Finally, after months of telling her she would like Glee, Brian finally just went ahead and played it for Stella. After one episode she was wishy-washy. "I don't know if I like it yet," she claimed, despite dancing on the couch during Journey. After the second episode, she declared herself a Gleek.
My first episode was #3. The Glee kids decide to do a sexy dance number instead of the 70's one their teacher chose in order to attract more kids to the Glee Club.
Me: But they couldn't have pulled off that whole routine in ONE DAY of practice.
Brian: You have to suspend reality for this show.
Ok, I understand, the learning of the routine is the boring part, no one wants to watch that. I can suspend reality, it's a TV SHOW for goodness sake.
Next episode, the football team decides to do a dance before their last play.
Brian: Even if they take a timeout, the 35 second clock would start when the ref sets the ball.
Me: Suspend reality
Brian: But they would have rushed the kicker before he could have kicked the ball.
Me: Um, suspend reality?
Brian: Ugh!
Me: :)
Then towards the end of the episode, one of the Glee kids comes out to his dad as gay. His dad says he's known since his son was three, when he wanted high heels for his birthday.
Stella: But he's gay?
Me: Yes, that means he's attracted to other boys.
Stella: Yeah, I know, but what does that have to do with shoes?
Nothing. It has nothing to do with shoes. A ten year old knows that, but still that's what we're putting out there. The media still finds it easier to muddle up gender and sexuality than to face up and explain what it means. Probably because most of them don't know the difference. Don't care to know the difference.
Why is that? It's not difficult to explain. Some people are attracted to the same gender, the opposite gender, both genders. Some people like to dress like the opposite gender, either for fun or to pretend to be that gender or to explore that gender. Some people believe they were born the wrong gender. Some people are more than one of these things. It's all ok.
It. is. all. ok.
If you don't think it's ok, keep it to yourself. It is not your job to make someone else's life miserable, even a little bit, because you don't understand or don't agree with their life. This is their life. Who they are. It is not ok to disagree with that. Your religion disagrees? That's between you and your God, it has nothing to do with this other person. Leave. them. alone.
It's not about you.
And you know what, kids understand and accept pretty easily, much more easily than a lot of adults. Why not respect them enough to explain the range of sexuality and gender? This is not the hard part of parenting. Not even the hard part of the sex questions. The hard questions are things like, "How do I know if I'm in love?" Yeah, answer that.
I know not everyone agrees with me. Some may say they want to keep children innocent. Some think it's difficult to introduce the idea of anything beyond a heterosexual couple. Some don't even want to mention the "sex" in heterosexual.
I just can't understand that. Knowledge is power. I don't think that my kids understanding there are different ways of loving have changed them in any inappropriate way. They know that people are different, this just affirms that a little bit. They aren't shocked or appalled or over-sexualized. They are just open minded.
And I like that.
Deanna | January 29, 2014 at 8:37 AM
Gabriel wore a blue sparkly princess dress at the ages of 3 and 4. Every. Day. He went to the grocery store in it. While I pretty sure he's straight - who cares. I don't think his sexuality will be determined by the fact that little boys like sparkly things too. It frustrates me that the media perpetuates these stereotypes. Stella is exactly right, it has nothing to do with shoes. Shoes are just fabulous and so are sparkly dresses for that matter. :)