Nurture

Something I think about a lot as Sarah and I raise these boys is the effect their environment has on who they will become. I mean, it seems obvious that the experiences we have and the things we're exposed to as children help shape us, but you don't really realize that until you're a parent. I now see what a frightening amount of influence I have and I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing.

For instance, we bought Graham the movie Cars and he became OBSESSED with it. The same goes for Thomas the Tank Engine, Shrek and Toy Story. Honestly, I think I could have given him season two of the MacNeil Lehrer report and he would have begged me for the accompanying Lehrer doll.

Anyway, I always have this in mind and Sarah and I go out of our way to make sure he gets a broad base of experiences. This is especially true when I help him pick books out at the library. The other day I got him this book:

I figured it would be a nice story about a quirky baby penguin and would break up the monotony of cars and trucks books that we seem to always be reading.

That night we got about 5 pages in when I realized it was a nice story, a nice story about the deep homosexual love between two male penguins who become daddies through the quirky highjinks of the zookeeper.

Now, if you know us, you know we could care less about Graham being exposed to some gay penguins, it just kind of caught me off guard and thrust me into the "what it means to have two daddies" conversation a little earlier than I anticipated.

Since getting the book for Graham, he has predictably become a gay waterfowl fanatic and now we read it every night, which is all to the good. However, I can't stop thinking about some of my less liberal friends and how they would have reacted to getting their kids hooked on the story of Roy and Silo (are you kidding me with these names? Silo the gay penguin?!?!?) Unfortunately I think some of them would have been none too pleased.

Therefore, because I do feel it is a good book with an important message, I propose a small rewrite that might temper the the message with some good old fashioned straight guy testosterone.

I give you:

 

You're welcome America.

PS. Big congrats to little Jake, who teaches me time and again about the virtues of persistence.