Tonight is the premiere of Dancing with the Stars and of course there has been a lot of hatred and prejudice directed towards Chaz Bono, especially by groups like One Million Moms.
I try and use teachable moments with my children about acceptance, kindness and of course being an upstander vs. a bystander. My oldest daughter under the pseudonym of Ruby Red has blogged for us before and she will be doing a series called a "Diary of a 4th Grader" starting shortly, but this morning while Good Morning America was on (but without sound as the kids got around for school) there were images of Chaz on the television screen. I called my 4th grader over and asked her who the person on tv looked like. She immediately said, "The guy from Jewel-Osco." I was like oh, okay, so there's nothing that stands out? Nothing different? She said, "No."
So, I could have left it at that, but I jump on these opportunities to talk to my children about acceptance of all differences, so I told her Chaz's story as I knew it.
I started by telling her about Sonny and Cher, and their song "I've got you babe" which is Mamaw and Papaw's favorite song to sing via karaoke. I told her that Sonny and Cher had a daughter, Chastity but Chastity felt as if she was in the wrong body and had surgery to become a man. I then told her that Chaz is now on Dancing with the Stars and that people are talking about boycotting the show because they feel this sends the wrong message to children.
Ruby Red's response was a proud moment for me, when she just couldn't grasp Why someone would have a problem with Chaz dancing on Dancing with the Stars. I asked her if she would write what she understands and how she feels about it and the following is her words. She wrote them out and I'm typing them letter for letter, word for word. In the past I've taken pictures of her words and included them here in the blog, but the pencil is pretty light on this paper and it won't show up.
So here it is....
Chaz Bono
Chaz Bono is a person who was born a girl and wanted to be a boy so he got surgery to make him a boy. I think it is great for him and people should let him dance on dancing with the stars.
My mom told me some groups are trying to stop him from danceing but he should be danceing with the stars. No one should tell him he can't. I saw him on Ellen and his mom called in. His mom is great for helping him and courage (meant to be encouraging) him.
by Ruby Red
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