I have learned in my parenting career that the fewer letters there are in a word, the more the potential of it being an extremely difficult concept to explain to your child. Some small words are deceptively simple. Small words with big, heavy baggages.
Mr. Monk used the word “gay” in the bad way the other day.
As soon as he said it, he knew he did something wrong. The air froze. The earth stood still. His brother sucked in his breath and for once, was speechless.
“It’s ok. Mommy’s not mad.” I reached for his hand and walked him upstairs to his room where I could talk to him quietly, without my 12-year-old chiming in whenever I took a breath as if he couldn’t wait to start parenting himself.
“I am sorry. I know I am not supposed to use this word, unless of course I am using it the right way.”
“What is the right way of using the word?”
“Being happy?”
I had to make a split decision at that moment to decide whether I should seize the opportunity to educate him or to prolong this “shielding”. I remembered this excerpt from NurtureShock:
How to raise racist kids?
Step One: Don’t talk about race. Don’t point out skin color. Be “color blind.”
Step Two: Actually, that’s it. There is no Step Two.
Congratulations! Your children are well on their way to believing that <insert your ethnicity here> is better than everybody else.
I decided to talk about what it means to be gay, to not make a big deal out of it, in the most basic manner, especially since we do see a lot of gay characters now on TV and in the movies, for which I am pleased.
We also just finished watching Modern Family in which a gay couple was portrayed just like any other suburban couple in a sitcom.
“You know there are people who are gay right?”
He nodded.
“Do you know what it means that they are gay?
“That they are happy?” Then he chuckled in a way that said he didn’t believe his answer and he was proud at his own wittiness.
“It means that… some people when they grow up, they realize that, well, … Ok. Instead for a man to have a girlfriend, he has a boyfriend.”
“Oh.”
“And there are women who instead of having boyfriends, you know, they are in love with their girlfriends.”
At this moment as I write, I realized that I didn’t use husbands and wives. Please allow me to explain my oversight as that because I was discusssing the matter of heart and love with him at that moment, I unconsciously used the term boyfriends and girlfriends because that’s what people get when they are in love. Boyfriends and girlfriends.
I crouched down and held onto his shoulders so I could look him in the eyes.
“Did you know that I have friends who are gay?”
He looked surprised.
“I have a friend, a boy, you know, a male friend, he is gay so he has a boyfriend.” I continued. “I also have a very good girlfriend and she and her girlfriend have been together for longer than 10 years!”
“Wow.” At this his eyes widened.
“Yup. I met saw them not too long ago. They look very happy together. Actually I think they get along much better than mommy and daddy. They don’t seem to fight a lot.”
A smile.
“It must be because they are girls!” A lightbulb lit up over his head.
Then he added, quieter now, while looking down at his own feet, “Or, because they don’t have kids?”
Oy, gevalt!
You write so honlstey about this. Thanks for sharing!
SubWOW and Naptime, you get those secret dirty-realities-of-marriage blogs going, and I’m there. Not that our spouses aren’t great, but it would be nice sometimes to know that everyone else is going through the same stuff, and recognize it as an inevitable part of relationships.
SubWOW, I have so much respect for the way you handled this. I wish more parents could do the same. And thanks for mentioning Nurture Shock…I’ve been meaning to read it, so this is a nice kick in the pants.
.-= Falling´s last blog…Possibly the First Time Brangelina Has Been Mentioned in a Treatise on Grief and Loss =-.
Wonderfully handled and written. I was ready to applaud when you decided to move forward and make this a “teachable moment,” and that it was well-received from Mr Monk.
Thanks for stopping over- I look forward to reading more of your posts. 🙂
Love how you handled this. (but I would say my closest friends who are gay used to fight ALL THE TIME) I think it has something to do with being on the same hormonal schedule, that or they have been together for thirteen years, but they are settling in nicely now, thank gawd!
.-= A Vapid Blonde´s last blog…Mongolian Death Worms and Shankings =-.
awesome parenting. And so true, our children learn from us by example. Bravo to you for not avoiding or ignoring a great teaching moment. And his final comment made me smile. 🙂
.-= JennyMac´s last blog…Speak and spell =-.
You did a great job and explained it well!! Good for you!
.-= Jen @ NathanRising´s last blog…The Grossest of All The Gross Grossnesses =-.
Did you just really oy gevalt at the end of this post? Do you know how much I love you?
Whatever happened to “that’s so lame” (unless that insults the differently abled, ‘lame’ denigrates an idea that won’t go anywhere and is more appropriate than the language suggesting an idea that loves other ideas with the same parts) or “that’s so stupid” (unless that insults those who aren’t bright, ‘stupid’ says what the phrase should: that idea is really below my consideration”).
.-= naptimewriting´s last blog…Bolano’s 2666 quote of the week (12) =-.
That was awesome.
I love you, and I love Mr. Monk. Hell, I love your son #1 for being a smart mouth that he sometimes is.
No need to feel bad about the no kids no fighting comment. Comments like this are gateways to more communication and reassurance (just like how you talked about it with him afterwards). Also, from seeing how even though the parents fight, the family still stays together and life carries on, they’ll acquire a more realistic understanding of what it means to be a family. And this more realistic insight of what loving someone is will help them in their own romantic relationships in the future.
You’re my role model what a good mom is. You should be proud.
my gay friends who are in love and/or married are def doing a much better job than me and my hetero couple friends at the long-term relationship thing. i don’t know how anyone (the fundamentalists, catholic church, moral right) got the idea that heteros are the only ones who can give “family” a good name. i call bullshit!
.-= pattypunker´s last blog…pause before you play, my ass =-.
Yeah. As soon as I read it….I figured that is how you would feel. Perhaps it is countered (at least a little) by the fact that Monk felt he could slip it into conversation with you. That says a lot.
Basil and I fight. Often loudly. As if we speak a different language….and volume will make us understood. Perhaps we do. He is sloppy and sometimes lazy and I am a perfectionist and a know-it-all. Shhh. Don’t tell. I do not have kids….but I have seen my dog look scared.
I think you should not shield your kids from fights, but you should fight healthy. I know, easier said than done. No ugly name calling or ancient history or death threats, etc. Pretending that fights do not happen is ridiculous. However, we have laid some ground rules, and those have helped the dog’s mental health and IBS;) To be honest, though, I am the sole enforcer of the rules….and that kinda sucks. That is the truth of it, though.
.-= Jennifer Lynn´s last blog…I have retreated to my happy place. =-.
The thing about his saying my friends don’t fight because they don’t have kids really depressed me and made me feel guilty. It showed how he has internalized the more-often-than-I’d-like-to-admit-or-share-in-public arguments between me and my husband and how he thinks he’s partly to blame for that. It broke my heart and I did talk to him about it. But that’s another blog post/topic which I am wary of getting into. Maybe some day…
Actually maybe I ought to blog about it so some women may go, “Hey, that’s like me and my husband! Thank goodness I thought I was the only one what with all the other bloggers talking about how they LURV their husbands and how their husbands would come home and take care of the kids and fold the laundry and do the dishes and bake them pies and paint their portraits and sing them love songs… I didn’t want to be the only one who complains about the husband, for real, i.e. NOT like The Bloggess poking fun of Victor, but RAW, HONEST, assessment of their marriage in the blogosphere…” Some day. For now though, my husband does once in a while read my blog, and some things are better left unsaid… I know. My plan of going undercover foiled again.
write those posts in code or on a secret blog that nobody knows is yours. I think it’s important to talk about how marriages really work (and don’t work) but there’s no way I’m doing that on a blog with my name attached to it.
That said, tell me when you set up your secret blog ‘cuz I’ll totally read it.
Do you think he figured they couldn’t have kids? Like, biologically have them?……maybe that was it……gotta have an egg and sperm (barring adoption). I am going with that line of thought. 😉
.-= Jennifer´s last blog…I have retreated to my happy place. =-.
If you really want to send him over the edge, you can tell him your friend Shawn’s brother in law has a beautiful baby girl who is being raised by her gorgeous and loving mommies, who are wonderful enough to let him be a part of her life as an Uncle. They also send me pictures and let me watch her grow up. They, too, get along really well, even with a kid. Hehehe
.-= Wicked Shawn´s last blog…Wicked Delicious Morning =-.
Good job, mom. I like that you took the one by the hand and went someplace that you could have a real discussion without interruption.
.-= Technobabe´s last blog…Teachers Can Make Such A Difference =-.
Funny that he said “because they have no kids” – the first gay people that my child encountered were parents of a kid in her daycare, someone had two mommies. So important to talk about this stuff. We’ve recently had conversations about dwarfism and down syndrome, having run into people with both conditions.
.-= magpie´s last blog…Wardrobe Wednesday: New Popsicornian =-.
That is awesome. The because they don’t have kids comment is awesome.
I too am trying to raise an intelligent kid. i.e. not racist/bigot or a murderer.
.-= mepsipax´s last blog…Looking for love =-.
The Secret Garden was one of my favorite books as a child. It was only when I pulled it out for youngest daughter to read that I noticed how many times “gay” and “queer” are used, always in the context of their original meanings. I think perhaps Mr. Monk has an excellent point in taking such words back to their original meaning. Perhaps having to say the multi-syllabic “homosexual” would make it too much of a pain to label people.
“That’s so homosexual” sounds stupid, doesn’t it?! GREAT!
.-= Merrilymarylee´s last blog…Scratch That! =-.
Your post brought tears to my eyes, I almost want to cry right now writing this (damn, it must be that time of the month as I cried to a Taylor Swift song too!) because you are so honest and real and genuine with your kids. It is so beautiful. If only more parents were the way you are we’d have a much better world. I’m gonna shut up on that now so I don’t start crying. I also must say the last part made me smile. heheh.
You are such a great mom! And I love his final response “because they don’t have kids.” Isn’t THAT the truth?
.-= Jane´s last blog…Seven Kids, Three Moms and One Restaurant Health Inspector =-.
You are doing a great job of parenting, there. You did us proud, Mama. And that last comment of his was just the icing on the cake, wasn’t it?
.-= TheKitchenWitch´s last blog…Hot Stuff: Camarones a la Diabla =-.
I wish that the morons where I live would realize how they screw up their kids when they denigrate gays and Lesbians. But of course being the holier-than-thou Christians that they are, they feel perfectly justified in passing along their ignorance and hate. I expounded on this earlier but it’s a major sore spot for me. Thank god I can go to New Orleans, hang out at a gay bar with my gay-friendly husband and just for a little while don’t have to think about what I hear in my little town. Your kids are awesome and if I had me some young’uns I’d be teaching them exactly as you do.
I love the no kids comment – although it seems like the gay couples I know who’ve adopted also get along really well. Or maybe they just have better manners than straight couples when it comes to yelling at each other 😉
.-= honeypiehorse´s last blog…Walk like an…. =-.
Have I told you lately that I love you? I’m so glad you are writing about this experience.
.-= alejna´s last blog…go fly a kite =-.
Good for you. I think it’s so important to talk about this stuff and not gloss over it and wait for another day. Your sons are lucky!
.-= Maureen@IslandRoar´s last blog…Springtime Comes to Martha’s Vineyard =-.