Last Sunday, while doing some Christmas coloring, Littletron was moved by the holiday spirit. He began to sing.
"Deck the halls with trolley lolly"
"Tra la la la la, la la, la, la"
"Tis the season jolly holly"
"La la la la la la la la"
"La li la be da di da di"
I stepped in.
"Want me to teach you the words, Littletron?" I asked.
"I already know them. Didn't you just hear me singing?" he responded, perplexed.
"Ok. Well, do you want me to teach you the REAL words?"
So, I taught him the real words. I got to "don we now our gay apparel" and Littletron stopped me.
"Um. Why does it say that?" he asked. Oh the innocence.
"It means 'now we are going to wear our happy, fun clothes,'" I lamely translated.
"Um, what about 'gay'?" he asked, still confused.
"Yeah, 'gay' used to mean happy. I guess it still can, but not as much anymore." I tried. I thought this history of "gay" was pretty well known amongst children.
"No," Littletron said. "Gay means 'stupid.'"
It was HORRIFYING. How can a child that spends any amount of time with us think such a HORRIBLE thing!?
The answer is, very clearly, that he spends most of his time in a red county, where homosexuality is closeted, if present at all (I imagine if you are gay and you grow up in an area like that, you leave as soon as possible). You know . . . the kind of place were a child of 7 wears hunting camo to school--because those are her regular pants. Sigh.
It's very hard to instill values in a kid when you only see them 4 days a month.
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2 years ago
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I remember when I was in about second grade I learned that gay meant 'happy' and not 'stupid'. I then went on to ask all my teachers if they were gay...I got a dirty look from my PE teacher who never answered my question...
PK: I've been on a personal mission to get people to stop misusing the word "gay" since I was a junior high school teacher back in 2002-03. It hurts me to hear it. I can't tolerate such hate. I know children don't know any better though--someone needs to educate their parents.
Yea, I had to teach Josh a bit on his language, especially when we first started dated. He grew up between Cincinnati (about as racist a city as you can find north of Kentucky), and middle Kentucky. Although not as bad as using the term "gay" for "stupid," he never had gay friends or really knew openly gay men or women. The only ones he met were oversexed trailer trash girls who kept proclaiming themselves to be bisexual, but cared nothing about gay issues, like marriage. He's grown a lot and now that he's met many of my gay friends, he understands better how tough it still is to be openly gay and try have a normal life. Littletron will grow out of it with your influence and his father's, but you're likely to run into backlash from others along the way. It happens now with us.
i'm so curious which county...but of course, understand not specifying since i'm a crazy stalker on the internet.
you know i'm joking, right?
i will say i'm from southern fauquier county and the camo pants sound very familiar...not on me!
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