The Mouths of Babes

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Yesterday, on my way to pick up The Grommet from school, I was driving my regular route, passing the Catholic church and school around the corner from my house. I noticed this small school was surrounded by news vans and crews, complete with reporters and cameras. The whole nine yards.

Now, granted, I DO live in "The OC" (have I mentioned that we HATE that?). But it's not The OC that people all over the world are seeing (and believing) depicted on television. I live in Costa Mesa, California. A nice little community NEXT to Newport Beach (where they SAY "The OC" is filmed, but not really). It's a nice place not often in the news. In fact, never in the news unless it's about some show opening at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, or some such "society page" type thing. Sometimes it's a little pretentious. Sometimes a little too big. Sometimes a little too small. It all depends on who you ask. For me; a girl who grew up poor on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it's GINORMOUS! For Caris; the daughter of that now grown girl, who grew up right here in Costa Mesa, it's a speck of a place that she can't wait to leave for the "big city life" of New York City. All said, it's a nice place to raise a family, if you can keep their feet planted firmly on the ground and their heads out of the clouds.

Then again, sometimes Costa Mesa can be a little too conservative, a little too Republican (Oops! did I say that out loud?), and there are those folks who can't seem to get their heads out of their asses, let alone out of the clouds. It appears that this is one of those times. One of those times I'm less than proud to live here.

As I'm driving by that small Catholic school and church, I can't for the life of me figure out why there are news crews set up on the street side of the campus. It pisses me off a bit, because they're causing traffic to slow or jam up on an already congested main street on the way to my own kid's school (a PUBLIC high school, I might add). But oh well. Costa Mesa isn't that big. I'm gonna find out sooner or later, just by talking to my kids or their friends, since quite a few of my kids friends have attended that school in the past, OR their siblings still go there.

Just as I expected, when I pick up Bryson and his buddy from school and ask about the news crews around St. John's, I get the full story....from a 15 year old. Bry's best bud Kyle, a graduate of St. John's, told me quite candidly what the "big deal" was; a gay couple have kids attending the private, catholic elementary/jr. high school.

Me: You're kidding? That's what all that is about?

Kyle: Yeah. Some parents are making a stink about it. Even though the kids have been there since school started. The principal and lead priest okay'd it, but now that parents have found out about it, it's turned into this big deal.

Me and Bry: Oh brother.

Kyle: You know what's funny about it? If they kick those kids out because their parents are gay, then they should have kicked me, my brothers, my cousins, and a lot of our friends out because our parents are all divorced. Or they should kick Jenny out because her dad left Jenny's mom for his secretary. Or they should kick Brian out because his mom is a pro-choice doctor. All those things aren't "allowed", but no one says anything about it. But now that some gay parents come and put their kids in school, it's suddenly all over the place? It's all so stupid. What does any of this have to do with kids learning? If anything, I feel sorry for those kids because grown ups are stupid.

I think he said it all. Smart kid.