Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My parents are retired and recently downsized from their house to a condo. When they were clearing things out, they found some of my old childhood books. I have two kids, “Riley,” 6, and “Reed,” 3, so I decided to take them so they could enjoy them.
Among the books was the series Frog and Toad Are Friends. The title pretty much says it all. The books are about a frog and a toad who are buds and hang out doing stuff together. Both Riley and Reed love them.
My husband, “Jack,” does not. Somehow, he has gotten the idea that the books “promote a homosexual agenda.” There’s nothing gay about the books, and even if there were, I wouldn’t care, and I’ve told him so. Now he’s demanding that I get rid of them. Jack has said some ignorant things about LGBTQ+ people on occasion in the past, but this time, he’s really upset me. I don’t want our kids to think there’s anything wrong with being gay. Is it worth reconsidering my marriage over?
—Book Battle
Dear Battle,
I am always puzzled by the question, “Is this a good reason to reconsider/end/regret my marriage?” A good reason to leave a marriage is that you want to leave your marriage. Indeed: That you want to be out of your marriage more than you want to be in it. Marriage is hard. (I swear, the whole system, as it mostly stands in our culture, is built for failure. But that’s a subject for another column.)
This time, what I want to talk about is the fact that you married someone who is homophobic. I’m curious: Did any of those times when Jay “on occasion” revealed himself to be homophobic occur before you were married? Or was this late-breaking news? And, either way, I’m also wondering why this time he’s managed to really upset you. Is it because the bigotry was more subtle before, so that you convinced yourself he didn’t mean it or chalked it up to a slip of the tongue? Or is it because this time it has to do with your kids? Or is it because his demand that you get rid of the lovely Frog and Toad books is completely unhinged?
Me, I wouldn’t have married a homophobe—or a hater of any other stripe—in the first place. But giving you grace (perhaps the first expression of his hate was the week after the wedding), I wouldn’t have tolerated his “ignorant” comments, ever. If he was (I believed, and had plenty of evidence of) an otherwise kind, open-hearted, open-minded, [nearly] all-around good person with one very ugly blind spot, I would have called him on it, told him I wouldn’t tolerate it, and then done my best to educate him. If another such “occasion” followed, I would most certainly reconsider my marriage.
What you seem to be asking is whether discovering that your husband is a bigot, and hopes to pass this bigotry along to your children, is a good enough reason to leave him. It would be for me. Is it for you?
Oh, and while I’m here: Here’s a lovely essay on Frog and Toad.
—Michelle
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