Bunchland

Spoiler: After kid came out to his parents as gay, they still love him just the same

A Huffington Post blogger named Amelia recently wrote a post about her 7-year-old son coming out to her and her husband. Not surprisingly, it’s received a zillion comments and not all of them nice and supportive. One reaction Amelia read a few times was, “But how does his father feel about this?”

Well, Amelia’s husband Dave has responded. Guess what, he loves his son. And not any less than if the kid were straight. And he’s not sad. He doesn’t bemoan the lack of hetero-normative activities his son will miss out on, because his son is 7 and who knows what sort of stuff he’ll be into? For now he loves sports. If one day he doesn’t, that’s fine by them. Is Dave sad that his son will never get married? Of course not, because if his son one day wants to get married, he can!!  Read more...

What we’re reading today:

1. A Swedish study found that newborn babies whose umbilical cords were cut three minutes after they were born instead of right away were less likely to be iron deficient.

2. Some Toronto kids in the Jane-and-Finch-area are trying out squash (the sport) after-school. Awesome. When one of those kids comes to dominate the international squash scene in 10 years or so, we expect a fabulous made-for-CBC movie.

3. KJ Dellantonia at the NYT Motherlode is not down with the new Best Buy ads that mock Santa Claus. We know!! Yeah, we get that some seasonal ads are meant to tug on your heartstrings and some are less subtle in making you buy stuff, but the Best Buy ones are gross. We think we need to write more on this later, but for now, we’re happy that KJ is sticking up for the man in the red suit.  Read more...

What we’re reading today:

1. An anti-vaccine group has taken out a huge video ad in Times Square, claiming they have “the facts,” but pro-vaccine groups say that a giant ad like this could cost thousands of kids their lives. Salon’s Rahul Parikh says, “high-profile defenses of vaccines are still few and far between.” Do we need to hear what the anti-vaccinationists have to say, or are they causing, as one medical ethicist says, “nothing less than a scandal”?

2. One 10-year-old girl is sick of the boys who stereotype all girls as pink-loving, doll-toting, nail polish-wearing girlie girls. Here’s what she has to say to them.

3. Tennessee has passed a “Don’t Say Gay” bill that prohibits the discussion of anything non-hetero before grade nine. This sounds very healthy and accepting. We’re quite sure this won’t have any negative consequences for young teenagers either having to deal with their own non-hetero sexuality or being tolerant of others. It’s not like there’ve been any crises involving gay teens recently.  Read more...