Teaching Kids about the False Gender Binary

Today, Kim Frizzle wore a pin that reads "Challenge False Binaries" and began class with an unmarked picture of an American child who lived about 100 years ago.
"Do you know who this is, or when this picture is from?"

"No."

"That's okay. What CAN you observe about it?"

"She has a white dress/a hat with a feather/an interesting haircut... I'd guess she's about 3 or 4 years old... It must be an old picture, not just because it's in black and white but because she's not smiling and usually today photographers get kids to smile for pictures..."

"Great! Yes, this picture is probably from 1884, so the person was about 2 years old. This was one of our country's former presidents: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. See? Here he is all grown up."

"...waaaaaat."

"Do you have a question?"

"Why was he in a dress?!"

So we learned the history of a few cultural norms, including the tradition of dressing boys and girls in white dresses until about age 6 basically just because white was bleachable/thought to be a "kid" color, and how pink and blue emerged (and eventually swapped) as color "codes" around the WWII era.

We looked at the pictures from the Lumberjanes series and noticed how different all the girls look - their body types and hairstyles and fashion choices, quite different from what we're used to seeing in, say, Disney movies.

We talked about frustrations we feel when we're shopping for new clothes and it feels like a lot of choices have already been decided for us.

We learned what "inclusive language" means (they knew the phrase from around the church, but not what it meant). We recalled the Doxology we sing and how in this church instead of "Father and Son" we say "Creator and Christ." (Later on, the kids silenced our activity room just to be able to listen for these words during the service.)

We studied several feminine images for God used throughout the Bible, and talked about the kids' perception (one they brought up) that girls are encouraged to look up to men and sometimes to emulate traits considered masculine, and boys are comparably less encouraged or actively discouraged from looking up to women and emulating traits considered feminine.

We read an article from a mother talking about her 5-year-old son, who agrees vehemently he's a boy and also loves painting his nails and wearing dresses. We learned from this mom that some of the best ways to love people are to listen to them, to use the pronouns and names they ask us to use for them, and not to assign them a label based only on our perceptions of them. (I revised an excerpt from the full text at this link; I removed some major portions and some otherwise significant terms for both time and clarity suited for where they're at right now.)

We learned that sometimes it's good for kids to learn cultural lessons from adults about "how things work" and "why things are," but they should also trust their inner sense of who they are.

And then we spent the rest of the time making fashionable people cutouts to adorn the bulletin board beside the Pride flag. The signs we'll post with them read: "God is gender fluid" with a definition below it, and: "WE ARE ALL MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE."

This is one of the ways I followed up with the kids who asked me about a month ago, 'Why can't boys wear dresses?' Question-led lessons are my favorite lessons.

If you are also an educator/caregiver and any part of this lesson plan would be helpful to you, you are welcome and encouraged to use it.

A Riot Is the Language of the Unheard (Poetry in Honor of MLK)

Listen. What do you hear? 
What are the unheard saying
in their actions, in their words?
If they say, 
'We are hurting but no one hears us,'
shall we ignore the hurt?
Shall we then say only, 'Look 
at all the pain you've caused,' and turn away 
because it's easier to acknowledge 
the glass, the stone, than it is to know 
that the peace they've just broken 
was broken to begin with? 
That we didn't hear it break 
the first time?

---

In remembrance of the wise, nuanced stance which MLK took regarding his condemnation of riots - and his equal condemnation of the unjust conditions in society which go ignored until, it seems, nothing short of a riot will allow the rest of that society to take notice.

Recommended reading for today: "Christians, MLK Day, and Historical Amnesia"

10 Things About Being Not-Depressed Post-Depression

Source

For almost two years, this post has been sitting unrevisited and unrevised amongst the drafts of my blog. It's especially interesting to me now to rediscover it and read what it felt like to be no-longer-depressed right on the heels of depression, because I'm currently in a funny combination-state of health and grief and possibility, along with a sense of the changing season and anticipation for all that might mean.

In short, my point-of-view today is vastly different from my perspective while deep in depression but even a little different from when I wrote this list at the end of 2013. And that's why I'd like to share this. Not just to revisit it myself, but to preserve and make visible one more nuance of such an experience. Writers and artists have done well in recent years to show others what depression looks and feels like for them, and I think it's helpful to understand not just the moments during, but also in-between and before and afterward.

I'm revising the writing now for "publishable clarity," but I'm channeling my 2013 self to maintain the dignity and authenticity of the content as though I'm my own ghost writer.

---

To quote Joni Mitchell, "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" (Big Yellow Taxi).

Living in the state of not-depressed is so unfathomably different after the experience of depression that I can't help but notice the contrast on a visceral level. At this point, I feel like I can identify what depression "was" for me better than I could ever identify what it "is" while still in the midst of it.

But I'd like to take this opportunity of clear-mindedness to describe 10 things I'm experiencing right now, at this stage of "shortly after" - this odd moment of vivid awareness and general wellness.

Of course, this is only my list of 10 things. This may or may not look anything like what others experience.

1. It will happen again.

-This is threefold: sort of fear/dread, sort of resignation, sort of identity crisis. Who am I with/without this illness? How much a part of me is it? When will it strike and what will it disrupt next? With all of these, there's an underlying sense of "when, not if" it will happen again.

-I'm also still trying to differentiate depression and grief and dark night of the soul. I know I've experienced all 3 within the past 3 years, often overlapping, but in some cases, how do I know what was which? What can I expect in the future?

2. Survivor's guilt.

-The ever-constant questions: Why me? Why did it recede for me and not for others?

-The guilt of healing is tightly entwined with the occasional disbelief that healing actually happened at all, or a disbelief that the experience was as damaging and painful as it felt at the time. Knowing the ways that other people suffer in depression, I sometimes look back and minimize my own suffering by thinking things like, "it 'only' compromised my academic career and social life." I know I should know better - that it's possible for it to have been both debilitating for me and different from others' experiences.

3. Control and lack of control.

-I feel mostly grounded and steady again. And yet, despite my consistent efforts toward health and healing, the improvement seems almost as incomprehensible as the depression itself. How did this happen? Why have I reached this point without using any drugs or medications? What ultimately made the difference, or was it just another change in the seasons of life? Will I ever know?

4. Breadth and depth of perspective.

-Despite the survivor's guilt, I have a relatively realistic and holistic perspective on the past. Except in my moments of doubt, I grasp the reality of the pain that I experienced and the kinds of things that happened in the midst of it - grief, shattered world views, injured pride/self-esteem, community transition and communal suffering. All of it makes sense in a way that defies even those doubts and feelings of irrationality which still linger.

5. Awareness of joy.

-Like painting with a full palette of emotion and sensation. Like the world is in color and motion, and I can actually tell. And it's not that I'm suddenly confined to happiness. Having the full range of emotions is liberating, and getting lost in any one emotion at a time does not feel particularly defining of who I am.

-I also now understand that, mid-dark night of the soul, I was still able to experience non-sunshiny forms of joy even if I wasn't always attuned to them or didn't know how to create them myself, so it was not necessarily an absence of joy as it was a matter of redefining and contextualizing it. Hence the "awareness."

6. Appetite and nostalgia.

-I have not only an interest in food again, but even sentimentality for favorites and specifically for nostalgic meals, like a pub's beef stew that made me homesick for the UK. Rarely could I experience any of that while depressed. It makes me look back and wonder, what was I eating? Was I eating? I don't even know.

7. Reading comprehension and memory.

-Words on the page actually register. I'm still a (lifelong) slow reader who doesn't always skim well, especially when I get invested in something... but I can actually get invested in something I read now. And remember it!

-Even if I don't remember all the details, I can generally recall how and where to access information I've recently seen. My work no longer feels like a literal impossibility.

8. Coherence in conversation and writing.

-Even audible words have recognizable meaning in a way that they didn't before, like my vocabulary has been restored. I can comprehend what other people say, express myself, and participate in actual conversation.

-I have a willingness to ask questions again. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it, how much a part of me and my learning style this usually is.

9. Creative arts and hobbies.

-Just recently I've played piano, painted, finished a novel-length draft and several short stories, and composed my first full song with lyrics and music. Mediocre quality as all of these projects may be, I don't even care. It just feels good to create. I had been doing some writing and piano-dabbling during the depression, but not to this extent, and those things were more of a lifeline than a joy.

10. Unconditional love.

-I'm experiencing boundless love and mercy for others' imperfections as well as my own. Right now no one can disappoint me, and I'm slow to see fault where there may only be a matter of unpredictability or circumstance. I want to hear all sides to everything, or even just be present to people when they can't articulate their experience. Obviously I'm in school for ministry, so I've always wanted to do both of these things, but now they have a new urgency and depth to them.