Especially when you’re working and have a newborn, it’s hard to create that space for your other child, but that bonding will help build up your relationship with her to make those hard mornings easier to weather. How often do you spend time with her without the baby? I know making time is super hard, but even if you and your partner can have some arrangement where once a week, they watch the baby so you and your daughter can have a special outing (or you take turns-you watch the baby and they have the outing!) that alone time can help ease the frustration kids get over having to share adult attention. Lastly, I’d try to address the probably-underlying cause: alone time with your daughter. The school may also be able to point to something in their morning routine that she doesn’t like, and you can find a solution there. Or maybe, if the school has transportation (my preschool did), you can simply switch to the bus, which often makes transitions easier for kids. Maybe she gets a small reward at school (rather than the treat in the car) if you can make it there with an easy morning. Next, I’d talk to the school to see how you can facilitate the morning. DeSantis wants to weaken our teacher unions by tying them up in costly legal battles, drive us teachers from the classroom so he can privatize a failing public school system, stand on a presidential debate stage and tout that he supported “parents’ rights.” Just as they are moving to ban books around the country, Republicans are working to censor teachers. So while this is an attack on the LGBTQ community, it’s also an attack on teachers. (Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern has a thorough analysis of the actual text here.) The intention, as you worry, is that it will inhibit the discussion of or even acknowledgment of LGBTQ people, families, and history in schools, driven mainly by a mechanism that allows vigilante and right-wing activist parents to sue school districts. DeSantis just signed into law) is intentionally vague and trickily worded, so it’s hard to say what, exactly, it will do in individual schools and classrooms. As a Floridan and an educator, I have been following this bill closely and am disturbed and outraged by it, but I know my anger can’t begin to touch what you must be feeling.
As a white, straight man, I can’t imagine dealing with this kind of persecution and alienation. I’m sorry that you’re going through this. What about family trees and gendered units like Mother’s and Father’s Day-will she be forced to either lie or sit them out? I’m afraid of her self-worth and self-esteem dropping if she never, ever sees or hears about a family like hers. I’m afraid she’ll be bullied and teachers’ hands will be tied. I’m afraid my wife and I won’t be allowed to volunteer, be a part of her classroom, or attend school events. My daughter is 3 and in daycare, so we’re not in public school yet, but it’s honestly killed all the excitement I might have had for her to start kindergarten.
I live in this dumb state, and I’m a gay parent. I’m looking for advice about how the stupid “Don’t Say Gay” bill will play out in classrooms. Have a question for our teachers? Email or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. In addition to our traditional advice, every Thursday we feature an assortment of teachers from across the country answering your education questions. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column.