Life in the Middle Lane

I had lunch outside today and there were about 8 ba-gillion mothers and/or nannies out there with their babies. In the midst of all the crying children I overheard two ladies talking about how a friend of their kid’s was getting picked on at school because his parents were gay. I don’t know if the kid lives with his two mom or two dads, but he didn’t want to go to school because the other kids made fun of him.

One mother told the other how she explained to her son why he shouldn’t make fun of the kid with gay parents (KWGP) and, furthermore, why he should stand up for his friend. I thought this was super admirable of her and I kept listening.

She reminded him that he had black friends and that black people couldn’t change their skin. She told him that he doesn’t make fun of them because their skin was different. In her mind, the logic followed that you shouldn’t make fun of the KWGP because his family is different and because he couldn’t change his parents. Huh? Should the KWGP want to change his parents? Should I want to change my skin?

She also gave the example about people having different religions and how it is ok that people believe differently and should be accepted anyway. (Much better, mama)

As a black person and as a non-heterosexual, I thought about her comments and analyzed their usefulness.

At face value, I thought it was hilarious and infuriating that she compared changing skin color to changing your parents (both, which I’m sure lots of kids have wanted to do) I never wanted to be white, I just wanted longer, prettier hair. Anyway, wouldn’t it have been better to say, there are different kinds of people. People have different kinds of families. Some families have parents and kids, some families have grandparents, and some families have step-parents and step-kids, and some families have two moms or two dads and all these kinds of family are ok. Her logic total ignored the whole gay thing and it highlighted our differences instead of our similarities. (we all have families vs. we all have different skin)

The more I thought about it, I was just glad that she is trying to teach her kid about diversity and accepting people in spite of/because of their differences. I guess her explanation is better than saying “picking on people is bad and shouldn’t be done” (just because). That kid will (hopefully) be able to enter a room full of different kinds of people and be ok, because his momma said that people can’t change what they look like and who they live with and we have to be nice to them anyways.

What she was trying to teach was very, very important. She tried to convey that what a person looks like or how they live or how they believe (even if it is different from you) doesn’t make them any less worthy of respect, love and friendship. She explained it to her 8 year old and he got it. So…how do you make adults understand it?