Cockburn is not a parent, at least so far as his public records are concerned. However, even he knows that taking children to a Pride parade is not the best idea for a family field trip.
Heather Tirado Gilligan, the author of this Fatherly article, disagrees. She writes, “Pride Parades and the Pride festivals that follow are noisy and crowded. They’re filled with sights that may be new to kids, like public nudity and kink.”
If Gilligan wanted any chance at all for her point to succeed, why would she mention “public nudity” and “kink” in the first two sentences?
Taking a kid to a sex parade is like bringing a baby to a gun range: it sounds just a bit like bad parenting. The article continues by going over the history of Pride month as a political event (which is still not exactly child friendly — a kid should be playing outside and exploring, not fretting over inflation and tax rates).
Then Gilligan says this: “Families representing Black Lives Matter and trans kids are the first contingents marching in the San Francisco parade this year.”
On trans kids (if such a thing even exists), is anyone going to pretend that the six-year-old who still has his clothes laid out for him every morning has made the decision on his own to go against his biological identity and twerk for strangers? Such a decision should not be made lightly, and it should go without saying that children should not yet be thinking about their sexual identities.
After a few quotes pretending that Pride is not celebrating a sexual endeavor (refer back to the nudity and kink quote at the beginning of this article), Cockburn stumbled upon this gem: “[Jennifer] McGuire, a lesbian parent, always preps her kids for possible adult content beforehand. After a few events, the kids knew to expect nudity and other surprises.”
What did you show them, Dr. McGuire?
“‘They just had to learn to laugh and enjoy things. Like there were these Beanie Babies with giant penises on them,’ McGuire says. ‘For a fourth- and fifth-grade kid, that’s super funny.’”
Instead of bringing a kid to a Pride parade and potentially scarring them for life, why not bring them to, you know, a playground? Cockburn is certain any child would understand.
It would be remiss of Cockburn not to mention that this article does have a section called “Find the Kid Friendly Pride Activities,” which lists things like food, bouncy castles, and play areas. Yet Cockburn remains unconvinced. If he were ever to take care of a child, he would much rather bring them to Disney World than some woke Pride celebration…wait a second.
