Let the Children Be Less Sad

I think one thread that connects the two stories of “I Like Guys” and “Go Carolina” is the fact that there needs to be some element of sexuality education for kids. Obviously, these two essays are from the same author and from a different time period, so they’re not exactly current on their issues, and they are only from one point of view, but the fact still stands. People should be able to accept themselves for who they are and it needs to happen earlier than it does now.

It isn’t as if I’m suggesting that kids are told about what gay and lesbian mean in the first grade. But education about issues that might be easy to misunderstand and be a little afraid of often leads to tolerance and acceptance. And this education doesn’t have to be something big- but just some movie in class that casually features two parents of the same gender, and then mentioning “oh, two moms is a thing sometimes” would be an easy thing. This probably have gone a long way for David and his classmates to be able to quit being in their secret society of self-loathing, as he called it.

Though saying that it would be easy isn’t exactly accurate- a show on Disney Channel had a same gender couple on one of its shows for children and it got quite a bit of backlash- and that happened in January of this year. A group called One Million Moms said that “Disney has decided to be politically correct instead of providing family-friendly programming,” implying that even seeing a gay couple makes something less family friendly, which leads to the conclusion that there’s something fundamentally wrong and inappropriate about this… which brings us right back to a society based on self-loathing for the kids who see this sort of message, because some part of themselves is said to be fundamentally wrong and inappropriate. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/03/one-million-moms-good-luck-charlie_n_4717515.html)

But honestly, teaching children that gay couples aren’t horrible should be the bare minimum. Middle school students should be aware of other sexualities, and if they had a basic understanding that gay is okay, then figuring out that other sexualities are also okay won’t be such a stretch. And accepting other gender orientations isn’t a stretch either. And so kids can actually accept themselves and not be miserable which should be the goal, in general.