"I Am Gay!!!"

This morning, during breakfast, Son No 3 asked my hubby the meaning of "gay".

*Pause*

My hubby was tongue-tied for a while. I quickly interjected that "gay" means happy. One tends to forget that this young child is growing up in a fairly cloistered environment in a conservative society. What else could "gay" mean?

Then my innocent son took it one step further - he began practising his new-found knowledge by saying, "I am gay! I am gay!"

Err... this will not do. What if he said it publicly? Not that I have anything against gays, but still... it may offend some people and we must not forget that in this country, homosexuality is a crime.

To rectify the situation, I had no choice but to tell Son No 3 that he should just say "I am happy." I told him "happy" is a better word to use than "gay". No further explanation needed or provided.

Luckily, Son No 3 did not pursue the matter further and I was let off the hook.

*Relief*

But I am not the type to be satisfied with "curing the symptoms". I had to find out the root cause. What he asked this morning kept gnawing away at the back of my mind.

So later in the afternoon, after school, I casually asked Son No 3 where he learnt the word "gay". Son No 3 told me he discovered the word "gay" from YouTube. Alarm bells started ringing. I asked Son No 3 to show me the video that he had watched. I was surprised it was entitled, "Spongebob: If You Were Gay". To those without pre-school children, Spongebob is a popular cartoon character with a regular TV series. All my three children like to watch this cartoon.

But it was not a real episode from Spongebob, the cartoon series. The video was the product of some people putting together some Spongebob scenes and editing them to certain words to create a new video. Aiyoh, people are so free-ah.... kind of wu-liao, you know. Luckily, the video was quite innocent, no graphic images as I had feared ... But it goes to show once again what a minefield the internet can be.

Hmm... the two younger boys already knew that they should not simply go into YouTube without my permission. But since Son No 2 discovered that he could watch his favourite Pokemon episodes from YouTube, he has been visiting that site more often and thinking that that's all he is doing, I have relaxed my guard.

Looks like now I have to increase my vigilance again... Or maybe what this stay-at-home mom really needs is some sort of full-time Nanny Guard that will do a good job. Yes, that's probably my next course of action...

P/S: I hope Son No 3 will not ask me the meaning of "queer" next - I notice the word was spoken in the same video!