Children of a Lesser Actor

You know that you're not the typical midwestern parent when you find yourself saying to your child:

"Oh, he's what's called a drag queen. He's a man, but he dresses up as a woman."

The backstory:

We've spent a lot of time *not* acting as though differences between people are significant. It took until last year until someone brought the word "black" into our home as a description of another person. The kids first noticed there was a child in their class in pre-k that looked a little different.

Maddie (age 4): "Mommy, there's a new boy in our class. He is really tan."

Kat: "Oh, you mean like Grandma Hickey?"

Maddie: "No, WAY tanner than Grandma Hickey!"

Kat: "That's cool. People have all different color skin."

Maddie: "But his hair is different than mine. It's really squiggly."

Kat: "It sounds cool. Isn't it funny how hair comes in all different colors and textures?"


So, here we are, four years later. Last year, we had to have a conversation that "gay" was not an adjective that they could use to describe a game they didn't like, ie. "that game is gay." We talked about what gay really means. Maddie always remembers the girl in her class in pre-k who has two moms.

Today, we were listening to music and a song from RENT came on. The kids have seen bits and pieces of it and they know the basic plot line: "AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS... Everybody has AIDS!" The kids were asking about the characters and Liam said that lots of them were gay. I agreed. They asked the characters names and what they were about. And, that, my friends, is how I came to define "drag queen" for my nine year old.