THAT'S A FAMILY!

I've been wanting to tell some of my parental friends about this film I watched a couple of weeks ago in class. Non-parental friends, you can know about this too. EVERYONE should know about it. It's called, "That's A Family!" (every time I say that in my head I say it with an Italian accent). It was simple, informative, and encompassed all types of families. This is a film that all young children should watch beginning in Kindergarten or 1st grade. I totally am buying this for my 7 year old nephew. It's inexpensive too! You can order the film from respectforall.org.

Here is a glimpse:



Basically, it mentions how any combination of family is "normal" ranging from various ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and (non) biological families. It is done in a very elementary way and is just simply beautiful. There is a lifetime of information to be taught in this 30 minute film. Help people progress and share it with others. See, look, you can learn what I pay a fortune for right here for freeeeeee! ;)

I had an interesting chat with my neighbor the other night. I like him. He's a few decades older than me and was raised here in Brooklyn. I guess you could say he lived a "hard knock" life. He has 4 biological kids I think and 4 others that he and his wife adopted? Ehhh, I think I have that right. Basically, he has a lot of kids to take care of. So he came over the other night to hang with my roomies and he wanted my opinion on a situation that happened in his 11 year old's 5th grade class. He told me that his son brought home a book that was assigned by the teacher about an adolescent gay boy. I want to say it was called The Rainbow Way? Well, my neighbor's son started asking him about being gay. My neighbor was HEATED that the school gave this to his son to read. My neighbor basically wanted me to agree that what the school did was wrong. I understood where my neighbor was coming from and just really his upbringing which would make him feel the way that he did. My neighbor was also more concerned with the fact that the book would turn his son gay. hahahahahahahaha. I had to laugh at that and politely shared my view with him that reading a book wasn't going to turn his son gay. I know there are lots of argumentative views on this topic but personally I think being gay has more to do with a biological predisposition. Anywho, I was able to break down to him that if anything the book was just going to teach his son how to be more receptive and appreciative to people who are "different" from him and stressed that I thought that was what the teacher's motives were too. Not only with gay people but different ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. I mean his son is growing up in NYC; land of misfits. The only part I agreed that I would have been upset with is if there was explicit sexual content in the book and the parent's were never notified of that. His son is in 5th grade. I think that's when Sex Ed class started for me? Parents had to approve of the education though. Kids are developing so much younger these days though and having sexual encounters from ridiculously young ages, especially here. I know it happens everywhere but there is something different about growing up in Brooklyn I think that I'm learning. It's amazing and terrifying what my Landlord's 4 year old daughter already knows about city life. I went on longer than I intended to about that. ;)

What else should you know?

Ummmmm... Dancing is fun. Go do it if you haven't today.

I'm trying to narrow down my thesis topic. It's going to be biofeedback related; I just can't decide which medium I want to relate it to. Music? Images? Illusions? We'll see. I guarantee you it will be awesome though.

BUY THE FILM!

Big ol' hugs,
Shells