classes started already? so wrong!
I know - I've been thoroughly depressed as of the day after Christmas when I had to start cramming for my next quarter. Grrrrr. Have been trying to paste on a smile for the students and my attitude is slowly catching up with my classroom face. It'll take another week or two though until I'm thoroughly reconciled to having started class on January 2.
part of using partner, instead of wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend is an issue of queerness. i think that being able to introduce yourself, especially on a first day, and mention your husband speaks to the comfort of seemingly normal relationships (in this case, i'll call it hetero). while many queer folk are comfortable enough to mention their queer relationship(s) on the first day of class, i'd expect there to be some wondering about how students accept such sharing. for other queer folks, concerns about job security, student resistance, or community reprisals make "coming out" something unlikely and/or undesired.
Yes, I suppose you're right - I admit I don't always associate "partner" with queerness anymore, and so I assume my students don't either. Perhaps because I live in such a liberal-minded state or perhaps because there are several gay, long-time faculty members where I teach whose orientation is not ever an issue with the students or anyone else as far as I can tell, I'm not as aware of the kinds of issues that might face other college faculties. I take the openness here for granted. Thanks for reminding me that my world can get pretty small without my realizing it.
with the example of "my children" versus "the children", i think "my children" clearly sounds less cold, but i would also submit that "adam and stevie" sounds even less cold than "my children".
But I can't just use their names with no introduction. "The children I have given birth to, (insert names), . . . " and then always refer to them henceforth by their names?
of course "my" doesn't always signify possession to the listener/reader but it does impart meaning - it seems pretty safe to claim that the meaning is possessive. if you are at a park with some other people, your kids are playing with your neighbor's kids - you point out "your kids" differentiating them against "their kids" - that is possessive. is that wrong? no. but does it say something about how families are understood, communities defined? obviously yes. tapping into the noble ideal illustrated in Griffith's The Country Doctor, doctor harcourt is running between his home with his own sick child and his neighbor's home [note the possessiveness of land ownership:] with their sick child, harcourt ends up saving the neighbor's child and his own dies, seemingly telling us something about a greater ideal of care and community, shared "parenting". does this possessive use go toward solving that problem? i wouldn't say it did, but i don't think it hurts:)
If only we
could gain back some of that community-spiritedness in which I trust other people to help and protect and teach "my" children.
while i do take this stuff seriously, i reckon it is coming off as much less light-hearted than i live it (as with other exchanges on the boards:)
I know, me, too - love ya for it.