{"id":176056,"date":"2014-12-21T16:31:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T16:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/21\/no-my-10-year-old-son-is-not-looking-for-a\/"},"modified":"2014-12-21T16:31:33","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T16:31:33","slug":"no-my-10-year-old-son-is-not-looking-for-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/21\/no-my-10-year-old-son-is-not-looking-for-a\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
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“No, my 10 year old son is not looking for a girlfriend. He likes boys.”<\/p>\n

In the beginning of this semester, the school of our children sent home a list of extracurricular clubs available for students. Our younger son chose a board games club, our older son chose Zumba. He loves singing and dancing, and we were all happy.<\/p>\n

As the semester passed, they both enjoyed their clubs, but the choice of the older one always received the same reaction, something like \u201cHe\u2019s smart. I bet he\u2019s the only boy there and he can choose the girl he wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first time this happened I was shocked, because I had never thought like that. In our family, we don\u2019t exactly follow the gender roles. My husband is the one that stays home and cooks. We have three sons and what they want to do is simply what they want to do. We accept them. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s not \u201cmale like\u201d. We asked our older boy if being the only boy there made him uncomfortable, he said \u201cNo\u201d and that was it.<\/p>\n

But people\u2019s reactions bothered me. My older son is gay. Yes, he\u2019s only 10, but he identifies himself as gay since he was 7. So this idea that he was there only for the girls bothered me. For years, we\u2019ve been dealing with a good number of shocked reactions for our son\u2019s sexual orientation, but I never stop being bothered by people assuming that my son\u2019s straight. At some point, I got so bothered that I started to correct people.<\/p>\n

“No”, I say, “he\u2019s not interested in girls. He\u2019s gay. He says that girls are his friends.” So the reaction is “Oh, really? How does he know that? He\u2019s so young\u2026” These people don\u2019t see the contradiction in their words. They assumed my son was straight and wanted to be with girls, but he\u2019s too young to know he likes boys. Assumptions are dangerous. This, in particular, implies that is something wrong with my son, and there isn\u2019t. He should be exactly who he is.<\/p>\n

I remember my first crush. He was a friend of my uncle. I think I was 6 or 7 and I used to follow him everywhere. It wasn\u2019t sexual. I just knew I wanted to be around him. I see how my son blushes when he talks about a boy he likes. He\u2019s discovering what he likes, like I did. Before gay kids had the opportunity to be raised in a non homophobic environment and with out people in their lives, their crushes that to be kept as a secret. But my son doesn\u2019t have a secret. <\/p>\n

I think that it\u2019s important to speak up, correct people when they assume my son is straight. I have to say \u201cNo, this doesn\u2019t apply to my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because kids don\u2019t become gay by magic when they hit puberty. Sexual orientation is something deeper. It\u2019s something that has nothing to do with sex, but with love and attraction. And it\u2019s beautiful. That\u2019s nothing wrong with it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Best mom award.\u00a0x<\/a> (via lourrye<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“No, my 10 year old son is not looking for a girlfriend. He likes boys.” In the beginning of this semester, the school of our children sent home a list of extracurricular clubs available for students. Our younger son chose a board games club, our older son chose Zumba. He loves singing and dancing, and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[19222,19223,19225,19221,19227,15689,19226,19224],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}