I was listening to some of my backlogged This American Life in the car, driving down to Boston and back to get Trixie (because I am an NPR geek, and my ipod contains TAL episodes, one audio book by Anne Lamott and two by Sarah Vowell, plus miscellaneous music which I almost never listen to).
The particular episode that caught my attention featured Seattle writer and syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage talking about a kid he’s particularly admired in high school. This kid was gay, out (in 1979) and evidently a complete flamer, with the fashion sense of a young Elton John. He marched defiantly into that high school, described by Savage as the last ditch Catholic school for all of the bullies, stoners and other misfits who’d been kicked out of every other Catholic school in town (Savage didn’t say how he’s wound up there), and was absolutely and unapologetically himself–and was beaten up, like, every day.

That, I thought, is what I want my kids to be like.

Gay, flaming misfits who are beaten up every day? Of course not. But simply, unapologetically and defiantly if necessary, themselves. It’s not something I achieved as a teenager; in fact, it’s something I still struggle with. So I suspect it’s not something I can teach. But oh, what a standard to try to achieve.

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