They're people mom, I can only tell you about a person if I know them personally...that's like saying "how do you feel about blondes" It's not right to judge people like that, how about by who they are on the inside?."
Great kid!!!
We all love Rosie!
We do? I think we should take a vote!
We do?
Oh dear, I thought we were supposed to be an accepting, loving group?