by advicefrommarta | May 24, 2013 | Education, Family Life
Last Fall my husband and I spent a lot of time debating internally, on here, and on Facebook what to do about our Boy Scout problem.
Our son wanted to be a Boy Scout. His sister is a Girl Scout and I could not be happier with the benefits she’s seen from that. He wanted the same. Except, of course, the two organizations are not the same and the Boy Scouts had a policy against allowing gay members or volunteers.
Although I found the views of the BSA repugnant, I was at a complete loss as to how to explain the problem to my son. My son has always known gay people. He has always known that some families are made up of two dads, two moms, one mom, one dad. In fact, he has stated how much more fun life would be if he had two dads (especially during the Super Bowl). In Kindergarten when another kid said that two boys couldn’t get married because you couldn’t have kids, my son put him in his place, “That’s not true, my Uncle Ken is married to another boy and he has kids!”
What he didn’t know though was that some people didn’t like when two boys were married to each other. He also didn’t know the word “gay.” My kids have always known how babies are born, they know that’s called sex. I found it very easy to explain to them. But the reason I found sex easy to explain is because I simply explained it as something you do to have babies. I never explained that there are other reasons to have sex. Although at his age I was running around trying to force boys to kiss me, both my kids are surprisingly uninterested in kissing and surprisingly unaware of the over-sexed culture we live in.
I was squeamish about telling my son he couldn’t be a Boy Scout because I thought doing so would open up a whole new conversation about sex. So we simply stalled. We didn’t say yes or no about being a Scout, I just didn’t sign him up. I bought us some time.
Then, Jason Collins came out. My son was understandably shocked to find me reading Sports Illustrated and he wanted to know why. So, I told him. In telling him I realized what an idiot I’d been, that it was totally easy to explain.
We talked about what it meant to be gay, that even if you aren’t married to another boy, you know you would want to marry or date another boy. We talked about how some people were mean to others who are gay, they don’t want gay people to do things other people can do. We talked about Jason Collins being brave for telling other people something they might not want to hear. We talked about how he was or wasn’t like Jackie Robinson. We talked about his uncles that are married to each other, and which of his uncles would want to marry other boys (Hey, Richard, you’ve been outed and your godson wants to know when you’re getting married). We talked about the Save-the-Date for two men he doesn’t know that’s currently on my fridge. I assured him that no one was being mean to his uncles (well, you know, for being gay).
Then he took the magazine from me and that was that. But it let me know that whatever the Boy Scouts decided it would be ok. My son now had the info he needed to be able to make the decision himself.
I’m glad we stalled last year. I don’t think we could have had that conversation a year ago. I’m glad we stalled last year, because now even though the Boy Scouts didn’t make a perfect decision, it’s clear that they’re progressing and I won’t feel bad if my son decides to join.
So, thank you BSA for inching towards the future and thank you Jason Collins for forcing me to see how easy the conversation actually was.
by advicefrommarta | Nov 8, 2012 | Family Life
Eighteen years ago today my friend Mark died, just a few weeks shy of his 25th birthday. It was the first time that my heart was truly, irrevocably broken.
I can’t pretend that Mark’s death hurts me the same way today that it did 18 years, or even 15 years, ago. For years I would wake up in a cold sweat at 3:00 a.m. on this date, the same time that I got the original call telling me he was gone.
That hasn’t happened in over a decade. Days, weeks, months, have gone by without me thinking about Mark. I have not seen him in my dreams in years. I used to love those dreams, where he would come to me, still so young, looking the way he looked before disease ravaged his perfect face. Sometimes he told me it was a mistake, he wasn’t really dead. Sometimes we just did normal things and in the back of my mind I kept trying to remember what was weird about it, what was off. Sometimes he told me he was dead but it was all ok.
If Mark were alive today he would be addicted to texting. He would use LOL in a completely annoying way. He would have voted for Obama (if he remembered to register) but secretly found Paul Ryan attractive. He would be on Twitter and Facebook. He would have his own YouTube channel and ok, he might be on Grindr. He might also be married, he would have loved to have seen gay marriage become legal anywhere.
Or maybe none of that is true. Twenty four is so young to die, there’s so much left to learn and do, so many ways you can still change. The other day my son picked up a picture I keep of Mark, already showing signs of illness, and me with red hair. He wanted to know about Mark,who he was and how he died. He asked about other people he remembered who died and we talked about Cousin Grey who died of a brain tumor and Uncle Eric who, as far as my son knows, died in an accident. People I did not even know when Mark died, but whose loss still haunts me. I kept a calm and neutral voice while obsessively thinking about his teenage cousin, struggling with leukemia. Hoping I’d never have to add her to the list.
This is the thing about a broken heart, it keeps beating, it keeps loving, and it keeps breaking.
by advicefrommarta | May 1, 2012 | Family Life
If you don’t know me you’ll simply have to take my word for the fact that I’m gay friendly. I am not a homophobe. I am a supporter of gay rights, including gay marriage rights.
Still, I’ve noticed a weird verbal tic I have. When I refer to the husband of another man, I stumble. I pause a second before saying the word, I stress it in an odd way. You know the first few times you use the word “boyfriend” to describe someone new in your life, or “fiancé” soon after you’re engaged, or “husband” right after you’re married. There’s a funny little hiccup when you say the word, you’re happy to say it, but it isn’t natural to you yet. You’re maybe even a little self-congratulatory when you say it. That’s how I say “husband” when talking about two married men.
I noticed it twice this weekend. Once, when I asked a friend if she knew the husband of a mutual friend of ours. Then again when I introduced the husband of another friend to my parents. I support gay marriage, but simply because of the world in which I grew up the language of gay marriage does not come naturally to me.
But, I noticed something else this weekend. It does come naturally to my children. I was making a list of people and inadvertently left off one of my friends. My daughter looked and said “Don’t you think Uncle V is going to notice that you have his husband on the list and not him?”
There was no pause, there was no hesitation. She has always known men married to other men, women married to other women. She has always known that families come in all different combinations. When she asks which mother of a fellow girl scout is going to be the chaperone she does not blink or stumble looking for the right word. She does not pause to be happy that she lives in a neighborhood where having two mothers is totally normal. As far as she knows, this is the norm everywhere in the world.
Here’s the thing, she is not alone in this world. This generation is full of kids just like her who don’t think twice about two men being married. This is what the world is coming to.
Isn’t it beautiful?
