Sierra had her last band concert at the end of May. She did a great job. I was surprised at how much she took to the flute. She didn't practice, but she loved playing. She said she was the best in her class. I was surprised because again, I never really heard her practice. I really loved her band teacher. He retired this year. He was so great. The things he accomplished with those kids in one year was nothing short of a miracle. He didn't require them to practice. They were playing a piece I played in the 8th grade in the 6th grade. He had the Jazz band write their own piece for the concert. It was amazing. There was just no way you would have believed these kids were only playing for a year and weren't required to practice. He was definitely one in a million. We will miss him next year.
I haven't been in Sierra's school much at all this year. I have two very busy boys and to take them anywhere in public is difficult. When I went to Sierra's school and saw that they had a made poster to celebrate LGBT week. I was a little shocked. The middle school in Fruita is only 6th and 7th grade. I just think it is so confusing and difficult for kids to navigate such topics at such a young age. If you define Lesbianism as girls who like girls or Gay as boys who like boys or Transgender as wanting to be a different gender than you are or Bisexual as liking boys and girls, then at such a tender age I would have said, "I am all those things." You can't define these terms loosely and have your children have any kind of clear definition of what these things really mean. There are several kids that call Sierra a lesbian because she has a friend Elizabeth that she loves and they are inseparable. Then you create an environment where kids are afraid to have deep meaningful relationships with people of the same gender for fear of being thought they are something different than they are. All of this has to be terribly confusing at an age when you are trying to figure out who you are and what you believe about the world. After her concert Sierra and I went and got ice cream and I talked to her boldly about this topic. We had an open conversations about sex before she started middle school which made it easier to talk about this topic. I believe digesting a conversation about sex was a lot easier than digesting a conversation about sex between the same gender, which is difficult for me as a grown adult to even wrap my head around. We discussed it as delicately but as boldly as we could. She got mad and said, "I don't want to talk about this!" I got emotional and caught my breath and said, "I don't want to talk about this either, but it is so important." I felt like Jacob in the Book of Mormon and I kept thinking what is the right thing to do? Do I take her out of public school which is so rot with propaganda? Do I home school her? Do I look at charter schools again? Nate feels like we are doing the right thing. She will need to navigate the world eventually. I feel like I am feeding her to the wolves. No wonder she comes home from school every day raging.
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