How We Keep Control Over Our Lives
...is unfortunately trying to control anything but our own lives.
Children’s tv shows and movies are fables written (and now animated) to teach through entertaining. I’m well on my way to being the parent who sits for a cumulative lifetime of cartoons with Bennett. I love them. The other morning Bennett and I were watching Baby Muppets and Miss Piggy, Gonzo, and Kermit were playing games out in the park. No matter what game they were playing Miss Piggy always changed the rules to make the game easier and the finish line closer. We all know those kids and/or adults. If the ease of advantage starts to wear off then the corrective path of least resistance is to adjust the field of play, not yourself or your position in it. Control is funny like success: a never ending pursuit. This is why people talk so much about marginalized communities. Those without the ability to mend the rules to a fair field are doomed to live by the constantly constructed - and reconstructed - parameters.
When you start to see something that makes you uncomfortable the natural reaction is to make yourself comfortable again. I think that shows a true lack of security in oneself, however much human it is. Once you are uncomfortable then you create an environment only for your comfort. It is a matter of control. The opposite side of control is uncertainty. You cannot have a sense of loss without uncertainty and you cannot regain stability without control. Clearly, no one wants to lose ground they think is rightfully theirs. Following the Civil War Mississippi had the most African-American U.S. Senators (a whopping two), but a few magical swipes of the legislative pen, a generation of Jim Crow laws, and not another Black senator was elected until 1967. Now, as many people recoil at what they sense is a loss of normalcy or moral direction (dictated by their own groups) more and more states are focusing on “Don’t Say Gay” bills.
Florida “only” mandated restrictions for teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity between kindergarten and 3rd grade. If you are to look at the topic “sexual orientation” as anything pertaining to “after puberty” of course you’d think it has no place in kindergarten. Then again, what about reading the book Mama, Mommy, and Me to your kids?
What about teaching children that Love Makes a Family? What about the fact that those age ranges can now more easily be extended if the idea of “Don’t Say Gay” is already in the mainstream? Topics such as gay marriage or nontraditional parentage are important to start young just like teaching kids about rainbows in kindergarten doesn’t mean we teach them about light refraction.
We are used to the field always changing. As Bennett grows up he will be exposed to gender identity and sexual orientation not as a structured teaching but by merely living in our house and venturing out into the world to find opposition. The lessons to be discussed will come from outside voices looking to control. These thoughts wouldn’t need to be taught if the idea that love conquers all was actually woven into humanity. Unfortunately, control conquers, and love is not about control.