This just about breaks my heart:
I would be fine with a gay kid! You can tell mine are going to be straight, though.
Nobody wants their kid to turn out gay/disabled, but you love them all the same, you know?
I so admire parents who raise disabled children. I never could.
Of course I wouldn’t choose to have a disabled or queer child – I want my kid to have a happy life.
My heart gets fused back together with electric rage when this sort of thing is expressed in front of children, particularly the speakers’. Especially when there are those present who are queer or disabled or both.
Of course, the people who say thing kind of thing are frequently not okay when their kid does come out or become disabled. Being queer is okay – for other people, but not in this family. Disabled people are special little inspirations – in other families, but you’re a great hardship to bear in this one.
But the “sentiment” itself? It isn’t sweet, tolerant, or progressive as the speakers think. If it was truly about loving loved ones, if it was truly about wanting them to live happy lives, they wouldn’t wish the things that shape those loved ones away unless that was what the loved ones wanted. They’d wish for funding and meds and what have you to make the disabled kids’ lives easier, sure. But mostly, they’d wish away prejudice and systemic societal barriers to their loved ones leading happy lives. But this? This is just please be normal.
Normal is stifling and terrifying in my book. Better to live a rich and varied life containing happiness than a narrowly imagined and narrowly happy one. Better to work to heal the world for your loved ones than to wish who they are away.
Yes that. It always makes me cringe when you hear people say things like, “Well of course, I’d always love them, whatever they were.” The tone implies, look at me, I’m such a good person that I will tolerate any kind of abhorrence. The worst thing is that – like you say – they think they’re saying something really positive.
I hope you are feeling well. And happy International Women’s Day!
I am, thanks, and happy IWD to you, too!
Cringe. They don’t ‘think they’re saying something positive’ they KNOW it with every fibre of their beings. And pity help the child with a disability or the queer child. Particularly if there is a straight child with disabilities to compare the first child to. Sad, mad, and dangerous.
As if happiness is as easy as being straight and CAB. As if you can’t be just as happy and fulfilled if you have a disability or identify as queer. What a horrible life that speaker must lead, always afraid.
Totally, heartily agree with you, Chally. It’s particularly cruel when a queer and/or disabled child’s parents say that shit openly to their child, as my parents did to me. It’s often disguised as “concern”: “Oh, I wish you weren’t trans! Your life is going to be so hard! [Obligatory cis tears follow] You’d be better off keeping quiet about it!”
So freaking true. People who say that often seem to lack empathy. I hope that they think they’re saying “I’ll love you always” even if it does come out as “please be normal!”