I don't know who I love more, spiderboy or babyBlu
This thread made me laugh but also quite sad. I had an 'alternative' childhood and we were always the weird kids at school. Felt very different and isolated and would never want my child to go through that. I really understand the instinct to protect children from bullying by making them as 'normal' as possible.
On the other hand, here I am about to have a child who will have two mummies in an interracial relationship. (We'll never be able to move to Frinton now. ) I worry myself sick about what she may have to go through . But it drives me mad when people challenge me (and many have), asking me if I think it's fair/if I have the right to put in a child in a position where she will be bullied at school. I want to say to them, "Well, that's up to you, isn't it? If all the adults who said that lesbians shouldn't have children because of bullying actually DID something about the bullying, and made sure that their children didn't perpetuate negative attitudes, we might get some progress round here".
All of us parents have to decide how much we want our children to pioneer changes in the world they live in. Surely we don't want them to just support the status quo, but also we don't want them to suffer with their peers because of our views. It's a really tricky line to tread, I think. Though I personally think frock-friendly three-year-olds are safely on one side of that line. Don't nearly all tots love wearing sparkly things, whatever their gender (or is that just the ones I know?) And don't the boys get that suppressed out of them damn fast, if not by their parents then by their peers? Lord knows the big bad world will come to bear on spiderboy soon enough - in the meantime, he's having fun and is safe, so good for him.