The fallacy of normality

I often wonder when people talk about being normal, what exact measure of normality they are measuring against. I mean what's normal to me might not be normal to you or that person taking a sneak peak at these words behind you right now (made you look!). Anyway, back to my point... normality. You might wonder why I'm talking about what I see is the fallacy of normality... well it's just that a few things have happened recently that made me think. Just two of them are:

1. A group called Schools Out want primary educators to have specific information taught in primary schools about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families.

2. Cerrie Burnell, the new Cbeebies presenter sparked some negative responses from parents worried that her disability would scare children or that the BBC had taken equal opportunities too far.

While these instances are completely unrelated, I think they share a core fundamental - they are both instances where people are reacting to what they see as an affront to their normality. Schools Out is confronting the presentation of the traditional family as normal in schools (as that doesn’t fit in with their notion of the regular) and those parents took offence to what they saw as an affront to the normality they had presented to their children.

It just seems to me that so many people are so obsessed with reshaping the world to fit in with their personal definition of normality (there are times when this is justified, but I'll leave this for another post). But the thing with your definition of normality is that it's yours… everyone’s idea is going to vary to at least some degree.

But what's so wrong with being different? What's wrong with having your own unique outlook, experience, views or even physicality? Now I don't want you thinking that I don't believe abnormal outlooks and behaviour exists. There is a base level of normality that we all work to and some people dwell beneath that. Some fly so far below that line they're practically pond skimming the surface of sanity. (Relationships with life sized silicon sex dolls - hello people. Put the over sized Barbie down!) But for the most part if the expression of your alternate outlook doesn't harm anyone (including yourself), what's the big deal. So a BBC presenter has one arm? So what... is she a good presenter? So primary schools don't teach about alternative family units - how about we stick to teaching our children how to read, write and count first? Let's leave the talk of sexual preferences until they reach secondary school and if that's too late for you, you as a parent play a more active role in educating your child.

Ultimately normality is a fallacy because we are all different; we should be celebrating those differences not trying to eradicate them, amalgamate them or hide them away. We're different races and sexes. We've had different upbringings, shared different experiences, have different preferences. We have different dreams, different goals and different plans on how to realise them. And you know what, that's ok because we share one fundamental element - our humanity. It's the one undeniable truth that enables us to be different, while all pretty much being the same. And if we're all the same, then we're not that different at all really.