I’m staring at my computer screen trying to form a coherent thought, when suddenly I hear a squeaky voice coming from the bathroom.
“Boys can only marry girls, and girls can only marry boys,” my son is telling himself.
I walk over and peek around the corner; he’s sitting on the toilet, feet dangling, having a conversation with himself.
“What?” I say, “Where did you hear that? Who told you that?”
“It’s true,” he says, “I know it is.”
“It’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
Great; is this a discussion I want to have with him right now? I decide yes; it’s never too early to teach your child the value of a political quagmire. Oh, and a lesson on tolerance; there’s that. On the other hand, he is only five years old. Should I cop out? Or should I dive in? Decisions, decisions.
“You marry whom you love,” I finally tell him. “Whether that’s a boy or a girl; it doesn’t matter.”
“Okay,” he says, “I’ll marry Isabella.”
“You can’t; she’s your sister.”
“Why?”
“You just can’t. Take it from me.”
Where does this focus on marriage come from? First, we had the whole issue of marrying inanimate objects and animals; now this: is this what five-year-olds talk about at school? I don’t remember this from my own pre-school; as far as I know, you’re supposed to discuss toys, the alphabet, and who has the coolest blocks. This just goes to show: I know nothing.
I try again: “You marry who you love; but they can’t be related to you.”
“Okay,” he says, “Then maybe I’ll marry Kala.”
‘Kala’ is a girl in his preschool class; Mendel reports that she likes him too, so there. It’s settled.
“You know, you don’t have to decide right now; it’s kind of a big deal. You might want to wait a while.”
“Or I can marry Teddy.”
“Exactly; see? You can’t make up your mind. How about you give it another thirty years or so, before you commit?”
“And then I can marry a boy?”
“If that’s who you pick, yes. It doesn’t matter.”
As I walk away and leave him sitting on the toilet, he starts talking to himself again:
“Boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls.”
Apparently, he’s internalized my words; let’s hope that seals the deal, and we can go back to talking about the coolest blocks for a while.
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Comments
You answered a question of why can't I marry my sister with "You just can’t. Take it from me.”
This is a fallacy. It’s great that you told your son that it was Okay to love boys as well as girls and to keep an open mind about same sex marriages. But then you closed it off with the thought that close relations are wrong. It’s not uncommon for kids to say that they want to marry their mother, father, or siblings. But as we get older that idea soon looses favor because society shunts it. But the idea was to encourage the fact that it is okay to marry whomever he so chooses so you should have gone with the “If that is what your sister and you want then that is fine.”
I have to politely disagree; while I hope that, by the time he is grown up, gay marriage will be legal, I don't hold out the same ideas regarding incest. Two entirely different things.
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