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Monday afternoon, after doing the nap tug-of-war for a couple hours, I finally gave in and just let Will go to sleep on me. What the hell--I was tired, he was tired, and it gave me an excuse to just sit still for a while. Figuring I had at least an hour to kill, I hit the On Demand button on the remote and perused through the HBO movies, looking for something no one else wanted to watch with me.
The Laramie Project was still listed. For anyone unfamiliar with the film, it's an adaptation of the play about Laramie, Wyoming, the town where Matthew Shepard was murdered. Beaten and left tied to a fence to die because he was gay, to be more specific.
At the heart of the story are three young American men--one who was brutally murdered and two who did the murdering. And it's a horrible truth that today, in America, we are raising our children to be murderers. Not all of us, of course. Not even most of us. But some of us. And if you don't believe that, find yourself a couple hours and watch closely.
I watched the whole thing with my sleeping infant son in my arms. When it was over, I sat on the couch and sobbed silently. Will woke up and I nursed him and hugged him and whispered happy, loving words into his ears. If only it would always be that easy.
Parenting is an awesome responsibility. It's one I'm only beginning to understand now that I'm navel-deep in it. And I remind myself daily that my son is going to grow up to be the kind of person I teach him to be.
Truthfully, I hope he isn't gay, not because I think it's wrong, but because I think that life is hard enough without having to deal with people who persecute you for who you are. And if he is, I will do my best to make the world he lives in a safe, secure and happy one for him. Every child--every PERSON--deserves that.
I hope that I will raise him to be secure in himself and the choices he makes, strong in his decisions and happy in his life. That's my job as his mother.
I also hope that I never, not for an instant, do anything to give him the idea that it's okay to mistreat another person. That different equals wrong. That he's somehow better by virtue of who he is. That violence is okay. That impropriety is excusable. That ignorance and hipocracy and prejudice are acceptable in our world.
Yes, being a parent is an overwhelming responsibility. But it's the most important job I have. God help me to do it well.
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