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Remember study
hall? Good times. Time to get some homework done. Time to get a little
extra homework help. Time to cram for the test after lunch. Time to
sleep. Time to talk about nothing and everything. Study hall was the
time to get it all done. One of my daughters was in study hall today,
getting it done of course. Sitting at a table with several other
classmates they dove deep into a discussion about all things family.
She tells me that the conversation went something like this:

Girl- I don’t want to get fat so instead of getting pregnant, I’m just going to adopt all my babies.
Other Girl- That’s stupid!
Girl- Why is it stupid? I can adopt my babies.
Other Girl- Well, if you adopt them they won’t be your kids.
Daughter- That’s ridiculous! My brother is adopted and he’s my mom and dad’s kid just as much as I am.
Other Girl- Well, yeah. He is your brother and all but he isn’t REALLY your brother…
Daughter- (staring down Other Girl)
Other Girl- I mean of course he’s your brother but he is your adopted brother…because he is adopted…so he isn’t your real brother.
Daughter- You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t. So just shut up!
Boy- But she’s right, adopted kids aren’t really your kids. They are just adopted.
Daughter- (gets up and moves to another table)

It was then that she began texting and tweeting. It was clear she
was pissed as I read her messages. Of course she shouldn’t have been
texting during school. Of course it is against the rules. But
considering the alternative action she wanted to take, I’m glad she
did. Shiny, happy, silly, stupid Other Girl just doesn’t know what she
missed. Score one for social media! Y’all kept my girl from getting
expelled for starting a brawl.

In all seriousness, it was encouraging to know that so many people
out there got my daughter’s anger and frustration and my own as I was
now experiencing my own child dealing with shiny, happy stupid people
talking about stuff they know nothing about. Over the years I have
learned to discern between a person’s honest curiosity to the idea that
there is more than one way to build a family and those who live in a
crazy alternative world where real children are birthed and not-real,
fake, plastic children are adopted. Ask me a sincere question and
you’ll get a thoughtful answer about my experience of adopting one of
my children. Differentiate my children as real and adopted and you will
get a blank stare with awkward silence until a realization comes over
you that yes, you are an ass for saying that. It works for me. I just
never imagined my children would be dealing with the same stupidity.

But alas, it seems that the shiny, happy, stupid people of the world
also procreate and raise families. So much for survival of the fittest!

Mulling over my daughter’s encounter with cruel stupidity from her
own peers I came to realize where those kids got it from. They got it
from their parents! Of course they did! These kids’ comments is a
direct reflection of their own parents’ insensitive views of what it
takes to make a family. As a society, we preach on and on about
tolerance of each other, our race, our religion, our sexuality, our
family but do we really walk that talk that we nod our heads in
agreement to? Do we really?

Eavesdrop on parents’ conversations at the school during drop-off
and pick-up, or at the PTA meetings, or on the soccer field or in the
dance studio. Hear the comments about that single mother, that “working
mom”, the gay parents, the foster mom, the stay at home dad, the
grandparent raising the grandkid…and on and on…any family that isn’t
like their family is subject to scrutiny and criticism. Oh it is just
harmless, really! It’s just gossip. No big deal. But it is a big deal.
Our kids hear what we say when we talk about their classmates parents.
They take it to heart. Soon they are judging and criticizing. Soon they
are pointing, whispering, teasing the kid whose family is different.
Yes, kids tease eachother because kids are kids, kids are cruel. But
why is that okay just because that is the way it was when we were kids?

It’s not okay.

For more than a generation now, parents have been all about building
up their kids’ self esteem. To raise a successful person in society we,
as parents, think we need to make our kids believe that they are number
one in everything that they do. Even in the things that our kids
absolutely suck at. Don’t believe me? May I offer for your
consideration American Idol try-outs. That alone shows us how awesomely
successful the concept of inflating our kids’ self esteem is? It’s a
big FAIL! We have young adults and children who refuse to take
responsibility for their own actions and refuse to understand why they
can’t be number one in the real world. That is what building up our
kids’ self esteem to improbable heights has done. It’s a big FAIL!

Perhaps we should consider a new idea in raising our children. Why
not raise our children to be compassionately tolerant? Why can’t we?
Why can’t we as parents accept openly, in front of our children that
there is more than one way to build a family? Drop the criticism, the
gossip, the hate talk over families that aren’t like your own perfect
family. Don’t indulge others’ hate talk. If they are talking hate about
that family what makes you think they aren’t talking hate about yours? Oh, yeah, that’s right, your family is the model family, the way a family should be.

Bull!

It takes so much more than blood and DNA to make a family just as
much as it takes so much more than a house to make a home. End the
shiny, happy stupidity now. Live compassionately, sensitively with
tolerance for others. We are so damn good at it when it is thousands of
miles away like in Haiti and that is amazing, truly amazing. But today,
now it is time to live that way with our children, at their schools, at
church, at the PTA meetings, on the soccer field, at the park, at
Target, everywhere. It’s time, right now.