My sons joke about gays and I HATE it!

[Solo2]

I am absolutely sick of my sons joking about 'gays' but the more I show them how upset I am, the more they go on about it.

I've always considered myself largely heterosexual but on a natural continuum and could also be open to a relationship with a woman. I'm a single mother by choice and my twin 8 yr old sons are donor conceived and have several half-siblings in the USA. The ones we know about so far are all being raised by lesbian couples.

It's therefore especially important to me to bring up my sons to be accepting of everyone and to celebrate each unique individual as they are. If/ when they meet their half-siblings oneday, I want them to be comfortable with the fact that they're all (as far as we know at the moment) being brought up by two mummies.

My twins are now at an age when the word 'gay' is being used by their peers as a derogatory term. I've talked endlessly to them about how silly it is to do this and used examples like, "surely you'd not use the term 'blue-eyes' as a joke or a put-down and how silly if anyone was nasty to someone just because of characteristics they're born with?!"

I've also told them that if I had another relationship, it could be with a woman as much as a man.

I cite various examples of people we know who are gay/lesbian, including their lovely headmaster and also a close colleague of mine and another person who's recently celebrated her civil partnership and adopted two children. They seem to take it all in but the peer pressure is so strong. I've said that at least they shouldn't join in using the term 'gay' in a sneering manner and when they're older, they may even have the courage to question those who do.

But certainly at home, one of the twins especially, constantly uses the term 'gay' as a 'joke', eg like today, he said, "Oh MY pancake is gay! I've got a gay pancake" and yesterday said something like, "Oh he's gay with him" about two TV characters who were just child friends.

I must admit, I tend to explode with anger, as I've had enough but assume this is probably making it worse, as he/they get a reaction.

I wondered if anyone here has any similar experience, even though obviously your DCs are being raised directly in gay/lesbian couple or single gay and lesbian families? We are not at all a conventional or traditional family ourselves, yet here I am with 'prejudiced' sons, despite doing everything I can to ensure they're not.

Any advice/ ideas/ shared experiences?

Kids naturally copy their school friends as a way of fitting in with the crowd and belonging. My nephew uses the same word.

It's irritating but they are only eight & being silly goes with the territory. They don't have any idea what their use of "gay" means but there's no prejudice involved. At worst they use it because it's taboo & that makes it more exciting.

I'd just ignore them. You never use the phrase yourself and they know it's wrong. I think they'll grow out of it.

When I was at school, the boys favourite insult was "spas", short for spastic but meaning basically stupid. They all grew out of that and turned out normal polite adults.

Why should you even be upset by the word? It's just like swearing, just ignore it and they will stop trying to wind you up.
They accept you, but they also have peer pressure that singles them out due to their upbringing, they need to deal with it their own way.

I think it is one of those silly things you say when you are too young to understand why it would be offensive. As a child we used to say spas, gippo and probably gay too. These are words I would of course never dream of using now but as a child they were just silly words we didn't really understand.
Personally I would treat it as I would swearing. Ask them not use the word and explain why but not make a huge deal out it. They will grow out of it.

I used to get really upset with my pupils (senior school boys) who used the word gay to mean crap - especially as obviously some of the kids were struggling with their own sexuality and constantly hearing that being gay is in some way bad was clearly upsetting for some of them. I used to tell them off but they found it funny that I got so upset about it (as a young, female, left-leaning liberal in a traditional, right-wing boys's school my views were generally considered odd! It took a while but I think some of them might have begun to see that there's more than one way of looking at the world by the time I left...I hope!!). In the end I took the tactic of just repeating their sentence but replacing the word gay - e.g.

Boy to another boy - You like Band X? That's so gay!

Me - You like Band X? I don't.

Usually accompanied by a glare! Eventually they stopped doing it in front of me - whether they stopped altogether I don't know though. I expect (hope) it's the kind of thing people grow out of.

On a different but similar note, I have been really upset recently with how the word rape has become part of a weird new vocabulary for pupils. e.g. facebook-raping or 'fraping' or yawn-raping (where someone yawns without covering their mouth and another person puts their finger in). I'm at a girls' school now, and I never heard this from the boys but it seems really accepted here. (Though they don't use gay in the same way.)

Sorry - just realised this thread's been dead for three months!