-Woman calls police for help because she is being beaten by her boyfriend as she tries to leave her apartment.
-Police arrive, describe her as "extremely intoxicated" but do not question her ability to care for her six week old daughter until she "began breastfeeding her infant in front of us."
-Woman loses custody of her child for six months, is then sentenced to a minimum of another six months away from her child, leaves the courthouse after sentencing and slashes someone's tires as well as, possibly, her own wrists.
Anvarinia’s demeanor, a strong smell of alcohol on her and the alcohol containers throughout the apartment suggested to him that she was intoxicated.
and
he saw Anvarinia shake the baby girl, hold her without supporting her head and, at one point, hold her upside down by one leg
However, none of this is in the original incident report by the same officer. If a six week old infant were being held upside down by one leg and shaken, would you wait until the mother put the child to the breast to arrest her for child neglect? Would the breastfeeding and nothing else be in the arrest report?
If we are to assume that Anvarinia indeed has an alcohol problem, it was some solace that, though she lost custody of her daughter for at least a year and her abuser walked away with no charges, her sentence included substance abuse treatment. Well, not anymore. In today's report:
Stacey Anvarinia, 26, had been allowed to spend at least part of her sentence at a substance abuse treatment facility, but Judge Sonja Clapp of the State District Court rescinded that option today.
The judge has sent a battered mother who allegedly has an alcohol problem straight to jail and, as punishment for allegedly getting drunk again, won't let her go to alcohol treatment.
Mothers can learn a lot of very disturbing lessons from the Anvarinia case. If you are being beaten while trying to escape an abusive boyfriend, calling the police may result in losing custody of your child. And your abuser won't be charged with any crime. If you plead guilty to charges for which the state appears to have very little evidence in exchange for a lighter sentence and substance abuse treatment, you better not abuse substances before you get treatment because the judge will change your sentence to deny you the treatment you need. So the punishment for being abused is losing your child and the punishment for being an alcoholic is not getting alcohol treatment. Please, someone tell me who this protects?
As promised, here is an update on Stacey Anvarinia, the North Dakota women who pled guilty to child neglect for allegedly breastfeeding her six-week-old daughter while drunk. For more on what appears to be a startling lack of evidence, see my post here. My suspicion that Anvarinia pled guilty as part of a deal for a lighter sentence and return of her baby seems to have been spot on.
According to the Grand Forks Herald, rather than the maximum sentence of five years imprisonment, Anvarinia was sentenced today to six months which she can serve in a substance abuse treatment facility. No news story published before today has mentioned whether Anvarinia had custody of her infant daughter since the arrest. In my previous blog post, I wondered whether she might have waived her right to trial in order to get her child returned to her. The Grand Forks Herald reports that at Anvarinia's sentencing she said:
"I’m very sorry for what I did, and I know it was wrong,” 26-year-old Stacey Anvarinia told the judge. “And I would like to continue working toward getting my daughter back.
So Anvarinia does not currently have her daughter and does not appear to know when she will regain custody of her. She was arrested in this case on February 13, 2009. As of today's sentencing then, she has been without her daughter for nearly six months and can now, it appears, look forward to at least another six months without her.
The brief news released today makes no mention of Delbert Harrison, the man Anvarinia says was beating her when she called police for help. As of last week, he had not been arrested or charged. Anvarinia's sentence for calling for help is a year without custody of her daughter, six months of which will be in some sort of detention.
Even if Anvarinia was intoxicated when police arrived – something for which there is apparently no evidence other then the police shock at her breastfeeding in their presence – is the loss of custody for a year (or more) and detention for six months an appropriate sentence? If you were a breastfeeding mother in need of help, how willing would you be to call the police? You might find yourself nursing an infant one minute, and regaining custody of a toddler a year later.
Clapp sentenced Anvarinia to 18 months in jail with all but six months suspended and said Anvarinia could get credit for chemical dependency treatment.
So Anvarinia's sentence is more severe than I reported above. Many thanks to Cate Nelson for the heads-up on this.
Watching the television show Weeds last night, I admit my interest in whether Nancy was breastfeeding her new baby bordered on obsessive. In the last episode, I caught what looked like Nancy applying lanolin to her nipples. But still, two episodes into a new baby on the show and she still hadn't made any direct mention of how this child was being fed. It bugged me.
But from early on in last night's episode, there were references to breast milk – mostly references to pumping and where the bottles of breast milk could be found, but I was satisfied. Honestly, at this point I could case less whether Andy is a good father or if she marries Esteban. I managed to get through the circumcision scene in the previous episode only because the rabbi's response to the question, "How do you practice to do this [circumcision]?" was "on goyim." Sorry. I'm Jewish. It was funny. If you are offended by the term "goyim," my apologies. Footnote here: I didn't circumcise my sons and think the practice is barbaric so I was working pretty hard at finding humor in the scene.
Back to last night's episode: Suck 'N Spit. I should have seen it coming in the title. Nancy is out to dinner with Andy (her brother-in-law for those of you who don't know the show) and becomes painfully engorged. You can literally see it. Watching her discomfort, her squirming and gently pressing her breasts – well, if you've been there, you know. She gives up on waiting till she gets back home and heads for the ladies room where she pulls what looks like a battery operated breast pump from her purse, leans over the sink, and starts to pump. But the pump kicks out – seems the batteries die. At this point I am on the edge of my seat. I know she has to empty those breasts.
It probably seems marginally disturbed to be so drawn in by a plot line about engorged breasts. I just don't see my life on television very often. Having spent nearly nine years lactating, the fill-full-empty-fill-full-empty arc of breast milk production is so familiar that I can read it in the way a woman moves, sits, breathes. Being aware of how much milk I had, how near full I was, how soon I needed to empty, was part of my every day for a significant chunk of my adult life.
When Nancy leans over the bathroom sink having tossed her dead breast pump, I thought she was going to hand express. She obviously wasn't walking out of that ladies room without relieving the pressure. Then she hollers for Andy and I squealed so loud my kids jumped. I immediately knew what she was going to do.
I never asked my kids' father to suck breast milk from my breasts – something of which I reminded him as we watched Nancy beg Andy to "suck 'n spit." But I totally would have. And he damn well better have done it.
This morning I searched the Internet for a clip of the scene to post here. Until one goes up, you are just going to have to trust me that Andy relieving Nancy's engorged breasts was not at all sexual. People with experience breastfeeding are probably going to wonder, perhaps aloud, why she didn't just hand express. As someone who could never get a drop out that way, I get the need for suction. And Andy's character on Weeds kind of annoys me much of the time so I loved that he pretty much just got to business doing what needed to be done.
But I suspect there is going to be a fair bit of Internet chatter about that scene. There are people who are going to write about it being disgusting or sexual or inapprorpiate. That he swallowed the breast milk instead of spitting it out will be an issue. And my response? Grow up! This was real. This was human. This was as it should be. Women who have babies lactate. Their breasts fill with milk. If the milk is not removed, their breasts will become engorged (too full) and the pressure will need to be relieved by removing some milk. If there is no hungry baby around to do it, the milk will need to be removed some other way. There it is. Thank you Weeds for putting it on television.
When I read the Associated Press story this past June about the guilty plea for "child abuse or neglect" by a North Dakota woman alleged to have breastfed her child while intoxicated, a few things leapt off the screen at me. I wondered why this mother had pled guilty. As a lawyer I know that people don't plead guilty because they are guilty. Guilty pleas are generally the result of a deal. The accused is waiving the right to a trial in exchange for an agreed upon sentence or in order to be charged with a lesser crime. Sometimes they plead guilty because they are frightened or inadequately represented or fear losing or being separated from their children. This woman pled guilty to the original charge so the "deal for a lesser charge" theory can be eliminated. Why then?
Also of significance to me was that the police were called to the mother's home in response to a "domestic disturbance" call. Often "domestic disturbance" means that the call was in response to domestic violence. Had the original call been made so police would protect the mother?
[s]he was assaulted by her boyfriend identified as Harrison, Delbert.
She stated he kneed her in the chin and struck her face when she attempted to leave.
Officers observed red and swelling area on the bridge of her nose, a small scratch to her left cheek, and a red swollen area on her chin.
So Anvarinia had called the police because she had been the victim of a crime. She called for help.
Also according to the police reports, "she was extremely intoxicated." How did the police know this? Neither the police reports nor subsequent police comments to the press give any indication. No report says police smelled alcohol, saw alcohol, heard slurred speech, and the police did not administer a blood-alcohol test. What behavior did Anvarinia engage in that led to her arrest for child abuse or neglect? She "began breast feeding in front of us." Paramedics were called but they transported the baby to the hospital. Battered Stacey Anvarinia was taken to jail.
Reports of this story led to much debate about the safety of drinking alcohol while breastfeeding. That is certainly an important issue. However, for Stacey Anvarinia, I wonder whether we have any reason to believe she was intoxicated at all. As this case got more press, the Grand Forks police have gotten a little defensive on this point:
Well, what truly is the totality of the circumstances? In defense of itself, the police cite her breastfeeding as … what? Evidence of her intoxication? Might having been recently beaten cause one to seem disoriented? Check the time she is alleged to have committed the "crime." 3:57 a.m. Had she slept at all that night? She had injuries to her face. Did she have a head injury? Despite protests that breastfeeding isn't the issue, the police still only point to her breastfeeding in front of them as being "unusual" in her behavior.
What then happened to Delbert Harrison, the man identified as having beaten Stacey Anvarinia? He was neither arrested nor charged with any crime. Why not?
According to a 2005 study in the American Journal of Public Health, homicide is the third leading cause of injury-related death for women who are pregnant or who have given birth in the previous year. A 2002 study in The British Medical Journal concluded that a woman's risk of domestic violence doubles during pregnancy and the year after birth. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported in 2005 that due to poor reporting, we really don't have accurate figures on how high the rate of homicide is for women during pregnancy and the post-partum period because few states report whether a homicide victim was pregnant or had recently given birth. Even given the admitted under-reporting, homicide was found to be the second leading cause of injury-related maternal death. Of those deaths, 57% were caused by gunfire.
Stacey Anvarinia could have been a homicide statistic. According to the police report, she was beaten while trying to leave. She reached out to the police to save her. Instead, they arrested her.
According to news reports, Anvarinia will be sentenced this Friday. Let's see how much jail time you get for breastfeeding in front of the police you ask to save your life.
I woke up this morning shaking from a nightmare. My jaw hurt from grinding my teeth. My palms were sore from clenching my fists.
I knew immediately that it had been a bad dream but it has been difficult to shake off. In it, I was in a hotel room in a foreign city with my eldest son and a man from my past. An abusive, disturbed man who remembering still makes my skin feels as if it is not my own. In the dream I was struggling to find all of my son's and my clothing so that I could us sneak away. For some reason, my son and this man were going somewhere together and, again inexplicably, I thought this would help give me a chance to gather all of our things. But when the man returned my son was not with him. He said that my son had taken too long to get in the car so he had left my son on the street. During the rest of the nightmare I was screaming my son's name out of the window and walking the streets searching for him, bellowing his name in hysteria. Finally, in despair, I went back to the hotel where I found my son had returned. He didn't know I had been looking for him and he just wanted to tell me what a good time he had had meeting new people and seeing new things. It was a reenactment of a conversation I have had with him many times in real life but in the dream I could not stay calm as I hollered about not disappearing without telling me where he is going, not staying away for more than twenty minutes without calling, how frightened I had been, how dangerous the world is.
And then I woke up. Realizing my son was safely asleep upstairs and that this man from my past is long dead did not help me with the panic attack I suffered for several hours.
No consultation with Freud is necessary to understand why I had this nightmare and why I had it when I did. Tomorrow my first born, my baby, will turn fifteen.
My son is bright and engaging. He chats up anyone who stands still long enough. He wants to know what you are passionate about and he wants to tell you about his favorite architect, the local community feud about the election of township commissioners, the quality of programming on BBC (we live in the US). My son trusts people until they show they can not be trusted.
When I was fifteen, the long battle between my divorced parents over who wouldn't have custody ended with both refusing to keep me. I was on my own, hiding from the social workers who would put me in foster care if they knew. From the age of fifteen, until my son was born sixteen years later, no family member gave me shelter. Most of the time no one in my family even knew where I was and, as far as I can tell, none of them cared. My children are the only blood relatives I have lived with since I was the age my baby boy will be tomorrow.
I don't spend much time feeling sorry for myself or dwelling on my childhood. It was, I am, it is (thankfully) over. But it has been difficult comparing myself at fifteen to my son at fifteen. He is a curious and independent child (like I was). He can do his own laundry and cook himself most meals (as I could). But he has not seen pure evil. He has never had to worry about where he would sleep. He has never … many things no child should do or see or know.
Most days these differences between us make me feel relief. I have spared him these things. But on days like today, covered with the sense memory of dreams like last night's, I fear for him. Who will he trust in his innocence? Have I, in keeping him safe, left him exposed?
Like many mammals, my son's trips away from me are in larger and larger circles. He proudly reports the miles on his bike odometer and I pretend I can breath. Tomorrow he will be the age I was when I was utterly abandoned by the people who were supposed to keep me safe. We will have cake and go out to dinner. And I will continue to worry how safe he really is.
I never met Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered on May 31st. But I knew who he was and have respected his work and his courage from my earliest days in the reproductive rights movement.
Back in the mid-1980’s I began volunteering with the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). When I learned that protesters were blocking access to a local women's center that provided abortion services, I immediately volunteered to “escort.” The job of a clinic escort is theoretically quite simple – walk a woman into the clinic where she has an appointment. In practice, a clinic escort serves as a human shield. I was trained to put my body between the woman headed into the clinic and anyone who tries to block or harass her. As a clinic escort, I was not allowed to engage protesters in any way. I couldn’t speak to them. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t react to them in any overt way. If I was physically attacked, I could do my best to protect my body and call for help. If escorts were ever seen as instigators of conflict with the protesters, we would jeopardize the legal high ground of the clinic and the women using its services. If the police were called, escorts had to be blameless.
We knew as escorts that all over the U.S. clinics and their employees received death threats, were bombed and vandalized, were stalked and harassed, and, by the ‘90s, were shot and even killed. We knew that volunteering to be a clinic escort was dangerous but, like George Tiller, it was a risk we were willing to take.
Though I volunteered as an escort nearly every Saturday morning for several years, I wasn’t afraid. My lack of fear was no show of bravery but mostly a result of my own anger and disgust. Dragging myself out of bed way too early, I faced a pack of strangers screaming insults at me. While I inhaled coffee and yearned to be back in my warm bed, I was called a baby killer and a Nazi. Grotesque signs were shoved in my face. I had to keep one eye on my car since tires were regularly slashed. The women who arrived for their appointments had been warned about the protesters and been told that the escorts would be wearing distinctive smocks, but as escorts we still introduced ourselves and allowed each woman to refuse our help. The arrival of every woman started a race and I had to run to get to her before a protester but in a way that would not be more frightening then the screaming people with signs. Often when my body was between a protester and a woman who had asked for escort, protesters would deliberately stomp on my foot and often give me a quick, hard, concealed punch in the ribs. I was allowed to do nothing in response. Once all of the women were safely inside, the protesters began shouting “You are killing your baby!” into the windows. I asked the clinic staff whether the women could hear the protesters’ shouts during the procedures and was told that often they could. Knowing this infuriated me but I had to hide my anger when protesters could see me.
When I first began escorting, the clinic was in a medical office building in which there were other tenants. Many of the people coming in and out knew nothing about the clinic but that didn't keep the protesters from calling them Nazis and baby killers. Everyone who came in and out of the building faced a barrage of signs and shouts about murder and the Holocaust. Everyone was accused of horrible crimes. One of these exchanges continues to haunt me.
A tall thin older man walked out of the building and stopped cold in front of a sign that said something about abortion being the Holocaust. It was obvious the man had no idea what was going on – he had been to another office in the building, possibly having his teeth cleaned. I saw the man begin to shake, his entire body trembling. The person with the sign screamed at the man that he was a Nazi. I walked closer, feeling that something might happen though not knowing what. The man began to yell at the protester: “You know nothing about the Holocaust! I was in the camps! You know nothing!” He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a concentration camp tattoo. I could only begin to process how horrible this was and went to the shaking man. I said quietly but firmly, “Sir, I am so sorry. Just ignore them. They aren’t here for you.” I tried to engage him, wanting to lead him away. I might as well have been a shrub – the man looked right through me. I thought the protester would stop, would at least be shocked into silence. Instead, the protester, a middle aged woman, said, “If you were in that building, you are a Nazi! You are part of the Holocaust.” The man began to shake even more and screamed back, “Where were you?! How dare you?! You know nothing! I was there!” And then, when I thought the woman simply had to see how wrong she was to attack this man, she began to scream at him, “The Christians saved the Jews!” Not “some Christians saved some Jews,” which would have been true though a wildly inappropriate to say to this man in this situation, but “the Christians saved the Jews.” I don’t remember exactly what the man yelled back though I think it was something like “you did nothing!” The woman kept repeating what she had said, I kept trying to convince the man to ignore her and go to his car, and then he lunged for her. There was a strip of low plantings perhaps three feet wide between us and the woman. I tried to hold the man’s arm but he shook me off easily. I was afraid the man would be hurt. I feared he would be arrested. I feared the clinic would be blamed for whatever happened. But just before he reached her, he stopped himself. I have no idea why. Still trembling, he walked to his car and drove away.
That protester may have come to the clinic that day motivated by a sincerely held belief that abortion is wrong but in that exchange with a man she knew had nothing to do with abortion she could only have been motivated by blind hatred. She didn’t care who she hurt that day or how. The things she had screamed at him had been ignorant and vicious and insane. I suspect that when the man with the concentration camp tattoo lunged for the protester, he hated her. And as I absorbed all that I had seen, I hated her as well. None of what had been said had anything to do with anyone’s beliefs about abortion. I respect the right to oppose abortion, no matter how much I disagree. I respect the right to engage in peaceful protest. But that woman, and many of the others who lined up their children to call me a murderer every Saturday, had crossed over into action that was cruel and dangerous.
George Tiller’s murderer did not walk into that church alone. The killer brought with him a movement of people filled with hatred, people who support violence and commit violent acts, people who have long since lost sight of any moral objection to abortion if indeed morality had ever been a motivation. They all killed Dr. Tiller. They have killed before and they will kill again.
I cried when I read about Dr. Tiller’s death. But more than twenty years after watching the protester and the concentration camp survivor, I still hate that protester. I hate the man who murdered Dr. Tiller and all those who encourage him. But I would never want anyone to shoot them. Never.
——————————-
This is one of my stories about working to keep abortion safe and legal. To read the stories of others who continue to do this work in the face of great danger, I recommend I am Dr. Tiller.
I confess – before I reluctantly started this blog a few months ago, I didn't read too many blogs. I have a page of RSS feeds but they are mostly professional and academic blogs. But I am compulsive researcher and a news addict. So my e-mail in-box fills each day with Google Alerts and e-newsletters. Writing and speaking about mothering and the law – most often breastfeeding and the law – meant that I was led back to a few blogs where the topic was breastfeeding law and politics. The writers of these blogs became people I knew and corresponded with – Jennifer Laycock of the now apparently defunct The Lactivist (though I highly recommend scouring the archives while they are still up) and Angela White, a fellow lawyer, of Breastfeeding 1-2-3.
I talked a lot to both Jennifer and Angela about how and why they took all the criticism that rained down on them in blog comments. Why bother? You can help people in more anonymous ways, like I did. Or do satisfying speaking or teaching gigs – go home after the conference. Once I did some guest commentary for The Lactivist and the depth of the anger in comments was bizarre. Okay, I admit I took a little thrill out of giving my breastfeeding street cred to someone who assumed from my name that I was a man who couldn't possibly know what it was like to breastfeeding in public. Yeah, see that picture on my website home page of the women breastfeeding – the tiny baby head almost entirely obscured by the gigantic breast? My kid's tiny head. My gigantic breast.
I guess I didn't learn I would never want to be a blogger because here I am. Moral of The Lactivist blog commenters-gone-wild story may only be that I don't play well in Lubbock. And I can probably live with that.
My point is I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of blogging about my life. I don't want people having a view into my living room – it's messy, I'm private, I'm tragically insecure. I like to write about facts and about other people's experiences. But I have never thought twice about writing about my own breastfeeding. It doesn't feel particularly private. I did it everywhere and in front of everyone. I respect other people's right and desire to keep their own breastfeeding experience private. But while I have thought a lot about blogging at all – making myself a target of the judgments of other people because of my opinions or my writing style, and I think very seriously about what information I will reveal about my children, breastfeeding was too important a part of my life to not write about.
Backtalk at Blogher just did a video (is this a vlog? help me more experienced bloggers!) on blogging about breastfeeding. It was interesting to me because I got to see the faces and hear the voices of some more bloggers who write about breastfeeding and who I have been reading since becoming a blogger myself. A few I have come to know on Twitter (where I strongly encourage people come for a swim). Take a look at this. Not only does this show a diverse group of opinions on breastfeeding but on blogging on breastfeeding. Of course the personal is political. Of course the decision to write about breastfeeding is both personal and political. But I admit that I am baffled that it is such a big deal.
While all of the women here are interesting and intelligent, I want to mention that Queen of Spain is a long-time journalist who is very very funny to read (and now I see she is funny on video as well). Annie of PhD in Parenting works very hard at serious research blog posts and is very good natured when I point out legal errors (because from the Canadian perspective, U.S. law is counter-intuitive). And Elita at Blacktating brings sharp insight to this subject from a perspective largely ignored.
Top Hat over at Its All About the Hat suggested a Breastfeeding Blog Carnival called "This is What a Nursing Toddler Looks Like." [This is my first blog carnival so I will link to the other participants as soon as I figure out the rules of the game - UPDATE: I have added some links at the bottom to other Carnival participants.] Luckily for me, the Carnival theme left a good bit of room for interpretation since I don't currently have a nursing toddler. I have many fond memories of nursing my kids when they were toddlers and so do they. I and they remember how important it was that they could nurse when they were sick or hurt or needed comfort. We nursed when they needed some time with mom. We nursed when they were getting used to sharing mom with a new sibling. We nursed when they were hungry. We nursed to sleep. We nursed standing up and sitting down and in positions I used to call "Olympic Freestyle Nursing."
A nursing toddler can also go hiking and he looks like this:
But with my kids getting older, I am seeing more of what a nursing toddler looks like when he is no longer nursing and is no longer a toddler. That can be someone who really understands how important it is that kids get to nurse and mothers get to nurse their kids. A former nursing toddler isn't fazed by seeing women breastfeed wherever they are.
A few years ago my then 12 year old son saw me helping to organize a nurse-in. I explained that a woman had been quietly nursing her baby on a bench in a shopping mall when a security guard ordered her to stop and move. She refused, saying she needed to finish feeding her son. Soon she was surrounded by security guards who engaged her husband in a shouting match and left the woman terrified. When the mom shared her story and the shopping mall management refused to respond to her complaint about her treatment, a nurse-in was planned.
My son was confused – why would anyone think there was something wrong with a mother feeding her baby? Then he was mad – this was wrong. He asked if he could come to the nurse-in. When he saw me making signs, he asked if he could create one for himself. I told him that we expected press coverage and there was a chance his friends would see a photo of him from the protest. He was adamant that he wanted to be seen.
Back to the Carnival theme – This is What a Nursing Toddler Looks Like. He looks like a proud breastfeeding activist.
UPDATE: Other What Does a Nursing Toddler Looks Like Carnival participants.
Today is the 2009 National Day of Silence, a day to protest bullying and harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in schools. Begun in 1996 as a student protest at the University of Virginia, it has grown to participation by over 8,000 middle and high school, colleges and universities, throughout the U.S. While the central act is a period of silence, today's activities draw attention both to the prevalence of anti-LGBT attacks in schools but also to entrenched homophobia among students and the silence on the part of society concerning it.
At 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time this afternoon I logged on to a Tweetchat of Day of Silence supporters. The feed was flooded with young people talking about how events had gone in their schools, how their teachers responded to their refusal to speak, whether they had been harassed for being LGBT or just being perceived as being LGBT. They talked about coming out to their parents and they talked about being afraid to. And this was on Twitter so this pain and anger and support and kinship all came in bursts of 140 characters. There were also allies like me in the chat – people who support the students and many who shared their own memories of being too afraid in school to be who they are.
Carl Walker-Hoover would have turned twelve years old today. However, after a school year of being bullied for "acting gay," Carl committed suicide last week. Reading about Carl's final note, leaving his Pokemon cards to his little brother, I could not help but think of my own boys his age. One of my sons loves the color pink and has taken a good bit of teasing for wearing the color whenever he can. My boys have also told me about how the word "gay" has, in the years between my childhood and theirs, become synonymous with "bad," "ugly," and "uncool."
My kids know lots of adults who are gay and we have had the discussion many times about how wrong it is use "gay" as an insult. But it is hard for them to share their feelings about this with their friends. Today I found a few videos at ThinkB4YouSpeak which provide some clear tips called "Don't Be Afraid to Tell Someone it's Not OK to Say That's So Gay." I highly recommend them.
So with my kids we talk and, while I don't think they are old enough to hear about Carl Walker-Hoover's suicide, we have watched the ThinkB4YouSpeak videos. We role play dealing with things friends say and do that is not okay.
What do you do at your house? How do you discuss homophobia and bullying at your house? Let's share our thoughts and ideas in the hope we will raise a generation of people who can proudly be whoever they are. Let's make sure there are no more children who feel the pain Carl Walker-Hoover did.
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