Just wanted to warn in advance...
So, I take my daughter, Josephine, to Eco-Camp this morning, wherein each week the kids focus on some different aspect of our ecosystem. One week its the secret lives of bugs, the next it is recycling… this week the theme happens to be, "It's For The Birds; Your Feathered Friends".
We signed Jo up because she seems to have an interest in animals, which for a six year-old manifests in occasional talk of wanting to be a “veterinarian”, when she’s not going to be an “artist” or an “adult person what (sic) gets to still play with whoever she wants.”
But the “Eco-ness” has absolutely NOTHING to do with why this diary will eventually devolve into swearing.
This morning happened to be Josephine’s first day in this particular camp and when we get there we both look around to realize… she knows NO ONE. All the kids are milling, playing games, and joking around.
They seem to be grouped with buddies, as if they've been going to camp together for weeks.
And Josephine is standing in front of me… shifting from one foot to the other… with a face that I recognize as her version of MY childhood anxious face. (Nose crinkled. Upper lip pursed. Eyes squinting.)
Now, I’m anxious too.
I jump into “father” mode. I ask if she wants to do some drawing with markers that have been laid out. FAIL. I offer to play a game of Go Fish with her. MORE FAIL. I try and introduce her to another kid who looks equally alone and uncomfortable. ULTIMATE FAIL.
For a moment the clouds lift when another parent… a mother of two girls… sees our pain and makes a point of ushering Jo over.
But the two sisters have each other and despite all best efforts, Josephine ends up sort of hovering behind them… like a ghost.
I’m dying inside, a dull pain in my chest that I’m sure will kill me.
“WHERE ARE THE ADULTS HERE! WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO WILL WELCOME MY DAUGHTER! WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE RESPONSIBLE—“
And then Erin… a friend from Josephine's school… arrives and Jo rushes over to her, chattering and laughing… dismissing me with unconcerned and immediate, “Bye Daddy”.
And so ends 15 minutes of average, every-day, harrowingly mundane parenting.
It could have really been any experience. Such parenting happens when... well... when you're a parent.
I bring this up today because John McCain apparently thinks my desire to fuck people of the opposite sex makes me more qualified to endure/experience my daughter’s moment of anxiety/pain/relief then those who like to fuck people of the same sex. As if some part of MY kind of fucking triggers a great parenting enzyme or a compassionate gene. As if some OTHER kind of fucking blocks the worrying and nurturing instinct.
I bring this up today because as those on the front page noted John McCain’s Presidency is apparently not about standing up to the insane bigotry that endorses a bizarre hierarchy of parenting starting with married parents, who are above divorced parents, who are above single heterosexual parents, who are above living a life in foster homes or orphanages, which is still SOMEHOW PREFERABLE to potentially Gaytageous parents in a committed relationship or a single Homomicrobal parent with love and resources to give.
I bring this up today because John McCain is so concerned with losing the anti-ass-sex and no-cunnilingus-crowd that he’s willing to denounce the concept of a stable home for children who don’t have one.
And because, to use his soaring oratorical skills, "Senator John McCain is willing to deny a child a loving home in order to win an election."
I bring this up because apparently, as a result of The Jesus™ and The Never Ending Republican Closet of Sexual Hypocrideviance™, according to the Coward Base of the Asshole Wing of Fuckwad Party, it can’t possibly be as simple as, “Any competent, loving adult who is offering to endure the hundred-thousand tiny slings and arrows of the average childhood should be absolutely and completely and UNEQUIVOCALLY encouraged to adopt any needy kid who, due to no fault of their own, is without a mother and a father".
Like I predicted, this diary did not (and could not) end well.
UPDATE: Jo home from camp sez, excitedly, "Look, I got to make a little bag with a picture of a Cockatoo what's (sic) for keeping Eco-Stuff and Eco-things!"
She seems to have had a grand time... except for the gay birds who tried to peck to death her concept of home and family.