My kids were oblivious. We had just left the art museum when, coming toward us from across the plaza, were two athletic, college-age guys. They looked like they could be rising stars on their university’s baseball team.
They were holding hands.
My kids politely nodded hello, but continued to walk by unfazed.
As a gay man, seeing a young gay couple rebelling against the norm and defiantly holding hands walking through downtown offered me an opportunity. As a gay parent, cognizant that, though we are growing in numbers, there are still relatively few of us, I hadn’t wanted my kids to miss this affirming moment. I wanted them to see that there are others just like their gay parents. But they didn’t notice.
As every parent attempts to do, we have tried to introduce our kids to and surround them with people who might build upon our own identity and values.
Recognizing that our home life may not be typical, we’ve welcomed into our fold a diversity of families: traditional two-parent heterosexual, single parent, divorced, families with adopted kids, two-dad families, two moms, and others like ourselves who co-parent with our children’s mothers.
We have actively engaged teachers and principals in our kids’ school, introduced them to our family, offered the opportunity for them to ask questions, and given support as needed.
No strangers to gay events, our kids have repeatedly watched, and even marched in, Denver’s gay pride parade. They have helped us raise money for Colorado AIDS Project and Project Angel Heart — two organizations with roots in the gay community.
On the other hand, we’ve also placed our kids in situations where we’ve worried that our gay family will not be respected. Despite our distaste for the teaching of the Catholic Church on homosexuality and the blatant homophobia shown by a few of its less thoughtful members, our oldest son goes to a Catholic school. We valued our own Christian upbringings and we wanted our kids to develop the same sense of moral responsibility that we did, to value all life equally, to grow in a community of faith similar to the ones we had been brought up in.
Though some of our gay friends thought us crazy, our son also joined the Cub Scouts. The national scouting organization has defended its dislike for gays to the Supreme Court, yet we see the value in a setting in which our son can learn discipline and respect with other boys his age.
All of our thoughtful crafting of influences seems to go unrecognized by our kids, however. They appear unfazed by our maneuverings as they go along in the mundane day-to-day of the only family they have known.
Our mornings are spent getting the kids off to school on time, evenings on deciding what will be made for dinner, and in between weighing how much time gets to be spent in front of the TV versus playing outside.
We revel, as other families do, in the joy of early Christmas mornings or the first day of summer vacation. We share in the thrill of the first words read from a new chapter book or the first blue ski run negotiated — at a glacially slow pace — at Copper. We wander the Platte on a wild adventure to find and eliminate bad guys before ending the hunt with pizza at the Wazee Supper Club.
Between homework and play, we put forth a conscious effort to introduce our kids to people just like us as well as those vastly different. We have tried to assemble a world around them that cherishes the worth of all people, that values diversity.
Given the complexities of life, our lack of equivalent structural supports such as gay marriage, and the still relatively pervasive anti-gay biases in our predominantly heterosexual society, this world has taken significant effort to construct at times. Yet my kids remain oblivious.
Or maybe our efforts are paying off. Perhaps it is just me who has been oblivious to how much of their world they truly do see.
Mark Thrun (mthrun@comcast.net) of Denver is a public health physician and co-parent of two spirited little boys.
