Why it’s important for Play School to show families like mine ‘through the windows’

For someone who grew up with same-sex parents, Play School’s call for a family with two dads is a momentous – if belated – move

Play School presenters Emma Palmer, Justine Clarke and Alex Papps. Photograph: ABC

Play School presenters Emma Palmer, Justine Clarke and Alex Papps. Photograph: ABC

Last modified on Mon 21 Oct 2019 10.54 BST

L ike most Australians of my generation, I grew up watching Play School. The show played a big role in how I learned to count, how I learned to read and how I learned to tell time. Despite my total lack of musical talent it was Play School that convinced me I could dance and – to the ongoing horror of friends and family – that everyone can sing.

Through the square window, the arched window and the round window (they didn’t have a diamond window back then), I saw glimpses of what went on in the world: sometimes very far away people living in big cities and sometimes more familiar stories about life on a farm or in a country town.

In their “through the windows” segment, Play School showed me that children lived in all sorts of places, in all sorts of ways and in all sorts of families – but they never showed me children who lived in a family like mine.

When I was growing up, the world according to Play School didn’t contain a kid with two mums. As a child it never dawned on me how odd it was that there was never a family with two parents of the same sex. When you’re preschool age, the cognitive process doesn’t get much beyond “that’s different” or, “that’s not like my family”. When I think about it though, I can’t recall ever seeing a family that looked like mine on TV.

I was too old to be watching Play School in 2004, when the show was engulfed in controversy over a scene in which a little girl tells the audience that her “mums” are taking her to an amusement park. But I do remember the sick feeling that washed over me as the then acting prime minister, John Anderson, lashed out at the ABC, accusing them of attempting to “justify and promote the idea of gay parenting”; and as the then health minister, Tony Abbott, told us that, if he’d been watching with his young daughters he’d “have been a bit shocked”.

The underlying message was clear: gay people would have no interest in parenting unless it was “promoted” to them and the very idea that children could be raised by same-sex couples was so shocking it needed special justification.

At the time, Play School stood by their decision. “Play School aims to reflect the diversity of Australian children, embracing all manner of race, religions and family situations,” they said in a statement.

But it has taken another 12 years for the show to try again.

On Thursday we learned that Play School, now in its 50th year, is calling for new families to be shown through the windows, under the season’s My Family, Your Family theme. As well as asking for adopted families, extended families, blended families and Indigenous families, they are asking for a family with “two dads”. Speaking with Guardian Australia, the executive producer of Play School, Jan Stradling, said it was “a great opportunity for today’s young Australians to see themselves reflected on screen, as part of the diverse, unique Australian community we live in”.

As a young boy in regional Victoria being raised by lesbian parents, I grew accustomed to being different. The first few years of my life I didn’t realise my family wasn’t “normal” but, as I aged, I realised the abuse, the slurs and the attacks against my family and I were not part of everyone’s life. We were singled out. We were different.

I loved watching Australian Play School, and I hope one day my kids love watching it too, but I can’t help but wonder what my childhood would have been like if one of those windows led to a family like mine. Would the five-year-old me have been made to feel so strange by so many people? Would my peers have grown up with a better acceptance of the diversity of Australian families?

We have come a long way since I was five. We have come a long way since 2004, too. Most MPs and senators now support marriage equality and polls suggest the majority of Australians do too. Same-sex couples have adoption rights. The recognition of same-sex couples in most, if not all of our laws, means greater stability and security for the children in those families.

And yet I can’t help but fear there are still some people who don’t think families like mine are “real families”. I despair that Play School’s casting call will still be seen by some as an attempt to “justify and promote” homosexuality. In reality, the “through the windows” segment will just be telling children the same story it always has: that kids can come from different backgrounds, different places and different types of families; and that, for all children, it is normal to be different.

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