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| Photo by Greta Hyland |
Written by Paul Dail
As you are considering a few last minute holiday gift ideas for your kids, let me offer a little advice. Unless you want your son to be gay, don’t buy a doll or a princess dress or a tiara. In fact, better shy away from it if you have a daughter in the house as well because then your son might want to play with those things. And then he’d turn gay.
Sounds pretty silly when stated like that, right?
As usual, before I throw too many stones, here are my confessions as a heterosexual father of a two-year-old son and four-year-old daughter.
In the past, I have worried about such things that I now believe are silly. This mostly applies to my son, as my wife and I would probably say we’ve encouraged our daughter to explore things that are outside the “girly” stuff. However, I will say I had a fleeting concern with her preoccupation with Pinocchio. After all, what if she one day decided she actually wanted to be a little boy?
Okay, that’s the craziest one. I think my beliefs regarding my son are more typical of those you see shunned on Facebook when carried out and congratulated when gone against, as in the cases of fathers who are said to be “doing it right” when they allow their sons to pick out the princess dress at Disneyland.
I will admit I was a little uncomfortable when my boy wanted to play with his sister’s Barbies or put on her fabulous pink dress. I consider myself a reasonable person, and when my wife tried to explain it away with the fact that he recognized those things as being of importance to his sister, I mostly believed her. But I couldn’t deny that nagging question, even as he proceeded to put Barbie in his monster dump truck and go tearing through the living room.
It’s not that I have any moral objections to someone being gay. I will love my children regardless of the path they choose (or is chosen for them maybe, but we’ll get to that in a minute), be it sexual preference, politically or religiously.
But if I had any say in the matter, it’s not a life I would choose for them. There, I said it. And here’s why.
First, I still have enough of that “carry on the bloodline” mindset to affect my judgment in this area. Before I had children, I wanted a son who would carry my name, but when I had my beautiful daughter, I decided the name wasn’t the most important thing. She would still carry a part of me with her when I was gone. And a part of my parents. And their parents.
And so on.
But if she should chose not to have children of her own (which could happen even if she were heterosexual, right?), that line of the family ends.
However, I decided I would love my children no matter what, right? Yes, but once I got over that whole “bloodline” thing, being gay still wasn’t a life I would choose. I’m not gay myself, but I don’t think you need to be to recognize it’s still not easy to be gay in our society.
Here’s what changed me (and mind you, I’m still in recovery). For all my talk of whether it was a life I would choose for my kids, I realized that it’s not my choice.
I don’t know where I come down on the whole “nature vs. nurture” argument when it comes to sexual preference, and a little research told me that scientists aren’t quite sure yet, either. Is it biological? Are people born straight or gay? Or is it a choice?
[Here is where I tell you how I have lots of gay friends]
I have lots of gay friends, and I think most of them would say it wasn’t really a choice. Some of them would support their belief with my earlier stated concerns about my own kids. In this world, why would they choose to be treated like an outsider or a sinner?
That’s not to say I don’t think some are making the choice. Like most things in life, I don’t believe it is completely black and white.
However, when it comes to being a parent, I don’t think it matters. The whole nature/nurture question shouldn’t even come into play. If it’s nature, it doesn’t matter how many football helmets or dresses or church pews we force our kids into; they’re gonna be gay.
If it’s nurture, is it really going to make that much of a difference if we let our boys play with Cinderella every now and then? How little power are we giving ourselves and our parenting abilities if we believe the simple choice of letting our sons wear a dress one day or play with princesses is going to “turn them gay.”
I’d like to think I’m doing a good enough job as a man that it won’t be as important what he chooses to wear so much as what he chooses to think, that he grows up to be a kind man. A man with the capacity to love.
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts or comments. For the first two weeks following publication of each of my columns, I personally respond to each comment within 48 hours.
Paul D. Dail received his BFA in English with a Creative Writing emphasis from the University of Montana, Missoula. In addition to freelance journalism and web content creation, he also enjoys writing creative nonfiction and fiction (with a penchant for the darker side of the page). His collection of flash fiction, “Free Five,” has spent over a year and a half in the top 50 Kindle Horror Shorts Stories since its publication in 2012. Currently he lives on the outskirts of Kanarraville, surrounded by the sagebrush and pinyon junipers, with his wife and two children.
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