The Wisdom of a Ten-Year-Old Boy

This is one of the cakes we cut to celebrate our civil union in June 2011; we applied for our license on the first day it was legal in Illinois and had a ceremony at the courthouse on the fifth anniversary of our commitment ceremony. Another cake we cut that day said, "Legal at last!"

Yesterday, my friend Tony sent me a link to a chronology of same-sex marriage and civil unions in the United States.  The November 6 elections brought further progress towards marriage equality.  I try to appreciate the progress.   But the fact that other citizens get to decide whether my partner and I may enjoy the civil rights they take for granted—worse, that some of my fellow citizens believe they are entitled to make that decision—grates on me.

Still, the recent progress gives me hope.  Another source of hope is a conversation I had with my ten-year-old nephews last month.    

On a cold, sunny Sunday morning in Connecticut, we sat in a diner booth awaiting pancakes and waffles.  The twins had just turned ten, and we were on our annual visit out east to celebrate their birthday.  That morning, our large group was divided in two, and my nephews and I shared the booth with their grandma Sharon, visiting from Nova Scotia. 

As Sameer drew with crayons on his placemat, Sanjay said to me, “I think I’m liking Mitt Romney better than Barack Obama.”  The kid knows how to get my attention. 

Sanjay had heard somewhere that the President hadn’t kept his promises.  I explained that because the Republicans did not want the President to be reelected, they had blocked many of his proposals, refusing to cooperate with him. 

“They did that?  Why?!”  His ten-year-old sense of right and wrong was piqued. 

Our mailbox on Election Day 2012.

After we discussed Obamacare and preexisting conditions, and the boys talked about a girl in their school who had cancer, they began to see why I supported the President. 

Then I added, “Romney thinks your Aunty Melon and I should not be able to get married.” 

Next to me, Sameer’s crayon stopped moving on his placemat, and across the table, Sanjay tried to stand up in the booth.  “But people should be able to marry whoever they want!”  Sanjay was indignant, sounding like he was stating the obvious. 

And then, puzzled, he asked “You’re not married?” 

Our wedding cake from June 2006

After all, he remembered walking me (or rather, pulling me) down the aisle at the Unitarian Universalist Church when he was three and a half.  (The next day, he had asked me about the ceremony: “Why did you all talk so much?”) Sameer remembered that our wedding cake had egg in it; he was allergic to eggs and loves cake.  How could we not be married?

I explained civil unions and that some states recognize ours and some don’t and how that is different from their parents’ marriage.  We also discussed how Canada, where they go every year to visit their grandma, has different policies about same-sex marriage and about health care. 

Then the pancakes came, and we got busy eating.  But when I get frustrated at the slow pace of change, weary of second-class citizenship, I remind myself that the future will be different.  Today, there are ten-year-old boys who say without ambivalence, “But people should be able to marry whoever they want!”