Then and Now

First, this lovely commercial created and aired by Bjorn Borg, courtesy of an LJ friend who posted it in a locked entry and so who will remain nameless.

This made me smile. A lot.

Then I suddenly remembered a time when the exact same imagery did not make me smile.

( Thirty years ago I was homophobic. )

I would blush for the girl that I was, except that I don't know how she could have been any different, living in the world she did. I had to get out into the wider world and actually meet gays and lesbians before I overcame my homophobia.

I am, however, proud that sexual orientation, gender identification, and monogamy/polyamory are all non-issues for my own almost-thirteen-year-old daughter. She doesn't care about how peoples' plumbing fits together, or in what combinations, or how it may have been modified. All she cares about is whether or not people are kind to each other, loyal, honest, and fair.

Wolfling probably wouldn't think twice about this commercial, one way or the other, just as she doesn't really understand the significance of having a black man become president of the United States.

My daughter is growing up in a different world than I did -- and she's a more compassionate, more just person than I was at her age.