Steve Carell, I think...

Have you seen the movie "Little Miss Sunshine"? If you haven't seen it yet, you need to rent it. It's about this very ordinary looking little girl with this totally screwed up family who enters a pageant a la JonBenet. It is brilliant. Let me just tell you my favorite line. At one point her uncle, played by the guy who was in The 40 Year Old Virgin...what's his name...anyway he is telling her that the reason he tried to kill himself was because of a series of events which included falling in love with another man. When this girl questions him about being in love with a MAN he replies that, yes, he was in love with a MAN and she says, "Well, that's just silly."

I think that about sums up how kids at the age of 8 feel about homosexuality, don't you? I remember when Brenna (my older daughter) and I were getting to the point when I thought we needed to have the "sex talk". I went to Barnes and Noble and went to the information desk so they could guide me towards the appropriate books for Brenna on this subject. I told the 20 year old boy behind the desk that I needed sex books that I could read with my daughter. Judging from the look on his face, I must have phrased it wrong. (Like I was looking for family friendly porn or something) Anyway, I explained that I was going to have "the talk" with her and I thought I needed some visuals. But, I explained that I didn't want "The Joy of Sex" or anything like that. I wanted something that I could use to explain to an 8 year old where babies come from and also all the glorious things that happen in puberty (I'm being sarcastic here). Let me tell you, I was amazed at the number of books he found for me. I had to buy myself a Starbucks and sit down and study them. Some were very liberal. I kept expecting condoms to fall out from between the pages like those subscription cards in People magazine. Some were WAAAYYYY too God-ish. They talked about intercourse as a wifely duty and a means to an end (babies) and I almost expected them to have advice like, "close your eyes and go to your happy place and try not to wince and soon it will be over". (That reminds me of something my friend told me after she had "the talk" with her daughter. She took this child to a resort hotel somewhere for the weekend just to have this chat! Anyway, she told her the details on how to make a baby, and her daughter said, "So, you have to do that every time you want to have a baby?" Her mom said, "Yes..." and her daughter said, "But I want to have three babies. Does that mean I have to do that three times??")
Okay, so I needed something in the middle. No crosses on the cover and no chapters about masturbation. (This is true...there are actually chapters on masturbation in some of these sex books geared towards tweens. Seriously. One had a drawing of a girl holding a shower massage and smiling knowingly.) However, almost every book I looked at had a chapter on homosexuality. What it means, how to tell if you are a homosexual, how they pleasure each other...etc. In my opinion the entire chapter on homosexuality could be summed up with that line from "Little Miss Sunshine"...That's just silly. But I am not gay, so what do I know? My point is, it never occurred to me that Brenna might want to know what a homosexual is. But, being the good mom that I am I bought a book with a gay chapter so she would know what being a homosexual is all about. Besides, I happen to know for a fact that one of the favorite phrases of a sixth grade boy trying to put down another sixth grade boy is, "You're so gay." I thought Brenna might want to know what that meant.
Well, she was less than interested. I asked her if she knew what being gay was. She said no. I asked her if she wanted me to tell her and she thought for a minute. Then she said not really. When she finally does ask me I think I will answer, "That's just silly."