Originally appeared March 26, 2003, in the Chicago Free
Press.
"King & King," a children's book by Dutch authors Linda de
Haan and Stern Nijland, begins ordinarily enough.
A grouchy queen wants her lazy son to get married - so she
decrees that he must find a princess by the end of the summer.
"Very well, Mother," he says. "I must say, though, I've never
cared much for princesses."
The prince's young attendant gives a sly wink.
Even so, princesses trot in from every corner of the globe for
his inspection. From Texas. From Greenland. From Mumbai. Yet the
prince is bored, unhappy. No young lady seems just right.
Then Princess Madeline enters. The young prince perks up. He has
found love!
But it is not with the princess. It is with her brother, Prince
Lee. Little hearts flow between them on the page. There is
handholding, a kiss and a marriage - and of course a happily ever
after.
Gay and lesbian couples with young children are already familiar
with the lovely "King & King," which debuted a year ago this
month (and three years ago in the more progressive Netherlands,
which in 2000 approved gay marriage). But Chicago Tribune columnist
Dawn Turner Trice was not - and she was appalled.
Price learned about the book from "concerned parents" at the
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, a private school
originally founded by philosopher John Dewey as a place of hands-on
experience. Every year, the Lab Schools' children think critically
about children's books, judging their merits and awarding the Zena
Sutherland Award to their favorites. They read books chosen by
their librarians and narrow them down to five multicultural,
multiracial finalists that represent both genders.
But this year, Trice says in her column, one of the finalists -
"King & King" - "has upset some parents who felt that they
should have been notified that their parents were reading a book
that deals with homosexuality."
Though Trice calls the book "well-conceived," she compares it
with other "sexual material" like song lyrics and suggestive
clothing. "So at least, in my mind," she says, "that makes this
column less about bigotry and narrow-mindedness (although some
parents certainly found the content of "King & King"
disturbing) than about parents helping kids stay kids in an
oversexed society."
Trice, who is African-American, also acknowledges that in years
past, some parents would have flipped out over the fact that prince
is considering a "mocha-colored" princess from Mombai. "Which
emphasizes the fact that the line that governs what's acceptable
continues to move for some even though it remains steadfast for
others," she says.
Nevertheless, she added, she wouldn't show the book to her own
second grader just yet. "When it's time to talk about such things,
I may pull the book out," she says. "But I would like to have that
choice." Parents should be warned, she says, before being forced to
discuss homosexuality or sex with their children.
What Trice is forgetting, of course, is that "King & King"
is no more about sex than is any of a hundred other fairy tales,
from Disney's beloved Cinderella and Snow White to The Little
Mermaid. (Of course, the original, more graphic and gory folktales
may, indeed, be about sex, but for the most part we have sanitized
them for our children.) "King & King" is about the social
rituals and inner attractions of love and partnership.
Even if it were about sex, she is ignoring that no parent is
able to choose the timeline for their children's curiosity. No
families live in a bubble. Children may ask about sex at three when
they see a dog mounting
another dog or when another child mentions something about it on
the playground at eight - or they might never ask. When is a parent
ever truly ready for their children to grow up?
But most importantly, Trice is forgetting one crucial fact: not
only will some children at Lab grow up to be gay themselves, but
some children who attend Lab have parents who are lesbian or gay. I
don't know where Trice's child goes, but it is likely that her
second grader also knows children who come from gay families.
As results continue to come in from the 2000 census, we have
recently learned that one-third of the nearly 300,000 lesbian
couples and one-fifth of the slightly more than 300,000 male
couples who identified themselves as "unmarried partners" are
living with children under 18. In conservative states, as many as
40 percent of the lesbian "unmarried partners" are raising
children.
In fact, says the Washington Post, "43 percent of unmarried
couples living together [including both gay and straight couples]
are raising children, nearly matching the 46 percent figure for the
nation's married couples. And the trend is climbing for unmarried
couples, while it is becoming less and less common for married
couples to have children living with them."
The number of children with gay and lesbian parents is rising as
more gays and lesbians take the mother (and father) road; and as
more and more children of gay parents spread through the school
system, straight parents will need to face the reality that their
child's best friend may well have two mommies or two daddies.
That means that Dawn Turner Trice and other parents like her
need to wake up and smell the lavender. Gay families exist. They
are everywhere. And yes, just like all families, they are about
love.