A Legitimate Complaint

Remember when I got a little defensive about my friend's father getting bent out of shape over a flippant remark I made? Yeah. Well, seems like the shoe is on the other foot now.

This week I took an amazing PD course on Tribes. It was a truly great experience, both in what I took away from it and in the way it was run. You know how most training courses consist of you sitting there, bored to tears and doodling on your notepad while the course leader painstakingly reads you each and every overhead--all of which have been photocopied directly form the manual you were issued? This course was nothing like that. It was a practical, dynamic, hands on introduction to the Tribes philosophy and strategies. I left it engerized, inspired, and offended.

I know that the facilitator didn't mean to offend me with her comments. I realize that she was just trying to break the ice and put everyone at ease. But still, I think her statement that, while we didn't need to expose our deepest, most personal moments in our life maps, if we weren't "ashamed of the third divorce or that illegitimate child" we should feel free to share. Everyone else laughed when she said it. Me? I cringed.

And then I asked myself, "Did she really just say illegitimate? Did she really just imply that having a child out of wedlock, in the year 2006, is something to be ashamed of???" Yeah. She did. Was I being oversensitive? Reading too much into what she had clearly meant as a lighthearted joke? Should I just keep my mouth shut, smile, and not make waves? Afterall, this was my workplace--a Catholic schoolboard no less.

Not bloody likely.

I refuse to be made to feel ashamed of being a parent; I refuse to apologize for the existence of my daughters. I'm very proud of my children, and, frankly, of my status as a solo mom. I don't feel that my family is any less "legitimate" than any other family simply because its makeup is, shall we say, "nonnuclear." I don't like the implication that I should feel that way, which is really the underlying message of that "joke."

And, from my children's perspectives, in 2006 should your parents' marital status really be one of the criteria on which your worth as a person is judged? What does which side of the blanket you were born on have to do with the content of your character? While slightly more PC than, oh, say, "Bastard," "illegitmate" is still an offensive term, and should be confronted as such.

I didn't make a scene, but I did take a quiet moment to let the facilitator know that I found her comment to be deeply offensive. She was mortified and deeply apologetic. She assured me that she won't be making that particular joke anymore; I assured her that I didn't believe she'd been intentionally offensive. So many people do, which is why I think it's important to confront this sort of thougtlessness. To speak up, politely and with empathy, to invite people to question their language and the underlying attitudes that their word choices imply.

All in all, it was a positive conversation--one that acknowledged that every person has a story, and we need to be careful of devaluing those stories through thoughtless words that promote outdated attitudes that are best left back in the Nineteenth Century, not brought forward into the Twentyfirst.

Comments

Thankyou, for tackling that moment of thoughtlessness, I have spent the last week battling the "Fathers Day" activities at school, pippins and playgroup. This is the firt year that I have not been able to defer my big girl from making a present for her "dad". Usually we make a gift for her grandad and have grandad's day, but this year not one coordinator even mentioned that some kids may not have a dad. So now we have three different gifts all made for a person who has chosen to never exist in her life, we will still be having grandads, but it would have been easier if the people running the show had recognised the statistics and that its a pretty even split in New Zealand between kids that do and don't have both parents.

Ooof. That just knocked the wbreath out of me.

So glad you spoke up!

There's a quote from Lilo and Stitch someone has on Intercot.com (It's a disney world forum). I'd use it on my siggy but I don't want to rip off what they said. It says: "Our family is small and broken but still good." Glad you spoke up Kimberley. Things like that happen to me and sometimes I am too sheepish to bring it to the offending person's attention.

I love that part of Lilo and Stitch too, Julia. I think it made me a bit misty eyed the first time I saw it. But my family *isn't* broken, which is sort of the point. Different, maybe. But not broken.