“Mommy, what does gay mean?”
That’s what my five-year-old son Cheiron asked me this morning as he was putting his socks on, preparing for his exciting day at kindergarten.
The question came at the height of our morning family frenzy.
Cheiron and his sister, Circe, typically get up at 6:45 a.m. and the mommy-rushing show begins: “Eat your breakfast.” “Stop talking.” “Don’t pet the dog.” “Put away your dishes.”
I constantly have the fire under them so they make it to the bus and I can start my work day as early as possible. Today was no exception. I had lots to do and needed them to get the heck out of kitchen, up to the bathroom to wash up, and quickly dress for the day. I needed to start extra early today so my husband stepped in for his morning shift early to help getting shoes on, and walking them to the bus.
Everything was going well. I was in the bathroom reading three newspapers early, and knocks on the door by my kids with a host of problems and questions were easily dealt with.
Circe came to my door to tell me Jack from “Little House on the Prairie”, the dog from the book we were reading together last night, had actually survived the flood. She had read ahead when she was done fixing her bed and wanted to share her happiness with me that Jack was indeed still alive. I said, “that’s so great C,” and she headed off to read some more.
I was done with my morning rituals ready to jump in the shower when the big question came from Cheiron, who was finishing dressing in his bedroom. “What does gay mean?”
It was a like a needle scratching a record. I suddenly realized I couldn’t just blow him off with a short answer and head for the shower.
“What?”, I said, hoping maybe I didn’t hear him right but knowing deep inside what I had heard.
“What is gay mommy?” “Where did you hear that,” I asked. “I don’t know. What is it?”
So I sat down with the little bugger, who doesn’t miss anything going on around him and always wants to know what everything means.
I realized by entering his bedroom and sitting down on the bed I was probably sending my whole day out of whack.
It wasn’t time for a special mommy and Cheiron moment but what choice did I have.
We have come to convince ourselves that somehow we can attain this thing called “work-life balance”, but unfortunately folks it doesn’t exist.
My morning was a tiny example of this. What I went through wasn’t a tragedy. People have to juggle much worse, or aren’t even lucky enough to see their kids during the breakfast routine. But the bottom line is you can’t plan on things, and you can’t balance life in any way shape or form.
No one can plan for a talk about homosexuality at 7:15 a.m.
That’s the key right there, you can’t plan for what life throws you, especially if you have a family to deal with.
OK, I know I sound dire, but don’t give up on life yet.
I called a blogger colleague of mine Cali Yost, who has a great concept of “Work-Life Fit”, not balance. She offers some hope.
It’s all about having some general idea of what your day will be like, she says. Given that, you can probably get 75 percent of what you want accomplished done.
Not bad odds I guess.
“People just let life happen to them,” says Yost, who is author of “Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You.” “In this 24-7 high-tech, global world reality, you’re asking for trouble with that.”
She says the ten minutes I took explaining gayness to my son shouldn’t have been a major issue. “You’ll probably make that up somewhere else in the day. Maybe you say, ‘I’m not going to watch American Idol tonight.’”
The key, she advises, is having contingency plans for those busy days, or for that unexpected project at work. Most of us don’t have those plans, she adds.
So, here are some things to keep in mind from Yost’s book of balance:
* Have a contingency plan in place. I always say, parents should over hire child care.
* Be thoughtful and conscious of what you want to accomplish in a day, a week, a month, a year.
* Know you can plan for 75 percent of what will happen on a good day.
* And don’t, don’t, don’t beat yourself up when things aren’t perfect.
Maybe you don’t have that talk with your son in the morning. “You could have said, ’sorry honey, we’ll totally talk about it tonight.’”
“It’s okay,” she adds, “if he learns what gay means tonight.”
May 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am
It might be a CLM, but I put my family first 100% of the time. Thankfully, I’m with a very flexible employer, but, if it came down to it, I would still opt to take care of my family even if it means losing my job.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I understand your take on this, but how do you take care of your family if you don’t get a paycheck? Isn’t that a big part of how we “take care” of the kids we choose to bring into the world?
May 6th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
We’d get by. We always have. We didn’t start with what we have now (my wife and I were once on Food Stamps and living in subsidized housing), but we would begin again. I’d work multiple jobs and sell everything, if necessary. You don’t need a nice house or two cars or most anything that we (culturally) assume that we “must have”. As a family, we would do what we would need to do in order to survive. It was the attitude my grandmother had as she fled from Russia, through Eastern Europe, and eventually to the United States with two of her children (her husband had been sent to a gulag years earlier, and two other children were taken from the family by “secret police” raids).
My philosophy is to do what is right and to trust God with the details. We’ve always had food to eat, shelter, and clothing, even when I once went almost four months without a paycheck. Besides, we will always have each other, no matter what our lot in life may be.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:20 am
gay - /geɪ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[gey] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation adjective, -er, -est, noun, adverb
–adjective 1. having or showing a merry, lively mood: gay spirits; gay music.
Any other explanation to a child younger than 12 would be cofusing at best. Children are like sponges. They are so much more able to comprehend any ideology by simple objective deduction. My highly intelligent, radical feminist 16 year old daughter recently asked why a Presidential candidate had uttered the phrase ‘drink the kool-ade’ ? I personally abhor this phrase. I explained to her in a synopsis about Rev. Jim Jones and Guyana. I was confident she would look further into this detestable incident. She did. She went as far as to say the candidate, whom she had a fondness for, really has little reguard for humanity. I agreed and was rather proud to understand her comprehension.
Now put the same phrase to a child under 12 or so. Frankly I would be reluctant to have such a child so young investigate the incident. To me it would be like allowing them to watch a severe R rated movie. It is almost frightening when you consider the things that are not necessarily on line, but ina school library. You sure could not prevent any child from exploring logically. What would you do? I would simply say many years ago a bad man poisoned kool-aid and people got sick and died. THe simplest answer is all you need.
I believe in life, not everythign applies to you. In fact 99% of all history has nothing to do with any of us. And no one can predict the future. I have always loved what were allegedly Albert Einstien’s last words…’Time keeps everything from happening all at once..’
May 7th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Robert,
I’ve wrangled with how much to share with my children (the eldest of whom is 15, the youngest of whom are toddlers) many times over the years. We’ve not been able to skirt the other meaning of the word “gay”, because our kids have come home having heard from their friends about parents who have left home to live with same-sex partners (and we live in a small, exurban community!). We opted for “the simplest answer” we could present to them at the time: “You know how men and women will love each other, get married, and be with each other? Some people think it’s okay for two men or two women to be with each other like a married couple, and they call themselves ‘gay’.” Their responses ranged from “Huh?” to “Gross!”. The curiosity of the moment was satisfied.
In this society, twelve may be late for broaching this topic. The son who asked me about this (at the dinner table with everyone present, of course), had only just turned 10. More and more movies and TV program have either implicit or explicit homosexual references. If kids are watching movies or TV, they’re exposed to the topic. I’d rather be open and honest (with details appropriate to the child’s current age and understanding of human sexuality) than be secretive, effectively creating a family “taboo” that may do more to fuel curiosity than to sate it.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:16 am
I often try to recollect exactly how it was I discovered things. I am 47. If you ask me, I would say that parenting today is more authentic than at any time in history. I honestly believe we show our emotions on our sleeve so much that those little buggers just instinctively know how to push our buttons. Children today are no different than children of any generation past. We parents have a way of keeping our children behind an ironclad wall. Our own children scale that wall every chance they get. Something tells me the next generation will be alot stronger as far as parenting goes because as much as we ‘protect’ them, they really do have the tools to know it all.