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I was really impressed with this interview Matt Duron gave at "The Mother Company" site. Matt's the dad of C.J., the gender non-conforming child Lori Duron writes about raising in her blog and book, Raising My Rainbow.
It was great to hear from the dad in that family! Here's an excerpt:
You say you’ve “evolved” in terms of his ability to handle your boy’s inclination? How?
It’s not uncomfortable at all anymore to see my son wearing “girl clothes” or playing with “girl toys.” I got to the place where I realized that clothes are just fabric and toys are just plastic, who cares what fabric a kid wears or plastic they play with?
I mean, I could care. I could be a jerk to my kid and tell him that he can’t like the kind of stuff that he likes, but what kind of man and father would that make me? I’m supposed to teach my kids right from wrong, self-confidence, decency, respect, how to treat others, how to treat themselves, how to be good people and be leaders. Teaching my boys those qualities are what’s important to my wife and me. Their gender expression has nothing to do with any of that. I’m not going to kill his spirit by telling him that the way he was born is wrong or bad.
If you read the statistics for kids like my son they are pretty scary. They have the highest rate of suicide attempts, drug abuse, unsafe sex and depression. Am I going to drive him to those things or try to save him from those things by loving him no matter what? You better believe it’s the latter of those two. I will do everything I can possibly do to ensure my son doesn’t become a statistic and help as many other kids as I can.
Join me in cheering their whole family on! Go check out the interview here.
Namaste,
Lee
And thanks to my friend Greg for sharing this with me, so I could share it with all of you.
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