Your Mom Is A Lesbian – Bullying Tales from Grade School

For the record, I am not a Lesbian.  This reminds of a scene from Four Weddings and A Funeral (if you haven’t seen it, rent it, truly funny) that best explains my situation.

A wedding guest, Mrs. Beaumont asks Fiona (Kristen Scott Thomas) during one of the weddings scenes,  if she was a Lesbian.

Fiona: “Good, lord! Why would you think that?

Mrs. Beaumont:  “Well, it is one of the possibilities for unmarried girls nowadays, and it’s rather more interesting than saying, “Oh dear, never met the right chap,” eh?

Fiona: Quite right. Why be dull?

Hey, being a Lesbian would be a more interesting story than not finding Mr. Right but I digress since this is a post about about bullying not why I haven’t found. Mr. Right.

Since I can remember, I have always been up front with my daughter about her being adopted and have been discussing with her on how to respond to questions when kids ask “where’s your dad? or do you have a dad? or anything that has to do with being adopted.

There was a time when ” I am adopted” sufficed and the kid responded with  “that’s cool” and moved on. Those innocent days are over.

Now, third grade has come and the kids are getting meaner. One of the reasons, I live in New York City is that adopted kids are everywhere. Certainly amongst friends and school, my daughter is surrounded by adopted kids so you would think that kids would be a little more tolerant. Wrong!

As anyone who has ever been picked on knows,  anything that makes you stand out from the crowd is fair game for bullies.

Recently, a boy in my daughter’s class started teasing her about her not having a dad. My daughter responded with her standard “I am adopted.” And  what was the little bastard’s response. “Is your mom a Lesbian?” And not in a nice way, my daughter told me it was said in a tone that was “mean” which to me indicates, that he said to hurt her feelings.

To say that I was angry, and annoyed is an understatement.  I could care less about being called a Lesbian but the fact that this kid introduced a word that my daughter doesn’t even know but NOW does.  Yes, I had to explain the word to her which I know is strange because she does know kids with two moms. Frankly,  I am just not a big proponent of putting people in boxes, gay people  are moms and dads, period. It’s his judgmental and insulting tone that really bothered me, a future homophobe in the making. If he is quick to throw those words on the playground, just imagine what other things he has to say,

Wondering what happened next! My daughter actually told the teacher who had a word with the kid which frankly, I guess I am happy that the teacher confronted the kid. But  how do you make the leap?  Single mom who adopts = Lesbian.  WTF, of course, you wonder where he learns this concept. They aren’t exactly running around the playground yelling gay or lesbian, are they?

Needless to say, I debated on whether to say something to the mom. In the end, I let it go because one,  I don’t even know the mom and who wants to have the conversation with a stranger, ” your kid is a bully and tell him to stop yelling Lesbian at recess.” I don’t see that ending well. And two, the mother seems like the in your face, “my kid is perfect” defensive mom type and to be perfectly frank, she scares me.

My daughter, who is the most important person in the equation seems to be okay and chooses to avoid the kid in class and even admitted that the mom is kind of scary, too.

So we will see if there is another occurrence. At that moment, I will have to get up my courage and confront the mom. Yikes!