As I write, our children’s schoolroom is festooned with rainbows. Christina Rossetti’s poem is on one shelf, Frederic Edwin Church’s painting on another. Hand-painted rainbows — colored with enthusiasm if not with Church’s skill — by our 5- and 3-year-olds hang on the walls.
Are we taking a cue from the president, professional sports, and all the nation’s most powerful corporations and doing our part to celebrate pride in our little homeschooling way? No. Our lessons follow the seasons, and because it is spring, we have a week or so of rainbow-themed learning. The kids love it, and — rookie homeschoolers though we are — we are having a blast too.
Should we toss out the lot — poems, paintings, coloring pages, songs — and live in a colorless world because a bunch of twisted adults use this month to mock God? Of course not.
There is much to agree with in Elise Temme’s recent guide on “How To Parent During Pride Month.” I heartily concur with her five practical suggestions, and you can bet we read a lot of Genesis in our house — teaching our brood about the true, covenantal meaning of the rainbow. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to warn parents away from adopting the approach, as detailed in Temme’s introduction, of telling young children not to take joy in the rainbow flags they are likely to encounter this month. Our goal is to reclaim the rainbow, fully and heartily — not relinquish its meaning to
