Missed Opportunity

One afternoon last spring, I received a flurry of text messages from my sons’ step-mom. Seems a neighborhood girl had found her mom’s Victoria’s Secret catalogue in the mail and was showing it around. B. was one of the boys who looked at it. How step-mom (G.) found out is beyond me, but my ex was out of town and she wanted me to talk to B. about what he had done wrong.

If only she knew the kinds of sex-talks I have had with my boys.

I caught that opportunity to help him be more comfortable with his sexuality. Of course, I asked him about the catalogue, about why he hadn’t told me when he was supposed to, and about what made G. upset. Then I asked him, “Did you think you were doing anything wrong when you looked at it?” He said no, and I agreed.  We discussed why I thought it was perfectly normal for him to want to look at the pictures and that I did not share G’s thinking that he needed to be punished.

Thanks to Glee, (Because, really, you knew it was going to be mentioned somehow, didn’t you?) I’ve had another important opportunity: to discuss homosexuality. We’ve talked about what it means to be homosexual and defined “gay” and “lesbian” because those questions came up as the boys watched some episodes with me. (Their dad and step-mom don’t like the show. Imagine that.) Kurt and Blaine and Santana are characters who are gay. This doesn’t mean the actors are. Once B. had mulled over that idea, he asked about it being weird for a straight actor to play a gay character; specifically, he wondered how Darren-as-Blaine felt about kissing Chris-as-Kurt. While we talked about the difference between acting and reality, we also discussed attraction, and how some people are born to be attracted to the opposite sex, some to the same sex. We even discussed bi-sexuality a little, but by then he had a lot to process.

In a later conversation, we talked about why his grandparents do not feel the same way about homosexuality.

These are the opportunities I seized and believe I handled well. The boys know almost no subject is taboo with me. In fact after my mastectomy last year, B. asked if I still had nipples (although he wasn’t quite as direct).

So, I’ve been doing my best to raise an enlightened, tolerant child comfortable with sexuality.

Then, last weekend, I blew it.

As I was driving the boys home after a weekend with me, they started ranking music artists. They decided that Pink and Kelly Clarkson and Adele were definitely influential; Brittany Spears was yesterday’s news (did I mention they are precocious and funny?). For the male artists, they chose Usher, Eminem, and some others; then, J. mentioned Justin Bieber. J. defended his choice by saying that while he doesn’t like Bieber, as a musician Bieber is important. B. just declared “He’s gay.”

I was in shock. My initial reaction was to ask why B. thought that and to remind him that Beiber dates Selena Gomez (B.’s first celebrity crush). B. told me many kids in his school were saying it; one had even supposedly read it in an interview. I lectured B. about the danger of spreading gossip and saying mean things about people without truth, but then the conversation moved on.

What I should have asked him is “Why does that matter?” By suggesting that calling Justin Beiber “gay” was an insult, I just completely reinforced the notion that homosexuality is bad. I can’t believe I undercut all of my previous lessons. I don’t want him to become one of those kids who mutters “that’s gay” about anything he doesn’t like or with which he doesn’t agree. Sure, this probably won’t destroy all I’ve done, but it makes me aware that I still have a long way to go myself.