Tuesday, April 26, 2011

A hope for the future


Today's post is a little bit more serious. Okay, it is a lot more serious, but it is something that is on my mind. Yesterday at my school someone painted the word "fag" on the rock reserved for students to paint messages in support of their teams and clubs. The rock had been painted with rainbow colors in support of The Day of Silence and someone decided to deface it out of hatred, fear, and self-loathing. Luckily, we have some very brave students at our school who were willing to stand next to that rock today holding up signs that said, "Stop the hate," and my personal favorite, "You wanted a fag on this rock, well here I am." I'm writing about this on my baby blog because this has got me thinking about Ella B's future. Is she going to grow up in a world where people throw words like that at each other, or will homophobia be as foreign to her as cellphones that aren't smart? Will bullying be worse or better? Will she feel comfortable with who she is, both at home and at school? Will she grow up to be as brave and confident as those students who stood by the rock today? And what can I do to make that happen? I'm not sure, but I'm going to start with this, a message to the future Ella B:

My beautiful little girl, please know that you are amazing and strong and that you are already everything you were ever meant to be. I will love you no matter who you love or who you grow up to be and all I want is for you to feel proud and comfortable in your own skin and to help other people feel good about themselves, too. You are perfect just the way you are because, "you were born this way."

Thanks for listening and please remember that our kids learn how to love and to hate from us first.

No comments:

Post a Comment