A couple of weeks ago, my bright-eyed girl did an assignment in school that her teacher loved so much I was sent a personal note about it.
And though it didn't surprise me to read my mighty-hearted girls' words, I still found myself moved by what she wrote: so simple and compelling.
She is growing up in a time, in a country and in a family where judgements about who someone chooses to love don't exist, and I am so glad.
In the last few weeks of my first year in university, a group of my friends and I had started a discussion about moving off campus together. One of those friends came into my room, shortly before we started the process of going out house hunting, and said
I need to tell you something, because it might change your mind about wanting to live with me.
I remember feeling such heartache for him. And when I cried, he asked me if I was mad at him for not saying something sooner. I felt nothing but a heavy sadness that he ever thought a friendship like ours could be altered by what he told me. And I felt even greater sadness that people who didn't know him the way I did might judge, and worse, reject him. The years I spent living with him and being loved by him were one of the greatest gifts I took away from my years at university. He taught me more about love than he will ever know, and much of what I teach my kids about love comes from the years I lived with him and my other roommates.
And though it is easy to forget what my kids see, because it's all I've ever known, our family is diverse and multicultural. My kids have a biracial mother and they are exposed to many different cultural practices in their day-to-day life. So much of what I teach them about love comes from my parents and their decision to choose each other.
After watching this video for a lesson on media literacy, my girl's grade three class had to give feedback on what they felt and thought when they watched it.
When she was asked who she thought the target audience for this video was, she replied:
This video is for people who believe that love has rules.
She wrote that it made her happy, and when I asked her about it she told me she felt glad there was a video to help people change their mind and understand that you can love anyone and be loved by anyone.
And yesterday, when we sat together and listened to a news story announcing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision about gay marriage I felt like our society had experienced a triumph. For my daughter, it was a given.
