Ah defiance...

I've dealt with  my fair share of kid shenanigans.  I've swum in, treaded water in, and floundered in some fairly tricky parenting waters.  I feel like I've earned a few parenting badges (and lost a few other parenting badges) along the way thus far.  Some things I've dealt with more gracefully than others, let's be clear, but I always seem to at least have an inkling of what direction needs to be taken in most situations.

But the outright defiance, that has me flummoxed.

Lately, we've embarked upon the "No.  I won't do that."  And because my children (yes, both of them, god help me) have a particular flair for the dramatic, Boy-o's actual refusals sound something more like: "NO!  I will not never, ever, not ever do that!"  Sometimes, it's just kind of funny.  Like "No, I will not ever, never, not ever drink that water!"  (Heard in my home just yesterday.  Lasted exactly until he got thirsty).  In these situations,  one can easily say: "Alrighty then," and move along.  You don't like water?  Don't get thirsty, then. 

But sometimes, the defiance is a little more complex.  Keeping in mind that I actually want to be sensitive to his need to assert himself (within reason) and making him do things by force 1) is trickier than one would think when one's 3 year old is extremely tall and over 40 lbs, and 2) isn't really my cuppa tea.   So what then?  You have a stand-off.  Do you wheedle? (Sometimes).  Bargain? (Sometimes).   Ignore? (Very difficult to do with my child).  How do you ignore "No, I will not ever take a bath"  or "No, I will never go to bed" or the like.   These are things that of course have natural consequences.  But unfortunately the consequences of an overtired, stinky, dirty child are more difficult for me than him.  So that tack doesn't really work. 

And how, pray tell, do you resist the omnipresent urge to say "Oh yes you will, you little pipsqueak or so help me god I will squash you and your defiance like a little, tiny bug?"   Or, if like me, you are sometimes unable to resist this urge,  how do you go about said squashing when you know darn well hitting only teaches kids violence and mistrust, time-outs are useless when you have a child that won't actually stay where you put them, threatening doesn't work and mostly makes you look like a total jack-ass, and yelling makes the kid cry and you feel guilty?  Squashing, it seems, may just be an overrated instinct.  Doesn't seem like anyone in our house has benefitted from it, anyways. 

So I'm dedicating this weekend to hopping off the grid (see you in October, friends) and cracking a copy of Mary Sheedy Kurcinska's "Kids, Parents and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime."  Some of you may recognize the name as the author of the very excellent "Raising Your Spirited Child," which was a breakthrough book in this household.  I shall report back with any exciting findings *please let there be exciting findings* next week.

Here's to hoping I get a few new tricks to share about squashing rebellion without squashing my kids... 

Car-ma.

I must have some bad-ass Karma.  Last night, I was experiencing a few minor life glitches, and I was feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and rather sorry for my sad self.   It happens sometimes.  And then this morning, the gods decided to smack me around.  I could almost hear them saying: "You wanna feel sorry for yourself?  We'll give ya something to be sorry about..."

So - I'm driving Boy-o, Girlio, and a little school chum of Boy-o's to school, blearily sipping my coffee and trying to tune out the three tots in the backseat when we start experiencing this strange, off-kilter-y, bumpity-bumpity-ness.  Shit.  Shit.  Shit.  I have encountered this strange, off-kilter-y, bumpity-bumpity-ness before.  It's a mother-effing flat tire.  I'm sure of it.  I pull-over, my heart sinking into my stomach.  The fates would not do this to me.  Not with three kids in the back of the car in rush hour traffic.  No they wouldn't.  That's just mean.  And wrong.  All kinds of wrong. 

Turns out they would.   That tire is flat.  Effing flat.  Mother effing flat.  Flat like an egg.  (For context for that last description: "How flat is the tire?"  Boy-o wants to know.  "Flat like a pancake," I say.   "Flat like an egg?" his little friend queries.  "Sure."  I say.  "It's flat like an egg.")

So - in this situation, like any kick-ass-take-no-prisoner-I-can-do-anything-fearless Girl, I immediately  called my wife.   She, as I suspected, knows what to do - call our Kia roadside assistance - the number which seems to be handily displayed on the driver's side window.  Clever, clever wife.  I do this.  The lady at the Kia busts a gut in cackles when I plead to send help fast because I am trapped inside a car with three smalls under the age of 4.  I did not think it was nearly quite as funny as she did.  However, must have taken me seriously, because help came in form of Glen from AMA within 35 minutes.  Which is a pretty darn good rush hour response time.  It was just long enough for several games of "I Spy," for my precious coffee to get spilled, for me to intercept and redirect a couple of scuffles between Boy-o and friend, for us to sing The Wheels on the Bus ad nauseum, followed by "I've Been Working on the Railroad" equally ad nauseum, for us to dance in our seats to some bad radio music, for Girlio to lose her shit and poop in her diaper at the same time, and for me to want to start stabbing myself in the eye with a fork a few times over.  A car is a very small, space when stuck on the road with littles.  Prison-small.  Just sayin'.

But then Glen came.  Glen came and was the knight-in-shining-armour to my lesbo-princess.  I love Glen.  If I weren't happily married gal, I'd have given Glen a big ole sloppy wet one (not that he would have probably wanted it, but anyhoo).   He didn't just know how to change a tire.  He knew where the spare tire was.  (There's a tire under there?  Who knew?)  He knew what the tire-unlocky-bolt-y-thing was AND he knew it would be in my glove-box.   He had tools (and an accent ;).  He jacked up my car and changed my tire.  AND he entertained both boys while doing it.   He showed them his tools.  He had them rivetted with explanations of what he was doing and why, as they marvelled at the amazing-ness of a tire-less car.  And then - he helped me figure out how the hell to put all of the kids back in the car WITH a car tire and a stroller.  Glen - if you're out there somewhere - you are the shit.  The bomb.  A lifesaver.   I know you were just doing your job - but you really saved my ass today... and you went above-and-beyond.
.
We made it to pre-K, 40 minutes late, but none the worse for wear.  

Unless you count my nerves.

playgroup drop-outs.

There is a dearth of activities for the one year old set here in Redneckville.  I know this because I have researched every kind of child-friendly-program-offering facility there is.  And yet, here we are, dropping out of the one program we found after taking in a mere class.

The 45 minutes went as follows:

• 15 minutes of free play while parents sign in attendance sheet.  (Okay, good so far).
• Making the children put all of the toys away for circle time.  (Alrighty - the kiddos were just getting warmed up, but maybe some good stuff will ensue?).
• Circle time, which consisted of taking attendance and expecting children to raise their hand when their name is called.  (Say What?!  Girlio still calls her own reflection "baby!")    Also consisted of a detailed explanation of the craft to follow, including raising every single colour one by one (ahem - fall colours only for the fall craft - and yes, yes you are detecting a note of derision right there) and expecting the children to repeat this colour out loud.  (Okay - they're one.)  By this time, the children (and I) are crushingly bored and all over the place, as the facilitator looks beseechingly at parents to 'reign them in.'
• Painting activity, which is slotted to last 10 minutes, of course only lasts 2, and results in great, great, great amounts of mess.  Both of these things seems to surprise facilitator.   Clean-up takes another 10 minutes, apparently making the program 'run behind'.
• Getting 5 minutes allotted for snack-time, and then expecting parents to promptly put snack away for storytime.  (M-kay - snack with one year olds is like grazing.  You can't just put it away after five minutes.  Five minutes hasn't even given them enough time to stop staring at the other one year olds or stop picking the lint off their socks long enough to take a single bite!)  We (and a few other parents 'n tots) rebel and take our snack with us to circle time. 
• Circle time again.  The facilitator notices that the kids are SUPER restless and all over the place, so tries to get them to follow a stretching routine with her, which, you now, they don't.  Then time for a story, which is too long and involved for one year olds.   Story-time followed by two songs, which are quite involved and meant to be sung every class, so children can learn the words and actions (which are too many for ME to memorize).  During which time most of the children are too busy walking away to pay much attention . . .

And then... whew!  Class dismissed.   But not before I overhear:  "It's never too early to introduce a little structure to kids!"   

A little structure, my ass. 

It's never too early to make your child a drop-out.

It Gets Better

Hey folks...

If you haven't already heard about this project, then you should!  Dan Savage,  naughty columnist extraordinaire ("Savage Love") and his partner Terry have spearheaded this amazing project on YouTube. 

It's called the "It gets better" project, and it's aimed at queer youth who are struggling their way through the teenage years, (with the added baggage of homophobia, anti-gay bullying, and way-above-average risk of suicidality - fun times). 

Savage created the project in response to a suicide of a 15 year old gay youth who was experiencing horrific bullying in his highschool.  He's set up a You Tube channel and is currently collecting video submissions from queer peeps talking about how much better their lives have become once they made it past highschool. 

Take a moment to stop by the site - it's chalk full of inspiring stories - both recounting the difficulties of high school experiences, and sharing the triumphs of making it through.    

And take a moment to pass it on... this is a project that really needs to get far and wide!

http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject#p/f/0/7IcVyvg2Qlo

muddling through our choice to CIO when we are deadset against it

This isn't right.  It's 1:50 a.m.  My daughter is wailing despondently in the room immediately adjacent.  I can't see her, but I know she is standing at the furthest edge of her crib, her head on the railing.  I have been going in at 2+ minute intervals, giving her a hug, putting her back down with Bear-Bear and turning on her "fishies" acquarium.  She stops crying, I rub her back 10 times or so and leave again.  Rinse repeat.  It feels terrible.  Awful.  It feels, at this dark hour, as if I am helping no one and failing at my job.   

Most people who have tried CIO (or cry it out) will tell you it works.  God, I hope so.  (Though I many for whom it hasn't and yes, they tried it properly.  Kids just aren't one size fits all). 

People trying to comfort me about making the decision to try CIO have told me that I shouldn't feel guilty, that no one else can know what it right for me, for my family.  This is probably true.  But I still do.

I know deep within my myself that I do not believe CIO is right.  In fact, I still believe it is fundamentally wrong.  Even if it works.  This isn't intended as a judgement against those who believe in it or use it (I'm a different strokes for different folks kinda gal and I have many good friends, whom I love and respect immensely, who have chosen this approach to their sleep woes with great success).  But I belong, unabashedly, to the Dr. Sears-esque school of parenting.  I believe it's my job to be in there with her when she needs me.  Even when she needs me ten times a night (even though I know very well it was likely Dr. Sears' wife who did the bulk of nighttime care in their house!).  I worry that CIO works because it teaches Girlio that I won't respond to her needs.  I worry that CIO messes with attachment and can have a long term emotional impact (though, again, CIO proponents will insist this is not the case - I wonder how these things get 'measured.')  That's just me - the girl raised by therapists. 

So - one might wonder -what the hell am I doing, then, blogging and crying along with my baby at 2 in the morning?  A fine question.  Parenting has some darn slippery slopes...

I not doing this because I haven't slept for 15 months, per se, though this is certainly true, and certainly unpleasant.  I am doing this because while not sleeping for the last 15 months, and in particular for the last 8 months, I have had some dark moments at night.  Really, really dark.  I have thought horrible, terrible things about my child, whom I love more than is possible to articulate.  I have felt the fleeting urge to shake her, to throw her, to scream in her face.  I have had horrifying glimpses of understanding as to why people with less inner and outer resources than me sometimes hurt their children.  I have clenched my teeth and inwardly shook with the kind of rage that should not be directed at any child, ever.   That is outcome of prolonged sleep deprivation.  And nighttime is just the tip of the iceberg.

People always ask incredulously how I manage to function during the day, when my sleep is so lacking and so interrupted.  And the answer is, all too often, badly.  My parenting is often sub-par.  I get frustrated too easily.  I yell too much.  I am often too drained to focus on the kids much at all.  My exhaustion makes it difficult to maintain relationships - I haven't talked to my siblings in ages because I can't talk on the phone when the kids are awake (they hate me being on the phone and it's too hard to carry on a conversation with ankle biters, well, ankle biting).  And by the time evening rolls around I'm too tired to be coherent enough to converse.  It affects my relationship with my wife - because we're both too tired to chat, to connect, to have a date.  And I've noticed that while driving Boy-o to school in the mornings, I have to really struggle to pay attention to the road and have received quite a few horn honks of late.  

The long and the short of it is - it ain't good.  It ain't good at night and it ain't good in the morning.  Something, as they say, has got to give.

If this works - and again - I really, really hope it does because we're starting to crack up a bit here - I probably will not become a CIO convert, or decide that it's really the kind or gentle alternative, as many CIO authors claim.  I'll still think it goes against my personal parenting values and philosophies.  I'll still think it sucks and I'll still feel like I failed at my job.  And I'll still likely feel like it broke my heart into a million tiny pieces.  (I'm not being mellowdramatic, either - I am having a really, really, exceptionally hard time with this decision ***).

We tried CIO not because it was right for our family, but more properly, because it turned out to be just a bit less wrong than the alternatives.

And there's the slippery slope of parenting.


*** I used to be an unplanned pregnancy counsellor for quite some time.  And in my experience, I found that out of the folks who chose to have an abortion, the ones who had the toughest time with it were the ones for whom it went against their personal or religious morals and beliefs.  I am guessing that the same principle applies here, to me with our decision to try CIO (with the caveat that I am not comparing this problem to terribly scary experience of having an unplanned pregnancy).

Why we don't keep secrets around our house... A friendly PSA about child sexual abuse

We don't use the word secret with our kids, and I blanche when others try to use it with them  (Please don't use this word with my kids, folks!) 

Why?  Child sexual abuse (heretofore refered to as CSA for expediency).  And before you dismiss me as being paranoid, I'll tell ya, I'm not at all paranoid about this.  What I am is realistic.  Read the statistics and then do the math (and while you're at it, you might as well add on a gazillion % for all the unreported assaults on children).  The basics are this:  1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys will experience an unwanted sexual act prior to the age of 18.  See more detailed stats below:  http://www.littlewarriors.ca/about_sexual_abuse/statistics.html#CANprevalence

We're all on-board for teaching our kids about stranger danger.   We all live in fear of the horrific stranger abduction and abuse of our children (the ice-cream man, the dude at the park, etc.).  I don't want to diminish these fears.  These occurences are real and terrible for all involved.  But these occurences are not how the VAST majority of sexual assaults occur on children.

The sad, sick, vomit-inducing truth is that most children are sexually assaulted by someone they know and trust.  Yes.  Family members, parents, step-parents, grandparents, family friends are responsible for 95% of CSA's.  I'm not shitting you here.  Ninety-five %.   People that we, their parents love and trust.  It's a terrible thought, and one we all don't want to think about.  So naturally, we'll all take a minute to comfort ourselves by saying, "Oh, not my boyfriend/girlfriend, not my wife/husband, not my father, not my uncle, not my best friend Jenny.  All the people I know are safe and wonderful and so great with my kids."   I would probably have a heart-attack from shock if my kids ever told me that someone they knew, someone I knew, hurt them in this way.  But being shocked is entirely different than being unprepared.   And I will not let my love of the people in my life blind me from the reality that most child-assaults happen from those who love us, and whom we love.   I volunteer on a sexual assault crisis line and have talked to many a distraught parent, who believed just like we do, that their children were safe with the people they love.  It happens to kids from all walks of life - not just 'those' people (whomever 'those' people are in your mind), so banish this thought, too.

And why the hating on the word secret?  Because child sexual abuse depends upon secrecy.  "It'll be our little secret.";  "We won't tell anyone about this."  "We can never tell because they won't understand."  These are all part and parcel of how abusers maintain their patterns of abuse.  Children keep their secret - out of fear that they won't be believed, out of loyalty to and love for their abusers, out of feelings of guilt and shame, out of fear due to threats. 

So what to do?  Well, for starters - talk about it.  With your family, with other parents, on your facebook, on your twitter, on your blogs, whatever.  Even though it feels yucky and crappy and vomitous - when we talk about it, when we admit to ourselves that these things happen, when we stop treating the subject as taboo - we can be proactive and we can take steps to protect our kids.

1.  Make sure your kids have the language that lets them talk about their body parts.  Kids need to be able to articulate it to you if something is wrong.  Remind them that no one, not even a teacher or close relative, has the right to touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable.
2.  Try not to use the word secret. 
3.  Let your littles know that people who love them will not ask them to keep secrets.
4.  Differentiate between secrets and surprises - (Secret = never supposed to tell.  Surprise = mommy's birthday present that she'll open next week.  Big difference there.)
5.  Tell your kids often that you will always believe them  (and then practice what you preach).  And let them know that if they don't feel comfortable telling you something has happened (and kids often tell someone other than their parents about CSA), make sure they know that if the first adult they tell doesn't believe them or won't help, to keep telling, for as long as it takes.
6. Make sure they know that no one has the right to ask them to keep a secret from their parents, and that NO older person should ever ask them to keep a special secret, especially one that makes them feel uneasy, yucky or weird.
7.  When they are old enough, be honest and direct with them about sexual abuse and let them know that you will always believe them, no matter who they are disclosing about. 
8.  And probably one of the very, very most important things you can do is to let your kids have bodily integrity.  By this I mean - don't force them to hug you if they don't want to.  Don't make them hug or kiss family members if they don't want to.  Say "would you like to give Auntie Betty a hug goodbye?" instead of "Time to give Auntie Betty a hug goodbye."  Let them make decisions about what feels good or right for their little selves.  They'll let you know if it feels right at any given moment or not.  And don't allow people to guilt your kids into physical affection either: (as in, "Oh, I'll be so sad if I can't have a hug goodbye."  We don't want our kids to learn to give physical affection (however innocuous) in order to make someone else happy.  Yuck-o-rama.

*feel free to add any steps you've taken with your kids in the comments*

As parents, we can't always stop bad things from happening to our kids.  What we can do, is arm them with the best possible information and skills to help them avoid bad things, and let them know that if bad stuff does happen, they can tell us anything, we will believe them, and we will stop it.  Period. 


For more info on warning signs, where to get help, etc. etc.

Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton
http://www.sace.ab.ca/

Little Warriors
http://www.littlewarriors.ca/index.html




Serious public service announcement over now.   Feel free to go on about your weekend.

hmmmmm....

Sometimes I wonder whether other parents worry constantly that they're muddling things up more often than not?

It's only 7:38 a.m., and already I've done a gazillion things I wish I hadn't.

A Music Post (yes, the grown-up kind)

I've been writing about somewhat heavy stuff lately, so I'm going to intersperse it with a little fluffy post with totally useless information about yours truly.  And music. 

Here goes:

My favourite songs to be sad/cry to
(I'm a sad girl, and so I really like sad music.  Just how it goes):

1.  Breakable Girls and Boys - Ingrid Michaelson (okay, pretty much anything by Ingrid Michaelson.  She writes the best music to cry to.  For real.  Hands down.)
2.  Driving North -  Chris Pureka (fucking haunting, this one.  She's like a folkier Stevie Nicks).
3.  Clouds - Joni Mitchell
4.  The Scientist - Coldplay
5.  Falling or Flying - Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
6.  Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
7.  Landslide - Dixie Chicks or Fleetwood Mac versions


My favourite songs that remind how fucking great my life is:
1.  How Lucky We Are - Meiko
2.  Fidelity- Regina Spektor
3.  My Life Would Suck Without You - K.C. or Glee version
4.  All this Beauty - The Weepies
5.  Precious Heart - Veda Hille
6.  A Case of You - Joni Mitchell or k.d. lang version
7.  The Littlest Birds - The Be Good Tanyas

Favourite Tongue-in-cheeky song:
1. The Fear - Lily Allen

#1 Cover that make me love a song even though I hated the original:
1.  Obadiah Parker's version of  Hey Ya (originally done by K-OS)

My favourite cleaning music:
Motown - Always.  Always.  Always.  It is very difficult to really loathe what you are doing if you are singing "What choo want, baby I got it!/What chooooo need, you know I got it!"   Try it and see if I'm right...

My Favourite Guilty Pleasures:
1.  Kelly Clarkson
2.  Pink
3. Adam Lambert.  Yes.  Glambert.  That's right.
4.  Cold Play
5.  Bon Jovi (I can woman-up and admit it).
6.  Any boy with a good falsetto.  Yum.

Music That Really Makes Me Want to Shoot Myself:
1.  Nickelback 
(Okay, I dislike lots of other top 40 artists.  But old Nickelback is the worst.  And when you live in Alberta and your son stuck quarters in the cd player, rendering it useless, one hears A LOT of Nickelback.  Secretly, I fear that hearing it so much will make me start to like it, and that makes me want to shoot myself even more.)

3 and 3/4 years

That's how long it took for my Boy-o to hear the words: "Boys can't do that - that's just for girls."  3 and 3/4 years. 

It was a kid at school.  (And it just had to be the kid Boy-o has been talking about since school began last week).  He chastized Boy-o for playing dress-up as a princess at school.  I know I shouldn't resent that kid or want to flick him upside the forehead - he's just a kid after all, and repeating what he hears from people in his life.  But I do anyways (and I don't even care if it makes me a bad person).  (Okay, I don't really.  I'm just speaking from the 'someone messed with my kid' place.  It'll pass).

When pressed about how he responded, it was clear Boy-o was baffled.  Never has he ever been told that certain things are only for girls or only for boys.  He said:  "I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. . . and then I said: 'okay, okay.'  And then I even saw a girl dress-up in it.  So I guess it must be for girls." 

L. and I both held our breathe and took a bit of a pause.  I tried to will my eyes not to bug out of my head.  For starters, that's not nice (and not true).  And this is not a subject you want to tackle unthinkingly.   On the one hand, you do not want to set your child up for a lifetime of playground ass-kickings.  On the other hand, you do not want to let that bull-shitty 'boys don't/girls' don't business win.  So L. says, after a pause: "well yeah, some people believe that there are certain things boys or girls shouldn't do.  But I sort of think that limits our chances to have fun...  What do you think?"  Pause.  Boy-o says nothing.  So I take pipe in and add:  "It's about what makes you feel okay and happy in your heart buddy.  If you feel like you don't want to wear that princess dress, that's okay.  And if you feel like you want to wear it, that's okay too.  It's about what you think, not what other people think."  Pause.  Still nothing.  Clearly, Boy-o was working hard at processing the whole situation.  And then, not wanting to beat the horse dead, we let it go, feeling a bit heavy-hearted about it.  (Though of course we knew this would happen... its eventuality didn't serve to make it feel any nicer).

It makes me feel pretty sad to think that even if he does decide to go back to school and play dress-up as a princess (or more accurately, a princess firefighter), it will never again be with the same unproblematic, unchecked joy as those first few times, before he was informed that boys 'don't do that.'  It will never again be without the anxiety of going against the grain.

I'm glad my boy got at least those 3 and 3/4 years without hearing those words (or the sentiment behind them).  I wish Boy-o could go his whole life never having heard them. 

I wish those words were obsolete.

school angst cont'd

The school open-house was a great success.  Boy-o was beside himself in ecstacy in his new surroundings.   First there was the bathroom - which we very nearly didn't make it to! - only to hear "LOOK MAMA!  They're just my size!"  Good toilets.  Check! 

Next we moved onto the music room, which could only be described as mecca for the music loving kid.  There were a plethora of xylophones in different sizes and different materials, a huge floor drum and many, many smaller ones, tin whistles and shakers and bells galore!  Boy-o would have stayed there the whole open-house if we hadn't encouraged him to move on.  Next we found our way to a small reading room, filled with books and books and books, along with a lovely cozy reading tent and many comfy cushions.  And from there, the main classroom, replete with a sand table, water table, painting table, kitchen/dress-up area, cars and a roadway carpet, a great big wooden blocks station and several kid sized sitting tables.  Check, check, check, check and CHECK!

Boy-o vibrated happily through the open-house, moving from toy-to-toy, station-to-station, introducing himself to the other kids and parents in a voice so excited and quick that no one could possibly hope to understand him.  No matter, his joy was infectious and he quickly spread smiles around the room. 

But as Boy-o vibrated with happiness, I vibrated with nervous energy.  Having scanned the room full of kids and their parents, I knew right away ours was the only queer family.  In many ways, this doesn't matter.  The school we have chosen has a progressive diversity policy, our childs' teacher is down with the gays, and willing to take the issue on the classroom if need be.  Many of the parents we met that night were completely non-plussed by L. and I as a family unit and very friendly.  So - what's the problem then?  What's the big deal?  Why, as we headed out to the car with an exhausted baby and a wired and happy Boy-o, was I struck by this huge, overwhelming sadness and guilt? 

I was just struck that night with this sudden and crushing - well - I guess grief is the right word, that I was the source of what will make my son "different" from his classmates.  And before you say it, YES - I know.  Everyone is 'different.'  Every kid deals with something or other/gets teased for something or other/kids are mean/kids are resilient/blah blah blah.  I know this is all true. 

But here's what I also know to be true.  I desparately want to not be the source of why my son gets teased, or razzed, or god forbid, bullied, in school.  I desparately want to keep him in this little bubble where his family can be 'normal' and okay; where people won't tell him he's lacking because he doesn't have a dad; that his family is an abomination; that his parents are child molesters, that he must be a fag because we are gay, or the myriad of other bizarre and baseless things the wacko folks like to say about us queers.  I want him not to have to confront the homophobia and heterosexism that permeates our culture. 

And even if he doesn't get bullied, razzed, or teased - even if people are fantastically nice and aware and sweet to him - it's still hard to be different sometimes.  And the source of the major difference my kiddo is going to have to deal with at school is us.  His parents.  The two people who love him more than anything else in the world.  It stinks.  It smarts.  It terrifies me.

It's knee-jerky, emotional stuff I'm talking about here.  And right now, it's MY baggage, not his.  He may well go through his whole life not giving a rat's ass that he has two mommies, or even, gasp, being glad that he has two mommies.  The guilt I am wading through, the sadness I am wading through, and especially the fear I am wading through as we send our son out into the world of Redneckville without us to shelter him, is *mostly* mine.  I say mostly because I wouldn't have to feel so guilty, so sad, so afraid for my kids if we didn't live in such a crap-assed, homophobic (racist, classist, etc.) world.  If we weren't so complacent about the various kinds of  'isms' that pervade our lives and the lives of others.

The biggots are right about one thing - homophobia isn't fair to our children.   Ignorance isn't fair to anyone, really.  (But of course they miss that last bit of the equation).

Right about now, I'm just really, really, really wishing I could keep my sweet, trusting, loving, open, gentle Boy-o from having to learn about that ignorance so early on in his life...

*and crossing my fingers that maybe, just maybe, he won't*