You're different...

We went to the park to play with some other gay parents and their kids last weekend. We've been a few times this summer, and we've had a really good time. We go partly because we want the boys to know that there are lots of other kids with families like theirs, but mostly we go because the boys really need to have some playmates, and there are precious few in our neighborhood. Also, they still do not go to daycare or pre-school, so they really need the interaction. They are getting much better about sharing the playground equipment with other kids, and they are losing some of their inhibitions.

We've played with E* a few times now. He's about a year older than the boys. He and his daddy are both quite nice, and E* lets us push his trucks around in the wood chips and tries desperately to get us to understand how to play soccer (his dad is quite good at that).

Well, last Friday AFTER mommy stopped Meatball from peeing right in the middle of the playground (yes, he was dropping his drawers right there to the east of the slide), we were playing trucks with E*. As if it was just occurring to him (and maybe it was), Meatball looked at E*, reached up and touched E*'s ear, and said "You have brown ears." No mention of E*'s brown nose, fingers, knees, arms, cheeks, or toes. Just his ears. E* replied with "That's because I'm brown."

And that was the end of that.

Difference. Recognized, noted, and then disregarded.

It was sweet, really, until I found that it was bittersweet, too. It won't be long before someone tells the boys that they are different because their family is very different. It won't be long before some idiot's young child will say hurtful things (learned from said idiot) to them that will make them feel like outsiders. Someone will always be telling them that the people they love are rotten. (I know because I hear those messages constantly, and if they listened hard enough, my family would hear them, too.) Then, they will be hurt, and angry, and they'll want to be hurtful back. They will have to grow up - possibly faster than their peers - and that makes me sad.