i was with my mother’s family and they were talking to me about my religious studies major. my great aunt asked me what the definition of hell was, and i responded “well i suppose it depends on who you ask.” and nearly all the protestants in the group decided that hell was “the absence of god” which i suppose is a fair answer, albeit not a universal one. my cousin’s wife was playing with her 3-year-old daughter and she says “well mommy says that hell is a mcdonald’s playplace” asdfghjhgfd
this 3-year-old girl is so fucking hilarious. her mothers have signed her up for a toddler yoga class, and so she has adopted a very unique language. this child also has an imaginary friend named “mom” which is, in her mind, the boss of her two mothers. for example, my cousin’s wife explained to me how her daughter got mad at them one time. the little girl situated herself in the corner of her crib, pretended to type on a cell phone and said “im writing an email to mom right now and telling her how bad you two are. namaste.”
the family’s Big Theory about “Mom” is that both my cousin and her wife are referred to as “Mommy” and “Mama.” The nickname “Mom” is not used in the house because it would just be confusing. However, when interacting with the world, people tell their daughter that they will “tell her mom” if she is doing something wrong. so this child automatically assumes there is this greater “Mom” figure that is responsible for distributing universal justice.
To be fair to the toddler, that’s pretty much how religions get started.
The first pride my mother attended, she marched with me alongside the PFLAG float, holding a sign that read “I’m Proud of My Gay Child”.
I noticed she kept falling behind and running to catch up, nearly a whole float behind us. So finally, I stopped to see what was going on.
People kept pointing at her sign and cheering and then she’d proudly point at me, saying “they’re here!”
That was usually the point where at least one person burst into tears. And this is where my mom started lagging - because she’d stop, reach over the barrier, and hug them. Teenagers, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings… they’d break down crying at the sight of a cishet woman proudly marching with her child in Texas, of all places. That she’d claim me and be proud of me. Because they couldn’t imagine their own family doing the same.
So she stopped and hugged them and told them she was proud of them, even though she had to race to catch up in the heat, even though they were strangers. And i like to think she made those young people’s lives a bit better.
So yes, cishets at pride.
I’d rather have a cishet grandma there than a gay cop.
ALT
