Class, Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation


Because there is untrammeled land in our county, it has become desirable for people with money to build beautiful custom homes. Because it used to be so far from Denver, only the hardy or the ranchers or the hill dwellers lived here, but not too many of the monied. Now because of the home building we also have a lot of Hispanic construction workers and their families who work in the food service industry.

Our elementary school is in one of the oldest, rancher type sections. It has some of the nicest homes in the state, yet we also have the greatest percentage of elementary school subsidized breakfasts and lunches.

It's an interesting mix and it has taught me that kids are kids, to a point. At the early grades in elementary school the kids take others as they come and react without being aware of the influence of varying economic classes. It's only after play dates have been set up and a long drive to another house shows the stark contrast can that exist economically between our students.

Emma invited a friend over to play this weekend and we were amazed when we drove to pick him up and the size and quality of his home. We could probably fit five our house into that house. Emma was a little worried because her friend (even though she talked to him on the phone a good part of the evenings when they were in second grade) is a boy and she's a girl. She thought it might be weird, a boy going to a girl's house. She's gone to two other boys' houses for play dates from school, but that was last year. As they've gotten older though they have to act like they hate the opposite sex on the school bus. But Emma can play soccer really well. The boys will tell her to be on the other side for a playground game and when she scores a lot of points, she gets asked back to the first side.

Emma was very nervous during the play date and was pretty hyper. We got to show Clayton our creek and and they and Dave threw some rocks in. Hiking to and from the creek he got to collect a crab apple, a green apple, a pine cone and a bit of creek glass.

Emma's friend has a black dad and a white mom. Emma mentioned to me after the play date that it's weird for a black person to marry a white one. We asked her why? We assured her that it is not weird. Earlier in the week she asked if she would grow up to be a brown person. I said yes, if you look at the actual color of skin, we all are brown, I'm a lighter one. Just now above I wrote "black...white". Actually Emma's friend has a dark brown dad and a lighter brown mom.

I wonder where she gets the concept that different race marrying is weird. Because so many parents in kids' videos have same race couples? Because Mom and Dad are? We have Chinese daughters, they know that a family can be intermingled. Do they get the feeling that it's weird at school? I know we have some pretty redneck beliefs floating around our neighborhood and probably at our school, like when one family's grandpa comes to a school musical performance with a t-shirt demanding that the US borders be enforced from illegal immigration.

For a time some of the kids wouldn't play on the playground with Emma because she was a flat face. Racial slur or not?

I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that kids don't judge by economics or race or gender when they first encounter one another. But as their awareness increases, they notice differences. But is the judging of the differences a learned or inherent quality. I'm not with my kids 24/7 so I don't know if they get it from classmates or if it's from hard wiring.

We have close friends and family members who are gay. Ana has always enjoyed them and they are some of her favorite people. But once Ana hit 6th grade she thought gay couples marrying was gross. Well anything having to do with puberty was gross, any kissing on tv of any gender was gross. But what made her single out same sex couples as gross, just hearing other kids talk about it? Or her insecurities about maturing and dealing in a world that has sex, gender, economic and racial differences?