![\"Andy](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/New-Bio-Photo-Andy-Hinds-Aug-2012-web-291x300.jpg\")
<\/a>We can easily walk or bike to Hillcrest so, unless we\u2019re out of town, it\u2019s really hot or we just don\u2019t feel like being in a mob scene, we at least go to the Parade. Why not, right?<\/p>\n
Now that we have kids \u2013 our twin girls just turned 4 \u2013 we are probably even more likely to go to the Parade. The only one they\u2019ve missed so far was in 2009, when they were a month old. Not because they wouldn\u2019t have enjoyed it, mind you. It\u2019s just that when you have month-old twins, you rarely leave the house.<\/p>\n
We probably didn\u2019t even realize that Pride was happening. Or that it was July. Or that there were still grown-up people out in the world, doing fun grown-up stuff.<\/p>\n
So we have taken our kids to the Parade for years, and they love it, but it\u2019s not quite the same as it was before we had them. In the old days, we would often go to some ancillary parties, both small ones thrown by friends and the more-or-less official ones.<\/p>\n
One year for example, a friend of ours had a bunch of his friends visiting from out of town for Pride weekend. There was some kind of party every night, but the big one was the \u201cZoo Party.\u201d My wife and I knew vaguely what the Zoo Party was, and when our friends asked if we wanted tickets, we were all, \u201cSure. What\u2019s not to like about a dance party at the zoo?\u201d<\/p>\n
First of all, the ticket price was not to like. They were around $80 a piece, as I recall, and, looking at the promoter\u2019s website, I see that they now run as high as $125. I had not asked how much they cost when my friend offered to pick a pair up for us, and probably would have demurred had I known.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure a lot of people are happy to pay that much for what to them is an amazing party experience; but if anything costs more than a nice dinner out, it better be life altering for me or I will be severely disappointed. When I found out the price of admission, first I hyperventilated a little, then I thought, \u201cOK, if I don\u2019t get to ride on a dancing giraffe, I\u2019m gonna demand my money back.\u201d<\/p>\n
In retrospect, I should have known what I was getting into. I had been to Rich\u2019s and The Brass Rail before, and other gay clubs in other cities. But this was like one of those clubs on steroids. Literally. It was a cross between a rave and a bodybuilding tournament.<\/p>\n
There must have been close to 1,000 men there, and maybe eight or nine shirts in the whole crowd. Those shirts were worn by me and the seven or eight women present. Someone in our group asked me why I didn\u2019t take mine off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I had known about the pose-down,\u201d I told him, \u201cI would have trained for a couple months in advance, gotten a spray-tan, and painted a six-pack onto my belly.\u201d<\/p>\n
As usual, a couple overpriced mixed drinks dulled the sting of the sticker shock and the sense of inadequacy I felt from being a mere mortal at this Dance Party of the Titans. I grooved awkwardly with my wife and our friends, and enjoyed the spectacle while trying not to be trampled.<\/p>\n
Nowadays, the most we do to celebrate Pride is to find a shady spot and watch the Parade go by with our kids and maybe another family or two. Sometimes it\u2019s a little bawdy, what with the floats full of guys in Speedos shaking what their mamas gave them, but whatever. Four year olds don\u2019t see anything unusual about that. Grownups do inexplicable things all the time.<\/p>\n
They might ask why those guys are dancing in their undies, if anything. Of course, I might have to reevaluate my blas\u00e9 attitude about these matters by the time the kids are tweens; we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
At this point, to our kids, the Pride Parade is just a lot of dancing, music, glittery costumes and free trinkets (which are some of their favorite things). Someday we\u2019ll probably explain the social and historical context of Pride celebrations, but growing up around here, I kind of expect our kids will pick up on it by osmosis.<\/p>\n
\u2014Andy Hinds es un padre que se queda en casa, bloguero, escritor independiente, carpintero y, a veces, profesor adjunto de escritura. Es conocido en Internet como Beta Dad, pero es posible que lo conozcas como ese tipo en North Park cuyos hijos viajan en un carro tirado por perros. Lea su blog personal en betadadblog.com<\/a>. Comun\u00edquese con \u00e9l en betadad@gmail.com o @betadad en Twitter.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andy Hinds | Parenting My wife and I have been living in North Park for almost 10 years now, and I\u2019ve lost track of how many San Diego LGBT Pride Parades and other Pride Festival events we\u2019ve attended.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1274,"featured_media":246299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Kids love a Pride Parade","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}