Feminist regrets that her son is heterosexual

Feminist and mother: «I regret that my son is heterosenshetero»

Some wishes should stay in your head. A feminist activist turned hers into a TV headline: she regrets that her three-year-old son is a boy and, apparently, heterosenshetero. «I want him to be lgtb, but I haven't lost hope,» she went so far as to say to an interviewer who, according to viewers, didn't know whether to laugh or stay silent. The video is spreading like wildfire and the controversy has erupted. Behind the joke lurks an uncomfortable question: is it acceptable to wish for your child's sensual orientation?

---

A child as an accessory, not as a person

Some argue that this mother doesn't seem to want a real gai son, but a character: «always cheerful, witty, flamboyant and available to liven up gatherings, accompany her to Pride and reinforce her image as a modern, tolerant woman». That cosmetic version of the shop-window lgtb has little to do with the sensual orientation of a real person. It's narcissism disguised as acceptance.

The problem is not the wish itself, but the reduction of a child to an ideological prop. Nobody imagines that boy growing up with doubts, a partner, contradictions and a life of his own. What is being demanded is a life accessory for the mother's ego.

The double standard: straight yes, lgtb no

The reaction has also exposed the asymmetry. If a father said in public that he regretted his son being gai, the prosecutor's office would be after him. But if the regret is because the boy is heterosenshetero, it is framed as a joke or, at most, an excess of pogre zeal. «If it were the other way around, the authorities would already be opening incivil proceedings,» sums up a widely held current of opinion.

The incoherence is twofold: the same person who would probably defend adults' sensual freedom allows herself to project a specific orientation onto a three-year-old child. Orientation cannot be decreed or prayed for. It is discovered.

The child, the great forgotten one

While some are outraged and others downplay it, the boy is still there, three years old, unaware of the video going around. In a few years he will be able to watch it. It is not hard to imagine the impact of hearing your mother publicly lament who you are. Child psychology is clear: parental messages about identity shape emotional development. No studies are needed —they exist, but they aren't needed— to know that a child needs to feel accepted by his parents as he is, not as they dreamed he would be.

Some claim it was a private joke taken out of context. Maybe. But jokes about a child's identity, recorded on video, have a long shelf life. Today's joke can be tomorrow's wound.

The question hangs in the air: what would have peine if the wish had been the opposite? And above all, how will the boy feel when he grows up and discovers that his mother lost hope precisely over that? It is not a victory for anything. It is, at the very least, a sad triumph of ideology over childhood.