About Pride (and Prejudice)

{I wrote this for Mister Finn a few weeks ago but it got lost in the hospital adventure.}

To my A.,

You are only one year old and you can’t read yet (though sometimes it seems like you can), but I am writing you a letter today to tell you about Pride. You went to your first Pride parade yesterday!  We walked through the streets of Seattle and people cheered for us, for you, with colorful flags waving and music playing. You bobbed along in my “pouch” like a baby kangaroo, excited by the drums and costumes and people clapping.

You are growing up SO FAST, that I imagine it won’t be too long before you’re asking us, “What’s Pride?” just like you’ll ask us “What’s Halloween?” or “What’s Christmas?” I feel both happy and sad at the thought of explaining Pride to you. I’m happy because Pride is a fun, joyful holiday where people all over the world celebrate the people they love. I’m sad because the Pride holiday exists because of prejudice.

I wish I could only tell you about Pride, and not prejudice; I wish I could shower you with all the beautiful things in the world, and protect you from anything bad. But I think the best protection I can give you as your mama is to teach you about the world and how to survive in it. You are a strong, happy, smart boy, and your heart is the size of an ocean. I don’t doubt that even with its flaws, you will find the world beautiful.

So, sweet thing, there are a lot of unhappy people in the world that live their lives in fear. People do crazy things when they are unhappy and afraid. They are so scared of everything that instead of seeing other people as potential friends, they see them as enemies. They hate people without ever having met them! They are “prejudiced” because they are judging people prior to knowing them. The unhappy people in our country have hated many people in the past. They’ve hated the Native Americans, the African Americans, the Japanese Americans, the Mexican Americans, the Muslim Americans. They often hate people that are different from themselves. Then, a few years later, they realize they should not have hated those people. Right now, in your lifetime, the unhappy people in our country are afraid of families that have two mothers or two fathers.

We can’t explain what makes people so unhappy, we can just hope that they find love and happiness in their lives someday. We celebrate “Pride” because we are proud! We are proud to be alive and to be happy, and proud to love other people. We play music and dance and we look for rainbow fairies. We celebrate families of all kinds: familes with two moms, families with two dads, families with zero moms and zero dads but one grandma and one brother, families with one mom, families with one mom and one dad, families with two uncles, families with one dad and two aunts: there are SO MANY different kinds of families and none of them is better than the other. We all get to live and love on this planet together, and we are proud.

Every June, people celebrate Pride in Hong Kong,

in Dublin,

In Atlanta,

In India,

In Israel,

in Seattle,

and in many more cities all over the world.

Pride is a reminder of the beauty and bounty in a life filled with love.

I am so happy that you are the sundrop I get to love and find rainbow fairies with.

Love,

Your Mama