et tu, Frog & Toad?

A simple case against making the infamous amphibian duo, gay.

They’re going to make Frog and Toad gay.

But before I get to that…

I was today years old when I learned that the following children's authors (all deceased) were either homosexual or bisexual: Tomie dePaola, Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown, and James Marshall.

Being a homeschooling mother, I own almost every book that these authors wrote and have read them numerous times, often when I was half-asleep, hanging off the edge of a toddler bed. I love these stories; more importantly, they mean something to my children. My daughters can recite the entirety of “Goodnight Moon” and my fifteen-year-old still maintains that, “Miss Nelson Is Missing!” is one of her all-time favorite books. And surprise, none of these books contain a trans child, a queer love triangle, or two mommies.

What they do contain seems to be much more controversial in 2023.

They contain good writing, wholesome values, and entertainment based solely on a quality storyline.

The arguments against sexualizing literature for children are so numerous and obvious that I don’t need to go into a diatribe about why we shouldn’t be doing it. Heck, my Substack partner wrote an entire book about it. It’s a debate that’s being hashed out across our country and if you’re here and reading our content, I’ll guess you feel the same way we do.

Keep this stuff away from our kids. They don’t need it, they can’t process it, and as such, it’s sowing utter confusion in their young minds. Take a cursory look at TikTok or the social media account of a teenager and you’ll see the fruit of our hyper-sexualized culture on their young minds. They are sponges, soaking up the constant onslaught of sexual content that’s being marketed to them.

No, I’ll just simply state that the most recent addition to the, “Make it gay!” agenda surprised me the most because there is literally no way to make this iconic friendship more perfect. Of course, it’s not like there is ever a need to rewrite a childhood classic to have the two amphibians be gay lovers but that’s where we are.

Apparently, Frog and Toad will be gay and you need to not only acknowledge it, but you need to accept and embrace it. Since the author came out publicly (after he married and had children of his own) his children (who own the rights to his work) feel the need to assume that Frog and Toad aren’t just two men who have a friendship (how archaic and twisted!) but rather they are two amphibians who gave their father the space to process his sexuality (in a book for children, mind you.) And since their father felt misunderstood, so you’re child must also bear the plight of a closeted gentleman in the 1970s. Honestly, it’s the least the little ones can do.

If I sound annoyed, it’s because I am.

I have lost all patience with the enlightened minds of the 21st century thinking that they can take the works of Christie, Wodehouse, Dahl, and now Lobel and adjust them based on modern sensibilities…and especially angry when it takes a perfectly fine piece of literature and seeks to claim it as some PRIDE month narrative. Perhaps Lobel did in fact use Frog and Toad as some catharsis and if he did, that’s his prerogative: many authors do just that and I’m assuming that includes plenty of children’s authors. My issue begins when children are used as test subjects for adult content.

Kids love the stories about Frog and Toad because they are simple, sweet, relatable, and best of all….written for a child's mind. Kids need good stories that don’t ask them to do the heavy lifting of a confused culture. A culture that somehow thinks introducing developing minds to questions about sexuality and gender ideology at the age of 3 (that’s the age my third daughter was when she picked up F&T) will bear good fruit.

Kids deserve innocence and purity when they take a book off the shelf and it’s a shame that some people are trying their hardest to replace that with an agenda.