Someone explain this to me...
Can someone please tell me what is wrong with a nine year old knowing that gay people exist? I mean, seriously. I wouldn't want to be in charge of getting into detailed explanations of gay sex (or straight sex, for that matter) to a little kid, but is it really necessary to talk in hushed tones and say that it's his "friend" (finger quotes included), and actually forbid me from talking about it?
She said she wanted me to leave her "in her own little world". Is there something wrong with the real world, in which sometimes boys like boys, and sometimes girls like girls, and sometimes a person likes boys and girls, and sometimes a person doesn't like anyone at all? And sometimes a person who looks like a boy feels like a girl, and sometimes a person who looks like a girl feels like a boy, and any and all variations of sexuality and gender roles in between?
I know that technically, it's my mom's right to decide when and how my sister is exposed to ideas about sexuality, but I'm tempted to go explain it to her right now out of sheer... indignation and offense. Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away - and it's not a problem anyway! Ignoring an entire group of people, and entire range of feelings and possibilities, just because you think it's kinda squicky? And worse, forcing your child into ignorance, because you don't think that she should be exposed to different kinds of people than your own heteronormal ideal? It's just... UGH. There should be a law somewhere against forcing ignorance about this kind of thing. It's not dangerous. It's not bad. It's not age-inappropriate. It's not like she's going to have nightmares about it. In fact, if she discovers at some point that she's not heterosexual, she'll probably have an even harder time with it because she's being raised to believe that there's something wrong with it, that it's unnatural, that it's the sort of thing that's just not spoken about.
I... I don't even know how I should handle this.
She said she wanted me to leave her "in her own little world". Is there something wrong with the real world, in which sometimes boys like boys, and sometimes girls like girls, and sometimes a person likes boys and girls, and sometimes a person doesn't like anyone at all? And sometimes a person who looks like a boy feels like a girl, and sometimes a person who looks like a girl feels like a boy, and any and all variations of sexuality and gender roles in between?
I know that technically, it's my mom's right to decide when and how my sister is exposed to ideas about sexuality, but I'm tempted to go explain it to her right now out of sheer... indignation and offense. Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away - and it's not a problem anyway! Ignoring an entire group of people, and entire range of feelings and possibilities, just because you think it's kinda squicky? And worse, forcing your child into ignorance, because you don't think that she should be exposed to different kinds of people than your own heteronormal ideal? It's just... UGH. There should be a law somewhere against forcing ignorance about this kind of thing. It's not dangerous. It's not bad. It's not age-inappropriate. It's not like she's going to have nightmares about it. In fact, if she discovers at some point that she's not heterosexual, she'll probably have an even harder time with it because she's being raised to believe that there's something wrong with it, that it's unnatural, that it's the sort of thing that's just not spoken about.
I... I don't even know how I should handle this.