Going parental: The Power of One
My girlfriend (partner, wife, etc.) and I have been together for seven years. We have a three-year-old daughter that was conceived using an anonymous donor through a cryobank. She is a happy, well adjusted kid who attends pre-school on a daily basis. The children in her class happen to be absolute sweethearts and we have been very lucky thus far with the reaction we received from her teachers and the parents of her classmates when they found out we were a two-mom house. Not a single person seemed phased. Living in NY affords us that luxury. I mean, it’s New York. We’ve got Broadway and Chelsea — two of the gayest places on the planet. Suffice it to say, gay people are no novelty around here.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case everywhere. A friend of mine sent me an article yesterday that was in the National Education Association Magazine. The article, entitled “The Power of One,” rocked me to my core.
As I read about the alarmingly high rate of gay kids that drop out of high school and why, I felt my heart begin to race. The article begins with a story about a girl named Jeana Huie, now 23. In 10th grade bullies shoved her face in a toilet, just one of the many ways in which she was tormented on a daily basis. By October of her 11th grade year after a brutal beating in the high school parking lot, which TEACHERS WATCHED but didn’t stop, she had endured all she could. She dropped out. She had nobody. Not one single adult or teacher in that school was willing to help her, even as she was being brutally beaten in front of them. They stood idle — and did nothing.
It goes on to discuss the power of Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) in schools. How life changing they are for GLBTQ kids and how it takes just one person, just one — to stand up for and with these kids to make a difference.
Our generation, the people out there right now with young kids, can start teaching tolerance this very moment — at home, in your car, in your classrooms. My three-year-old daughter understands that she has two mommies. She knows that most of her friends have a mommy and a daddy, just a mommy, or even two daddies. She is blind to the construction of a family — she simply recognizes that they are comprised of people who love each other.
A very close friend of mine called me a few months ago to tell me a story she knew I would appreciate. She was walking along the beach with her daughter, age 4. They saw two women playing with a little girl close to the water. The kids started playing while my friend chatted with the women. After a few minutes my friend’s daughter came over and asked the two women, “are you her mommies?” To which one of the women replied “no, we’re sisters — I’m her mommy and this is her Aunt.” “Oh OK,” was her reply. And she was off to the water in seconds.
My friend had called me almost immediately after it happened because she was so happy to see that her daughter thought nothing of the fact that her little friend on the beach might have two mommies. It was a totally normal and natural thing to assume.
If only all of our kids were like that — perhaps we could eliminate that which necessitates a Gay-Straight Alliance at schools… because our children would already be aligned. The idea that tolerance has been taught to our kids prior to attending high school should not be something we hope for, but rather something we have done. All of you parents out there right now are the teachers — every single one of you hold the future in your hands. You feed it, you clothe it, and you hug and kiss it every day. You love it unconditionally. Help protect it.
Start now. Don’t be the teacher that stands idly by and does nothing.
Going Parental appears every Thursday.
Latest posts by Jaclyn Roth (Posts)
- The Jessie Books & National Coming Out Day - October 11, 2011
- Parents, prepare to go parental: Doctor faked data linking autism to vaccines - January 6, 2011
- Going parental: iPad — Magic Slate in disguise? - September 29, 2010
- Going parental: Dad boards school bus and screams at bullies — terribly wrong or terribly right? - September 22, 2010
- Going Parental: First day of school! - September 8, 2010
Print This Post
Great post, Jack! I especially love the anecdote. Makes me very hopeful!
Good job dude, one of your best yet!
Really well said! There is still so much hate in this world…
My nephew (6)was over and was telling my daugher (4 1/2) (his cousin) that they could never marry bcse they were related. My daughter said then that she couldn’t marry her sister either. My nephew said well you couldn’t marry her anyway bcse two girls don’t marry each other. of course auntie had to chime in there. TEACHING MOMENT. i said of course two girls could marry. two men too. he said really auntie? and that was it. they all continued to eat their snack.
Many people don’t realize the reason it is can be so difficult for GLBT kids is because unlike other kids that are “different”, whether it be race or religion, GLBT kids don’t share that “difference” with their parents.
Love it! I really believe that this will be a non-issue by the time our kids are our age.
Gay weddings will be nothing more than just another excuse to get drunk and make fools of ourselves on the dancefloor.
Well said! It seems that generally kids today are more accepting of all lifestyles, but you are right, it starts with the parents always. I also hope that by the time our kids are 23, this is a non-issue.
Awesome! I love it. So unfortunate what some kids have to go through. I was so fortunate that my family and for the most part all of my friends were very accepting of my sexuality! I Especially Love the part where you are telling the parents out there that they hold the future in their hands. So true! Teach your kids people!
WOW Jackie! very moving piece. it really hit home. I love that your “definition” of a family is that it is “comprised of people who olve each other”. So simple and, yet, so true.
Not to start a whole “religious” thing but —
AMEN sista!!! Beautifully put!!! :)
I love that my kids will always know that they’re mommy turns people gay…..something to be proud of!!!! they’ll be proud too one day!
This is a very altruistic article, to which I must reluctantly chime a pessimistic and curmudgeonly counterpoint.
The subject matter of the article attracts prejudice; irrational and hysterical prejudice, but then that is the common form prejudice tends to assume. It appears that gay kids increasingly attract similar levels of prejudice to that reluctantly endured by, for example, religious and ethnic minorities; and it has been some time since we began to persuade opinion against these latter prejudices, with only muted success.
Race attracts an immediate prejudice, as the physical differences between one race and another are, more often than not, evident. Prejudice in this instance consists of the fact that one does not look like another, and therefore a challenge is presented. Religious differences are rather more subtle, but they at least have had many thousands of years to ferment; a fermentation, or, more precisely, a fomentation, which is as caustic today as it was two thousand years ago.
This same religious model from which we seem incapable of escaping can also be held accountable as to why the likes of same sex marriages and single and same sex parenthood is so anathema to the American family model, the genesis to which harks back to Genesis itself.
It is deplorable that a teacher stand idly by whilst a pupil is beaten. But it is deplorable that anyone is beaten for the reason that they are “different” in whatever shape or form difference presents itself, as they have been for many thousands of years. But It is your use of the word “tolerance” that hurts the most, and signals a still apparent segregation: why should gay kids have to just be tolerated?
Can they not be accepted, and therefore dismissed? Assimilated in full, in a manner which does not draw attention similar to other minority groups when they attempt to assimilate? Simple toleration suggests an apparent mismatch, an excess or an absurdity against the mainstream which cannot be curbed so it is merely tolerated.
No one (of right mind anyway) speaks of merely tolerating ethnic or religious minorities. Sexual orientation should be no different. Prejudice, however, dictates that tolerance is about the best we can hope for in our current society, both in the case of the former and the latter. And, given that we have had thousands of years and hundreds of years to eradicate religious prejudice and racial prejudice respectively, it is surely unrealistic to expect the eradication of sexual prejudices within our lifetime.
My head literally started to pound half-way through your comment, Chloe. Up until you discussed the use of the word tolerance, I had absolutely no idea what you were trying to say.
Tolerance (by one of several definitions) is “interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, and practices foreign to one’s own; a liberal, non-dogmatic viewpoint.” How can teaching tolerance be wrong? You’re getting caught up with and enjoying (far too much in my opinion) the dissection of the word. You’re lost in semantics. The message here is very clear. Altruistic indeed — but quite clear.
What’s interesting is that what you are suggesting far exceeds altruism — to expect that these children simply be accepted and therefore dismissed? And by the way “dismissed?” Talk about a hurtful word. How is it possible for a child to accept another child, despite their differences, if they were never taught to be open and accepting and yes tolerant of them in the first place?
“…and it has been some time since we began to persuade opinion against these latter prejudices, with only muted success.”
Muted success? Really? Only 40 years ago blacks and whites couldn’t marry. Blacks sat in the back of the bus, had separate drinking fountains and bathrooms in public, were banned from attending school with white children… I can go on and on.
Muted success? No, I don’t think so. Muted success does not yield a black President. I did not see an ounce of muted success on a single face at the inauguration this year.
Long live altruism, tolerance and by your definition “muted success.” Sounds good to me.
Muted success does yield a black president. Success would yield simply a president.
That, in a nutshell, is what my comment concerned. I wasn’t get wrapped up in semantics. It pisses me off as much as it does you that same sex parents are referred to specifically as same sex parents rather than just parents; that gay kids are referred to specifically as gay kids rather than just kids; the fact that we have a black president and not just a president.
Are heterosexual men and women who have children referred to as anything other than just “parents”? Similarly, if you live on a block with kids, would you ever be tempted to declare “oh look, there’s that kid David; you know – the heterosexual.” I don’t remember anyone ever referring to George Bush as a white president. And he was remarkably white.
I’d just make the point again that your article was altruistic – wonderfully so. But I felt the need to balance it with a touch of negativity, that as long as we continue to reserve and exercise a lexicon specifically for minority groups (in whatever shape or form that may take), we’re admitting the differences, and the prejudices, which exist. And perhaps even perpetuating them.
It would be wonderful if our kids could grow up as inchoate canvasses upon which the brush of prejudice could not imprint, but that’s a long time coming.