[JustJo]

I don't know anyone who's a furry, and it doesn't appeal to me personally, but I don't have an issue with it. I also don't think that kids knowing that their parents are sexual beings is a bad thing.

What all of it comes down to, for me, is communication and a basic respect for the child's feelings.

To take it out of a sexual/furry/transgendered context...

When I was 11 and 12 years old, I played viola in the junior high orchestra. I was first chair. I practiced a lot, and worked hard. Periodically, we gave concerts that parents and the community were invited to.

All of the other parents would show up on time, showered, dressed, sit in the seats, applaud....all the "normal" concert behavior.

My mother would arrive late...generally in the middle of the performance...not because she couldn't help it/had to work, but because (as she would loudly announce to everyone within hearing range) she had been so caught up "at the barn." That probably didn't need to be explained....because she also smelled like the barn, and was still dressed in riding clothes....and would stomp loudly up the aisle, "pardon me, pardon me, pardon me" into the middle of a row, and then laugh and talk loudly (about herself) through the rest of the performance.

I was embarrassed on a regular basis...and used to wish that she either wouldn't come at all, or would simply be "like other people's parents." I got used to hearing the other parents talk about "that woman", but it never became something that I was okay with.

About midway through junior high, I told my orchestra teacher that I was quitting. He cared enough to ask why....and I explained to him my regular humiliation. Perhaps I should have been more self-confident...or not cared what other people thought...but I was already the child dressed out of the Salvation Army bin, the one using a school instrument, the one whose family got the charity basket from the PTA on the holidays, the one being teased and bullied.

My teacher cared enough to listen...and told me not to quit.

He also spoke privately to my mother.

I don't know what he said exactly. But I do know that for the rest of the years there, she either showed up on time and behaved herself....or she didn't come to the concert at all. Both things were an improvement for me.

I appreciate that he was the adult he was; that he recognized a child's discomfort and had the character to address it, because as a child I could not.