Today was an uncomfortable day for me. I was placed in a position where I had to defend my parental label to my two younger Chicklets. I was asked by someone ( whom I strongly think is gay themselves) who the mother of my two younger children were. I stated that both my wife and I were their Moms. He said again, “Yes, but who is the mother?” I restated my answer saying that they are both children of our marriage. This, unfortunately, was not enough for this man. He then said, “Your wife is the biological mother of the two girls, so then who is their biological father?”
At this point, I am about screaming in my head, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?” Can this man really be this dense!? No, of course he isn’t; this man ( I just can’t bring myself to use the word “gentleman” to describe this individual) is purposely trying to insinuate that I am not really a mother or parent to my two Chicklets. A colleague of mine decided to step in at this point and remind this man that it is public knowledge that here in Canada we are fortunate enough to live in a nation where two people of the same sex are indeed legally the parents of any children born within their marriage when unknown sperm donors are used.
This man had no other reason to pursue this line of questioning other than to try to negate my role as a valid parent to my two young beautiful daughters. I can’t say I have ever been harassed or bullied in this way before. I have been reflecting on my feelings and I now understand one very sad truth about bullying and why so many gay teens see no better option than suicide.
Bullying a gay person does not just hurt. It attacks every fiber of who they are as a person; a person they as a teenager are still trying to figure out themselves! I am in my early 40’s now and confidently know who I am as a person, and I felt attacked, broken down, and judged to be someone or something that is undesirable and illegitimate. How can we expect teens, or children even younger, be expected to handle gender-based bullying!? The truth is we can’t. We as a society MUST begin to stand up on behalf of these individuals who are being bullied and say, “Enough! No more!”
I truly believe that change must start with ourselves and how we live our lives. As long as we continue to differentiate between traditional relationships and marriages and same-sex relationships and marriages, I don’t see how the bullying will ever end. As stated in this recent post on Facebook, someday…..someday we will all just be “beautiful families.” Until such time, the bullying will continue because we will be labelled as different, as the “non” normal. The definition of normal is basically, anything that commonly happens or occurs. So, in fact, we are examples of today’s “normal” families!
So the next time you see a family with children and their two parents, please, if you must put any label on them, may I suggest you label them with the term, “beautiful” family.
Thank-you for reading my rant today,
Sheri
2mommiesof3 