“Oh, hey, did you
know the owner of the Montessori school we send Glenn to, hates gay people?”
My wife was confused and wondered why I was bringing it up
right before bed.
Granted, it was kind of a strange time to bring it up, but
it had been bothering me for a couple of days.
I was ‘friends’ with the teacher/owner on her Facebook page, and as each
new story arose out of Arizona and Florida, I became more and more
uncomfortable with her beliefs.
Once I was able to verbalize my uncomfortable emotional
state, I fell right asleep. My wife only
contributed her attention. Just saying
it out loud made me more certain how I felt about it.
Then, as if to demonstrate my psychic powers, the following
Friday the boy was sent home from school with a letter. It laid out a situation of a same sex couple
being turned away. Well, first they were
accepted, and then they were turned away for their “lifestyle.” I imagine the owner sitting in her office
stewing over their smug gay faces, and deciding that it was her turn to take a
stand for…well I don’t know who or what she thought she was taking a stand for.
I had only briefly had some time to digest the letter, and
barely time to bring the wife into the loop, before the lead teacher
called. She asked if I had any questions
and I assured her that I did, but I wanted to talk to my wife before I
vocalized my questions. She seemed
confused, even going so far as to say she had gay friends. In my head I wondered if I should ask her for
their numbers.
In the end I cut her off, “I understand they are your
personal beliefs, I’m just not sure I want to financially support them.”
It wasn't any easy decision.
The boy really loved going there, and we had seen so much growth. However, as conflicted as I was, I knew, even
at that early stage, where this would end.
As my wife said, and then repeated to herself many times in an effort to
make herself feel better about taking Glenn out of an environment he had
blossomed and excelled in- ‘It is not enough to TALK about tolerance to your
kids, we needed to TEACH this.’
You see, I have always struggled with my thoughts on same
sex marriage, even though I think of myself as a tolerant person. (Who doesn't
though? No one thinks they are a bigot) When possible I would avoid the topic, and
try to keep my beliefs in the closet.
I’m the type of person that loves to talk politics. So, as you can imagine, keeping my thoughts
to myself, was like hiding a part of who I was.
See what I did there?
Honestly, it has just never been my fight. I've met a lot of good and bad people in my
life. The only time I have endeavored to
discover what their sexual preferences were, was when I was trying to get a
girl to take her pants off. My zeal to
discover her interest would only be matched by my zeal to convince her to take MY
pants off.
But this was real life discrimination, taking place not only
in front of me, but also in front of my son.
I crowd sourced the situation to my Facebook Dads group, and
they helped me work through it. I wasn’t willing to ignore it. If I couldn't ignore it, then I either had to
explain to my son why her actions were ok, or explain to him why he was moving
schools. We always tell our kids to use
their words, but without action behind them, those words become hallow. Now thanks to this jackass, I had to teach my
son about discrimination.
As soon as I was done being angry, I was embarrassed.
Here I was working through my anger with a group of dads. Many of which were in happy same sex
marriages with children, and one of which is getting married this week as I
write.
I was mad because I had to explain to my five year old about
discrimination. It was ridiculous
self-made white man feelings about discrimination. I should have been happy he made it THAT
long.
I would venture to guess that in most minority families
discrimination is a conversation that happens early and often. How about the family that was turned away?
You think that two year old little boy doesn't notice the looks his moms get
when they go shopping? By the time that
boy is my son’s age, he will have seen more discrimination first hand, than
either my sons or I will experience in our lifetimes.
It is well past time for a shift in the conversation. In order for a shift to take place we need to
understand that we don’t know what we are talking about. We know what discrimination is, but having
never truly experienced it, we cannot comprehend the implications of it. Discrimination
for white middle and upper class people is like a Wisconsin winter to my Texas
family. We should be upfront about this,
and open to learning. We should defer to
people who live with discrimination as part of their daily lives. We should also be given a break, when we
don’t understand how the words we use are offensive.
Hell, you could say that Glenn’s brief brush with
discrimination was a net positive. Most
of his friends moved over to his new school.
I would say about 70% of the parents pulled their kids. I know…Texas, who knew? Most of the teachers and support staff got
hired on at the new school, as well.
They also provide food for breakfast and lunch. Even better, they only charge me an extra $60
for this godlike feat.
Isn't homophobia grand!
I think he got it, but I really have no idea. I tried to use eye color to explain it. We both have brown eyes, while his mom and
brother have blue. As we were playing I
started enforcing ‘brown eyed rules.’ He
thought it was fun. His brother did not. Eventually he got the point that the brown
eye rules weren't fair and didn't even make sense. Then I was able to have a larger
conversation. I tried to teach him,
through example, that although we are different, we are the same too.
Later when a same sex couple came over to visit with my wife
and have the kids play. He was shocked
when he found out the little boy with them had, get this, a spider man T shirt. He loves Spiderman TOO! Glenn couldn't care
less that his friend has two mommies.
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