by Bedford Hope on June 22, 2010
Silly Bands. All the rage amongst the Tweens.
Eleven. The two little femme children at our bus stop look decided different from each other now; one is already showing substantial curves, bra straps peeking out around the edges of her tank top shoulder straps; my child, now taller though a full year younger, is all angles, sharp lines, harder jaw, bony chest, skinny legs, dirtier hair, holes in the knees of all his pants. His skirts don’t have the holes of course, though the tights under them sometimes do.
Born a boy, and a boy he will stay, for now. Either pronoun is fine, actually.
He still passes, but for how much longer? I haven’t noticed any double-takes, any dirty looks. He’s going into seventh grade; highschool year after next. Our high-school has a strong GSA, and a good community of GLB parents and a lot of kids out of the closet. But.
You try to imagine it, being your kid, and in the end, you can’t really. Cellphones, internet, cartoons on tap, youtube, x-box, handheld computers, global warming, BP spill, amber alerts, school shootings, Jack Bauer, Lady Ga Ga, Obama and Limbaugh, Lindsey and Britney gone commando.
The world you lived in, the insults we most feared, faggot, queer—Queer! Rehabilitated!— these words must lack the sting they once did. Mustn’t they? After Ellen and Will and Grace, as we await the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Gay marriage in MA, civil unions and partner benefits…
But we know that violence against gays is up, not down (though maybe this is a reporting artifact.) we know the suicides still happen, even in supportive families, we know the fight if far from finished. The little boy girl, whose parents were really to blame, will soon be an adult, and to the homophobes and haters that means, he’s fair game.
So I’m enjoying the end of this. Oscar’s little brother has lost interest in outing him to random strangers. (I think he just liked the confused look on their faces) But his body is going to start outing him, any day now.
Doing the laundry, folding his skirts and putting them in his drawer.
I no longer flinch when thinking about the future. The past is a memory; the future a dream. The present is good.
We’re here now.
by Bedford Hope on June 9, 2010
Warm and breezy again, Oscar just picked out a new skirt at Target, which he is wearing with a new, beloved, Orange Crush t-shirt. The skirt has purple flowers on it, and he is wearing it with neon pink leggings I bought him at Claire’s.
I say, in my best Tim Gun voice, “I think we may have a taste issue here.”
Oscar laughs. “Dad, you haven’t got a clue.”
Oscar is now as tall as his mother. His face is getting longer, and changing, as puberty approaches; the elfin nose is no longer elfin. He has developed a degree of body modesty which is unusual in the family, but nothing anyone outside it would think twice about. He doesn’t look like a girl at all to me anymore, but, well, sometimes he does, but only when he wants to. To the outside world of course the girl cues are so strong; the hair, the clothes; the colors; that he is never taken as male.
But he has a hockey jersey now he loves, and without make-up (we don’t allow it at this age) or jewelry…sometimes, he seems to me like Just a Boy with Long Hair. Sometimes, I think, that’s what he in fact, is.
He’s got friends who are boys; and friends who are girls. With the boys, it’s all about the pokemon, the shared franchise of the moment. With the girls, it’s girl stuff, and you wouldn’t mistake him for male when he’s with them. They laugh uncontrollably at things that we, as adults, will never again understand. All well and good.
The mom of a classmate told us, that her girl comes home with stories, of Oscar’s witty comebacks to the taunts he sometimes gets, which he never, ever mentions.
He has people on his side, and some who aren’t.
When he gets off the bus he is always happy. It was the best day. It was the worst day, ever—but it’s over now. He’s glad to be home with me.
But he’s met a boy down the street, and for the first time, will scooter over by himself. The playdate without cars! We have to call to make him come home for dinner.
He’s 11, and a young 11 at that. He curls up with me, hugs me in front is his friends, swears like a sailor, and wants me to read to him at night, and I still do.
Childhood, the raw, primary colored stuff of pure selfish innocence, winnows away.
I’m glad I could l be here for him and his brother.
And I thank the universe that life has been kind to Oscar, and to us. Despite the fact that quite frankly, we’re weird as all get out.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
