...I've been thinking... (enter Bill saying "oh no..." lol). But join me for two minutes here.
Think about the world. Yup the whole globe. We teach our kids all the time about how big and beautiful the world is with so many people living in competely different ways. So take that and think just a little more deeply about how wildly different life is from city to city and country to country.
Think that while I sit typing this in my kitchen, there are billions of people doing wildly different things in wildly different situations. Right this very minute. Think about what a mom exactly my age may be doing, thinking, and feeling in rural Burundi or in metropolitian Shanghi. Expand that out to think about what a grandfather in northern India or a young man in Russia may be doing, thinking, and feeling right now.
You could draw so many similarities (amongst the moms, maybe our primary worry in our mother role is making sure we're raising our kids to the best of our ability, etc.), but you'd be crazy to say you didn't see a thousand differences too. Probably even a million.
But as we think about it, don't we all intrinsically know that the diversity around the globe is maybe the most astoundingly wonderful thing about human existence?
Now bring it back home. To think we're having trouble within our own beautiful country reconciling such small differences as gender preference, skin color, abilities... The fact that a man may love another man instead of a woman... is that love a difference that we're willing to hurt people over? Really?
(And if you're going to get into the religion topic, I'm not going to go there here except to say, take a closer look. Every major religion shares some major tenents - respect for human dignity, compassion, and equality of humans in the eyes of God.)
When you compare same-sex love to the vast differences around this planet of how we live day to day lives in comparison with other humans around the world... we're hung up on these little things? With so many other big things to worry about? It's actually silly... until it's heartbreaking.
Let's do better than this - starting by teaching our kids how to do better in our own homes.
On a related note - coming up soon - how we talk to our kids about Pride at home (without talking about sex). This was a recent point of contention in a viral post on social media on the page of a small toy shop, Wildings, that I love - it drove me to write this whole post, actually. The business posted a simple pride image - that to me was SO benign. But the (many) opposing commenters were having trouble disconnecting pride from sex, and therefore feeling it was inappropriate for kids to celebrate Pride. And I thought it was ridiculous at first, but then as I thought more about it, I realized maybe it is hard to untangle depending on where you're coming from. Like seriously. And back to differences... didn't I just say above that we're all coming from different places?
So then is it my job to educate (as a non-expert)? Eh no and yes. I hate conflict (huge scardey cat over here even if I look brave), but it's also hard for me not to step in when I see, what I consider to be, a misunderstanding. And one that is hurting people. If I have ideas for helping and ability to share, I do feel a duty to do that. Complete strangers have done that for me in areas I'm unfamiliar with or having a hard time thinking through. Being able to open up one pathway (especially if we think about the ripple effect down to our kids) is worth the time and energy to write this up.
So I figured we should share how we celebrate pride and diversity in June - and as always, I didn't study in this area, so this won't be a one-size-fits-all, but figure we could share our ideas and see if anything sticks with you! :)
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