The Pretender No More

For anyone who lives long enough
one of the more positive effects of ageing
is that we rememeber what we grew up through,
better than people younger than us can realise,
and more than that memory is dynamic,
not static, the details that come back to us
change in line with our age, as we remember.

One of the recent memories that returned to me,
age adjusted, is Margaret Thatcher declaring
through 1988 legislation that a gay relationship
is 'a pretend family relationship', a declaration
that at the time shocked gay men and lesbians
as they saw those younger than them trapped
by regulations about family they would not choose.

This legislation was eventually reversed in 2003.
But what comes back to me is how the phrase 
'pretend family relatiohship' has changed.
Pretend family relationships were actually
universal in the blessed Margaret's day.
Any child who had been raised in a care home
lived with this pretense, as did adopted children,
in other state arranged pretend family relationships.

After having been there, and done that,
and found that I did not want that T shirt
of state arranged pretend family relationships
I chose a relationship my pretend family
dissaproved of, thus exposing the pretense
I had lived with for thirtry years, though
it would take me the same length of time again
for me to realise how pretend family had been.

Margaret Thatcher was right, children should be
allowed better than pretend family relatioships
which hid in plain sight all along.-In particular
better thanthe self serving heterosexual monoculture
who would claim that they are all of human history.