A Place of Safety: General Talk » Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda

Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator

Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda [message #66090]

Mon, 15 August 2011 22:36

timmy

Has no life at all

Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13818

As the real me I have been introduced by a responsible adult to a rising 11 year old US lad. We chat sometimes about how he can cope with being a little victimised sometimes, and when fun turns into bullying and how to stop when it does that. He's almost 11 and he thinks within his age and experience. Fun is fun. How can fun sometimes become bullying? that sort of thing. So I use me as an example of someone who was held down and tickled unmercifully by a probably innocent gentlemen when I was on holiday and about eight years old. My young friend is starting to get it.

Today we somehow got onto 'That's so gay!'

He doesn't like to use it but hears it often. We got there as we were talking about whether a boy could say another boy was good looking. He said, reasonably, "But if U say it ppl say ur gay"

I told him I was gay and he didn't flinch. I like that a lot.

I've given him absolute permission to show any responsible adult he chooses anything we say to each other, by the way, and told him that nothing I say to him is a secret, though it is private in a one way manner. I keep his stuff private from his family, but he has no need to do the same for me. We agreed that the only good secrets are things like birthday presents, but that privacy is important, but may be broken by him if he ever feels he needs to.

We chatted about bullying, about the It Gets Better Project and about how awful it must be to be teased for something you can't help like being left handed or having black hair. He needed no persuading. He agrees.

Then he asked the hardest question I've ever had to answer "How do U know if U R?"

I checked. He did mean "How do U know if U R Gay?"

I had to think hard. Remember he's almost 11. He'll have had The Talk either at home or in school, so I told him I expected that he'd had The Talk and wasn't going to talk about sex to him at all.

Instead I talked about love, romantic love, and how, probably after age 13/14 he'd find he fell for a girl or a boy and how it didn't matter at all which he fell for, but that would probably give him a clue. And we talked about good parents loving their kids whether they came home with a girlfriend or a boyfriend.

Then we talked about kayaking white water!

I feel privileged to have had such a sensible chat with an 11 year old with no obvious hangups and, like The Elephant's Child, a satiable curiosity. I don't expect we'll ever mention gay again. But I do expect he gave it all a lot of quiet thought. He's a nice lad with a good family. No idea where he lives, nor do I want to know, not until he's at least 18 anyway.

[Updated on: Tue, 16 August 2011 12:41]

Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School

		Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: timmy on Mon, 15 August 2011 22:36
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: chrisjames147 on Tue, 16 August 2011 12:06
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: Ricky on Fri, 02 September 2011 06:57
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: timmy on Fri, 02 September 2011 10:44
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: Ricky on Fri, 02 September 2011 15:35
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: timmy on Fri, 02 September 2011 16:52
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: Brody Levesque on Fri, 02 September 2011 20:12
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: Ricky on Fri, 02 September 2011 21:03
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: timmy on Fri, 02 September 2011 22:00
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: Brody Levesque on Sat, 03 September 2011 15:24
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: DesDownunder on Sat, 03 September 2011 15:44
		Re: Out of the mouths of babes yadda yadda yadda By: chrisjames147 on Sat, 03 September 2011 20:51

Previous Topic:	Australia Got Talent 2011 winner
Next Topic:	U.K. advert standards are obviously different than in U.S.

Goto Forum:

[

]

We support Ukraine — Мы поддерживаем Украину — Ми підтримуємо Україну

We support the Palestinian people in their struggle against oppression