Pride & The Absorbent Mind🌈
Pride & The Absorbent Mind🌈
A Montessori Approach to LGBTQ Education
Hi Friends ~ thanks for reading Winning Sex Ed. Happy PRIDE🌈
This post is an invitation to expand dignity, respect, and love in the world 🩷
Have you ever felt overwhelmed or unsure about how to teach your child about LGBTQIAS+ topics? One way to start the conversation is…
Bring Your Family to a Pride Event
Pride is for experiential learning for everyone.
Pride is freedom.
Pride is dignity.
Pride is respect.
Pride is safety.
Pride is love.
My husband and I are hetero, cisgender adults raising three children in a heteronormative culture. However, we want our children to grow up with a broader perspective, so we MUST give them opportunities to experience different perspectives. We aim to teach them that the only right way to be is true — and kind. We hope that they become humans with deep empathy and respect, knowing that the world is NOT binary and love is the most powerful thing.
Trust the Montessori Absorbent Mind
Dr. Maria Montessori coined the term “Absorbent Mind” to describe a developmental period from birth until about 6 years old, where learning is less of a defined activity and simply a state of being. If you’ve ever felt anxious or overwhelmed with parenthood, feeling like you’re not doing enough, remember the absorbent mind: your child is learning simply by experiencing the world with you.
Bring them to experience a pride event.
The impact will be greater than reading a hundred books.
When our firstborn child was two, he had his first big inclusivity lesson: he marched in the Boston Pride Parade. The crowds were big, colorful, ebullient, and bursting with pride. People broadcasted a feeling of freedom and safety to be fully themselves; he absorbed that feeling. We didn’t have a talk or read a book — we just went to a great party with a mega-rainbow theme. A great lesson was built into the experience: gay, queer, transgender, anything you want to be is something to be celebrated!
Yes, we may have seen a person in assless chaps on that day, and we may see someone wearing them this Saturday at Boston Pride. The experience is kind of like walking by Victoria’s Secret mall storefront, only a different curvaceous body part. Personally, I find explaining assless chaps to be much easier. I may say something like, “People get to dress however they want. Sometimes, grown-ups at a pride event choose to dress, showing part of their buttocks.” Answer a couple of questions, maybe giggle and gawk a little, and then we move on.
Our twins have stroller '“marched” in the parade and been tattooed head to toe in rainbows. They have absorbed and observed many different family structures: two moms, two dads, transgender, and chosen families. Pride celebrations teach inclusivity through experience. As parents, we only need to show up and participate in the respectful, loving, inclusive vibe, telling our children, “This is the world, my loves ~everyone has a human right to be whomever they want to be — including you.”
If any of our children ever decide to change their names or pronouns or bring home a same-sex partner, our goal is for them to feel unconditional, unflappable love from mom and dad. We also hope they grow up to be active allies, supporting and celebrating the LGTBQIAS+ every chance they have.
“This is the world, my loves ~everyone has a human right to be whomever they want to be — including you.”
Virtual Pride Events
If you can’t find pride celebrations in your area, luckily, we live in a technologically connected world. I cannot personally recommend any of these, but I’ve curated a few.
Pride UK Virtual Event for London Pride 2024
Start a Pride Event
Feeling inspired? Start a little pride event of your own. How about a neighborhood pride party? Elementary-aged children would love permission to make signs and express support. Parents provide the supplies, children find the cardboard, sit back, and let the positive energy vibe.
Provincetown, MA
For the past two years, we have taken a winter trip to Provincetown with our children. Most shops are closed for the season, but the place is still alive with love and acceptance. I love the beach in the winter, and the bike paths are wide open and easy to ride with little kiddos. I bring a Mary Oliver poetry book and imagine we meet as friends to take a walk along the dunes, soaking in the natural world without ever talking. Cape Cod is magical.
My husband and I celebrate the end of the long drive by treating ourselves to a big lunch in a window seat at the Squealing Pig. We order Wellfleet oysters and take videos of our children eating them. My husband gives me a look when I order the $13 beer, and we luxuriate in that big window seat where thousands of people have paused to celebrate their journey—maybe at the end of a big workweek, or maybe after finding the first inklings of joy and freedom in their heart after a lifetime of oppression and discrimination. You can feel the history and ethos of that little pub.
PTown in the summer is A LOT more FUN! It’s an all-you-can-invite beach party scene, not a “Did you bring the Goldfish snacks?” kind of party. Overstimulation is kind of the goal. Summer in PTown is a place for the queer and gay community to be free, not deal with our squealing littles.
SOCIAL JUSTICE
The LGBTQIAS+ community suffers many injustices, bigotry, and pain. My vision is to educate children, so they grow up never knowing or allowing such discrimination. Sexuality education is an act of social justice, teaching the world to love humans in their beautiful, perfect humanness. If Maria Montessori were alive, I wholeheartedly believe she would craft an exquisite sexuality education curriculum aimed at peace and inclusivity for the LGBTQIAS+ community.
I made my husband stop the car so I could jump out in the middle of the street to take a photo of this mural. Isn’t it striking? Artist Joshua Wilmoth
Powerful teaching and learning happen when we immerse ourselves in supportive environments. Happy Pride Everyone ~
Winning Sex Ed is a collective, positive-sum effort. When somebody ‘wins,’ we all WIN.
xo
Tara