'ay' is for 'Hay' and 'Boy' is for 'Joy'

Last Friday afternoon the Domestic Surf God and I were relaxing on the back deck when Bunny came out to share a joke a boy in his class had told him.  The joke was derogatory towards gay people.

We looked at each other and realised this was one of those fun moments in a parent's life, when one must  tactfully and sensitively explain what "Gay" in this context means and that he should never intentionally hurt or put people down for being who they are.

Bunny had no problem with the concept of same gender love and declared with arms raised in Peter Allen style "I never want to marry a girl, so I'm Gay".

We smiled at each other like a couple of crazy people and told him we loved him, but not to proclaim this at school as just like he was told a joke which was mean to Gay people, he too could find himself on the receiving end of similarly mean treatment.  He happily went back inside and we continued to relax feeling satisfied that we had handled the situation okay and decided to have another refreshment.

This Friday afternoon I went up to the school as I needed to find out the details of a Dance Class my boys were bugging me to take them to on Saturday.  My teaching partner from last year and my admin friend and I were chatting when they informed me of Smiley's class contribution to the word family of the week.

His lovely teacher asked the class for words ending in 'ay',  his contribution was the word 'Gay'.

Then the class was asked to create a sentence using as many 'ay' words as possible.  Smiley's eyes twinkled as he shared the sentence  "Hay, this isn't a Gay bar!".

I write this as I prepare to take them to their Contemporary Creative Movement Class.