My daughter refers to former President Bill Clinton as “Hillary Clinton’s husband.” Isn’t that the best?
Too often, we know and remember women by their relationship to men. I didn’t even notice that until a friend pointed it out to me in high school. I love that my girls are learning it so young. I hope we can give them a different kind of world than the one we inherited.
One Saturday morning, a few years back, one of my daughters approached me with a question: “Dada, are you a G?”
I had no idea what she meant. She was too young to know that G was slang for gangsta, right? I asked what she meant, and her answer surprised me. “Are you a boy who likes other boys?”
I realized what she meant by her question, and explained that no, I’m not gay, and that I love their mom, who is a woman. That answer seemed to satisfy her curiosity.
A few moments later, she walked into our bedroom where my wife was getting ready. I heard her ask, “Mama, are you an L?”
My wife asked what she meant, and her response sounded similar to mine: “No, I’m not lesbian. I love your dad, who is a man.”
My daughter came back to me and said, “Okay, so you and mom aren’t L or G. Are you T or B or Q?”
I realized then what was going on. It was PRIDE week at her school, and they were learning about different identities and different family structures.
I told her I wasn’t T or B or Q, either, and wondered to myself what I should say next. I was about to share what heterosexual meant, but she jumped in.
“Oh, so if you’re not an L or G or B or T or Q, then you must be an A. I looked at her quizzically. What did A mean? I wasn’t sure and eventually asked her.
“A is for Ally,” she explained.
I nodded to affirm her thought, and then I reflected on her presumption: If one doesn’t identify as LGBTQ+, then they at least respect and affirm them. They’re allies. Isn’t that such a beautiful way to look at the world?
I’ve long believed that one doesn’t have to belong to a group to care for the people of that group, and that one doesn’t have to experience a particular form of bigotry in order to stand against it. I don’t have to be Black to condemn anti-Black racism, just like you don’t have to be Sikh to condemn anti-Sikh hatred. Our humanity comes before our identities; if we truly hold life to be sacred, we have to learn to see that.
It’s an idea that many of us can agree on, though it’s a hard one to live by, especially when we’re constantly receiving the opposite messages: that the way other people live and love can threaten how we live and love.
This is precisely why it’s so powerful to view the world from the eyes of children, who haven’t yet been indoctrinated with tribalisms and hatreds. For children, the default is that we affirm and love one another, despite our differences.
What could our lives and our world look like if this was our starting point? How might our trust in one another change if, like my daughter, we assumed that all people deserve our respect and care, no matter who they are or who they love?
Children have so much to teach us. Thanks.
"Our humanity comes before our identities; if we truly hold life to be sacred, we have to learn to see that." Indeed. This is so lovely, and true, in all its difficult simplicity.
I remember having similar conversations with my son when he was young, how heartwarming was his direct and open curiosity about the world.