And, it's slimming!!

Remember how I pointed out that 6th grade boys love to put each other down by saying, "You're gay"? Well, something happened this weekend that proved it! Bronte has a friend who has 3 older brothers. The oldest is in 6th grade and when Bronte was over at her house on Saturday the whole bunch of them were playing in the basement. At one point the 6th grade brother got annoyed with the 5th grade brother and told him he was, "so gay!" Both Bronte and her friend heard it and saw how upset it made the insulted one. So, a few minutes later Bronte's friend asked her, "What's gay mean?" and Bronte had an answer for her. Are you ready for this? Bronte said, "It means you wear a lot of black."

I was not in the basement when this happened. This is how I found out. At about 8:30 that night my kids and my husband and I were all sitting on the couch watching Mythbusters on Discovery. All of a sudden Bronte crawled over from one end of the couch to sit on my lap and she whispered in my ear, "Does "gay" mean you wear a lot of black?" I looked at her and said, "What??" and she repeated the question.
OK. As a parent, what do you do at this point? My daughter is 6, by the way. I did what all parents are wont to do when faced with a question like this...I stalled. I asked her, "Why do you ask?" and she told me about what happened at her friend's house and that she told her pal that gay meant you wear a lot of black. Then she looked up at me again and said, "Was I right?" I said, "Well, not exactly," and she said, "Well, then what does it mean?" I told her we would talk about it later.

Now, the big question is...do I actually have to address this with my 6 year old or should I wait until she brings it up again? Secondly, where in hell did she get the idea that being gay means you wear a lot of black? What kind of answer is that?

So, after the kids went to bed I told Tony about this. He died laughing but didn't seem overly concerned. I am worried that Bronte is going to tell the entire Kindergarten class that being gay means you wear black and all the kids are going to start calling people in black "gay", which is going to be bad, especially if they are Catholic and call the priest gay. (Which has about a 50% chance of being true, right? Man, some of you are going to crucify me for that comment!)
My point is that Kindergartners will believe about anything. When I was in Kindergarten someone told me that when a boy lays on a girl that makes a baby. So, a couple of days later I was playing kickball and ran into this boy (he was right in the baseline...I had no choice) and he fell right on top of me. I started to cry hysterically and wouldn't tell the gym teacher why so he sent me to the nurse who called my mother to come and get me. When we got in the car my mom asked me why I was crying and I told her that Sean Grieser made me make a baby. I'm sure my mother experienced the same feeling I did when Bronte wanted to know what "gay" means.

Anyway, so Tony wasn't concerned. That's typical. He's not the one who is going to have to field all the phone calls from mothers telling me that Bronte told their precious kid that they were gay. Whatever. All I know is that every time Tony wears black (which he does quite often) I am going to say, "You look great...fag."