I’m tired of hearing about “drag queen story hour”

Ashley Herzog
2 min readMar 10, 2023

Maybe we should do a better job of parenting our own children.

My 5th grade diary. It’s full of secrets.

I’ve heard enough about Ron DeSantis and his crusade against “Drag queen story hours” in Florida. But as the parent of an 11-year-old fifth grader named Catherine, I thought I might chime in on this ridiculous debate.

First of all, who actually has elementary school kids learning the word “gay” from a first grade teacher? As a parent, I can tell you that when it comes to anything sex-related, including sexual orientation, they aren’t learning it from teachers. They’re getting their sexuality education from Netflix, TikTok, and their friends, and most of that education is straight trash.

I bet a lot of the parents pushing this bill let their kids have their own phones and laptops and spend 5 hours a day on social media. If you truly believe in “parents’ rights,” you should take the phone away and start addressing difficult topics with your own kids. I’ve started answering Catherine’s questions.

I also reread my fifth-grade diary (pictured) to see what kind of questions I had at this age. I was a happy kid who loved school, my cousins, the Titanic, and Girl Scouts. I was also worried I would “turn into” a lesbian when I grew up. Luckily, I had teen magazines like YM to read, where the level-headed, mature editors explained…

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Ashley Herzog

New account. I’m still a professional journalist, novelist, and radio host. And Catherine’s mom.