Dear Beekeeper,
I’m struggling if I should do something about this or let it go.
At my 4 year old’s daycare, they have been playing restaurant. This would be great, but they are pretending to work at chick-FIL-a.
As a queer family, we try to avoid supporting places that spend their money to infringe on our freedoms. So it’s hard for me to see my kiddo playing this game. However, I don’t want to come across as an angry lesbian, making a big deal out of nothing. They play coffee shop a lot too. Maybe I can just keep trying to redirect them to play this version of the game at school? What would the bees do??
Dear Chick-FIL-hey,
Woooof. This is a tough one, and it’s the kind of question that while it seems simple, once you start peeling back layers it gets more and more complex.
Kind of like a beehive.
There’s a bit here about the collective, a bit about the individual, and it’s all held together with the kind of sticky glue we’re all doing our best to make… all in that tenuous place of wax and faith and family culture.
Okay here’s what I mean by that:
Chick-FIL-hey: yes, an evil corp, real harm to real queer families, and you are not wrong to feel the sting of it when your kid brings it home like a field trip souvenir. Culturally, it’s got meaning behind that crunchy chicken. Meaning that makes resonate a particular kind of ache for you, sweet queer parent, as your own darling goofs around like it’s just a game.
It puts you into a kind of place of tension: how much do I hold awareness for this, and how much do I let the play happen? To what degree does this set a precedent of what kind of things we talk about, and how we respond as a family? And what the hell do I even say to a wee one who is meaning making in their own way for a world, social setting, and routine that exists for a major part of their day?
Bees, in the hive, fill in all the gaps with propolis. This is a glue mix of sap, bee spit, and wax. It’s super sticky. (My phone case is perpetually covered in propolis from trying to get photos of the sweet little bugs while I’m all up in their hive. Ask me about that sometime. 😂) Anything that doesn’t fit in there, they’ll cushion it with the propolis, helping their home be at the precise measurements that work for them.
And. It doesn’t mean that extraneous matter stays out of the hive. It will get in there. Your kid will come up against these things that directly contradict the world you hope they grow up within.
This game is a symptom of a much larger system. “Coffee shop” might echo for a family wherein the unethical harvesting of coffee beans extracts labor from people across the world, or families where a union battle for a livable wage is at the forefront. I’ve struggled, here too, and deeply mourned for my family (and others) that there really isn’t a way to “win” here. As many have known, and some are just learning, there IS no ethical consumption under this extractive reality of capitalism.
I don’t say that to dissuade you from trying, but to equip you to hold it in context.
Surround this game with the kind of propolis meaning making that helps it “fit” into your hive. Your work as parent is to help the kid make meaning of the world around them, and to surround them with people who will contribute to that meaning making in a way that builds a community of care, a vision of a world that is just a little… bit… better… than what we had.
I say all this aspirationally, because - I, too, have a wee one that I’m trying to set up to be a kind and loving human in the world, aware of what’s around him, and contributing in a way that builds a better hive for us all. Like you, I choose when to engage, and to be honest, I don’t take every opportunity I possibly could. I DO take opportunities to talk to him about the building blocks, the foundations of meaning making that provide him the tools to eventually discern for himself.
For our family, that’s part faith work, part community work (thank god for queer community) and part family practice.
We talk about what’s going on in the world.. and put propolis around it so it makes sense. For families like ours, at something of a distance from the immediate danger, we try to build the architecture of community care early. For example, “ICE are baddies and they are hurting our neighbors and we help our neighbors,” is a real, simple way that this child is learning.
Is it hard? Heck yes. Is it too much? Maybe. But for me, I think of the kids who don’t get the choice of whether to engage in such things, and try to set up the building blocks for collective care as early as possible. As an aside, he’s also learning “we are kind and gentle people,” and, “there is a little goodie and a little baddie in each one of us and we’re all doing our best.”
Finally, I’m not going to leave you buzzing with lots of moral consequence and no tangible suggestions. Cover them in your own propolis to make it work for you, Chick-FIL-hey. If it were me in this circumstance, I’d probably take the path of playful redirection with a bit of glue to help shift. For example, I’d begin playing the game WITH him, here at home, and play it once or two times the way that he’s “learned” at school. Then I’d start introducing variables: rhyming the name, making it more and more goofy. “Quick-look-away!” “Tricka-the-Play!” “Schtick-a-the-Gay!” and when he got back to the OG game, I might say something like “Awwww that one isn’t as fun/doesn’t have space for us inside” or something like that.
In other words, I’d try to make the revolution way more fun than the original game.
P.S. Dear Reader— yes you! Are you holding something close for which you might need a little honey? Then write in and and join alongside this ever-growing hive of hope and care! 🐝