The Good Hair Family Sitcom

S2 E2.2: The Gender Divide

TJ's POV

A clack wakes me out of my dream state, and I sit up in my bed, listening to the banging and clicking and scraping and hammering and stepping, all coming from the floor below. When we went to sleep, Wyatt was working on his doorbell, and the racket tells me that he still is. Cyrus sits up next to me, his eyes barely open.

"Wyatt's still up?" Cyrus grumbles.

"Should we check on him?" I wonder.

"Probably."

We both look at each other, but neither of us move. It's 3:00 AM. I'm too tired for this, and I can tell by Cyrus's groggy eyes that he feels the same.

"I suppose we shouldn't get in the way of his creativity," Cyrus eventually says.

"Just what I was thinking."

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Marty's POV

Buffy and I sit down in the two chairs at the desk of Mr. Mirshahi, Jefferson Middle School's principal, in his office. The door remains open behind us, allowing the chatter of the rest of admin ring through, and Mr. Mirshahi has yet to enter in.

"We haven't been in this office since Andreas's last day of grade eight," I comment.

"I know," Buffy responds. "I have moments where I forget we're not here for him and start planning punishments in my head."

Suddenly, the principal steps through the door, but he's still yelling at someone outside the office, "No. I'm the principal. What I say goes."

Like flicking a switch, he goes from heated to calm in an instant and nonchalantly sits down in his big, cushy chair across the desk from us.

"Sorry about that," he says. "The school board cut more funding, so there's a debate among staff over whether we should get rid of the free snacks in the staff room or fire a teacher. Anyway, I brought you both in here to talk about Brayden."

"Did he do something?" Buffy asks.

"His behaviour is fine," Mr. Mirshahi replies, "but it's come to our attention recently that he's being bullied."

"What?" Buffy reacts.

"What happened?" I question.

I know that Brayden can get teased from time to time for how smart he is, but there's never been a bullying problem so bad that the teachers had to get involved. And Brayden never mentioned anything about this to Buffy or me. I wonder why.

"There's a group of boys that have been shoving him around and calling him names to insinuate that he might be gay."

Of course the possibility of one of my kids being gay has crossed my mind before. How could it not? Six of my friends are queer. But Andreas clearly isn't, and I just assumed Brayden wasn't even thinking about that kind of stuff yet. Like, he's twelve. But I guess I was interested in girls when I was twelve. Brayden's just never shown any interest in anyone that way before. I'm his dad, so maybe that's why I've never seen it. He might just hide it. Or maybe there are just some boys pinning some of his feminine hobbies on him being gay, and he really isn't. Either way, I don't want him being bullied.

"What specifically have they said?" I ask.

"Various things. One name that is thrown around often is 'Gayden.'"

"So what are you doing to stop this?" Buffy questions.

"We're meeting with the boys and their parents as well, hoping to crush this before it gets worse."