Have we explained homophobia to our toddler?

[Music] hello no that's too fine we look cute it's so right how can you see we're on our balcony hello yes we are um apparently I don't know I can't see it's too bright I have really small eyes can't see anything wait look if I stand here everything's fine Claudia stand up oh yeah that's fine uh if you can probably already see in the reflection of our window there but I'll turn the camera around so you can see as well here my balcony we uh probably should wake up our child I don't know what is g

oing on with the smear of light across the screen yeah R doesn't ever sleep in our bed except for when we're on holiday um normally he's like get away from me don't you dare touch me while I'm asleep but on holiday he's like snuggle I'm going to lie on top of you like okay last night last night I was like I miss you cuz I've basically been reneged down to rers but she still calls R's bed I'm where are you sleeping like momy and Mama's bed I'm okay anyway so last night ret slept on like M's chest

on this side and like other side and then Jessica woke up five minutes in and was like I going breathe no I genuinely couldn't breathe they were just crushing me it was quite nice it was a nice kind of crush I suppose the best kind of way to to have your Arms This is excellent this is some excellent high quality vlogging happening right here with my super croaky voice doing [Music] well so clearly we're back home yes I mean as you can Jessica's trying to pretend otherwise with her pink Chinese

dress that I bought her this is so beautiful look at this dress it's a Chong it's like chongon design but like with but Jessica wanted like a bigger skirt not like an aine skirt and I and we were looking for them and we couldn't find one and I was out with my auntie and Jessica hadn't come out that day and we went past this like little Boutique shop I was like oh that's exactly what Jessica's been looking for I'm very excited I B her two tops cuz it was like buy three pieces get 30% off I'm very

pleased I was wearing one of the tops but then we sat down to film and realized that everything was the same yeah and did a really quite nice top it's like a cream top with like embroidered flowers in a Chinese style as well but it was like all quite cream so it was like the quickest shop like my dad came in with me he sat on the chair and then we left the shop and then he was like I said you didn't buy anything from that shop then I was like no I did I bought two tops and a dress for Jessica a

nd he's like what that was so fast cuz you didn't need to try anything didn't you try one I was just like you're like she'll like that that and that let's go yeah I was just like to the shop assistant I just need a size small in that dress back to the point of the video though yeah yeah yeah we're back home in England I think that has a little bit of a point yeah that did same sex you know like maybe yeah I'm intrigued as the way going to take this it's quite useful being the same sex it is for

shopping for clothes yeah because potentially you can you know what I'm sure there are some I going to say because you can try them on gender couples who are also efficient Shoppers I know I S of I sort of started this train I thought and then thought anyway I'm wearing a ginormous uh Polo neck and brown corduroy trousers and long men socks because actually it's quite cold here now that we're back in the UK and I'm drinking my cup of tea that's got a robin on it because it's February yeah I've g

ot terrible jet lag it's really bad it's quite it's quite awful um I just feel like I've been hit in the head with some plywood with some plywood not even anything really particularly strong and heavy just a bit of plywood I don't really know the strengths of wood okay I've been hitting the head with an Oak Branch yeah okay better better okay I've been hitting the head with an Oak Branch was such a funny one to go with it's a lot that's not what today's video is about it's not about shopping and

it's not about my incredible jet lag Al I'm sure that will play into it or the density of woods or the density of woods or how much you look like a fisherman Fisher lady Fisher lady Fisher person as R would like to correct us because he adds person to the end of everything it's so sweet he starts he's now he now says uh where's that child's adult rather than like where's that child's mommy or daddy or whatever so or even parent yeah he even called us as adult sometimes like we went out the othe

r night he's like my adults can't have those and I was like and I was like you're adults I was like Oh you mean mommy and Mama and he's like yes my adults I was like okay it's cuz I trained him to sit so this video is actually the third in our series of videos from Malaysia there from Malaysia one more um even though this one is actually not filmed in Malaysia but the fourth one is I bet it has a sponsorship in that's why it's the fourth one that's just how it worked out my plan was that my cous

in or my aunt or one of my Malaysian relatives would give us like an authentic cooking experience but none of them wanted to cuz they were all a bit too camera shy so but none of them were able to just say no lightly so they were kind of just do dodging around the subject and and then Jessica was just like just say it fell through it fell through thank you so instead we thought we would talk about what it is like being queer parents whilst you are traveling in a non-lgbtq plus friendly country b

ecause that's obviously a question that gets asked a lot personally I think it doesn't even need to be traveling to a non-friendly lgbtq plus country it can just be like travel per se cuz whenever you go out outside of your home environment not like just your home like your town or Village or city or wherever you're comfortable with like all the places you regularly hang out and you feel safe like when you go out of those places then I feel like you always have to kind of come out yeah because y

ou know come out every day but yeah but like you feel you're confronted with that more so even just driving in England to a different County even if we're going to different countries within the EU we're still a bit like oh is that is that an maybe we'll just have a little quick Google beforehand see if anything's come up and also it's like you kind of think oh okay well Italy is C is like primarily Catholic so they they probably not so great on it actually we've always found Italy are really qu

ite welcoming yeah so it's not always based on like yeah my point is it's not always religion based there's like different so some countries have like pros and cons there pros and cons everywhere you go does that country have to celebrate G gay pride H countries that Cal what's it actually like on the streets crial a whole another thing pink washing you need to know your Foreign Affairs guys travel basically what we're saying yeah but I think that's a thing that also applies when we're traveling

in Malaysia and speaking about Malaysia because there is the level of what is this what is the policy of the country as a whole what is the kind of stated official policy and what is the cultural kind of accept experience of people who live there like there are gay people living in Malaysia which is also something that people in comments seem to forget yeah there there like just like any country there's going to be gay citizens and I think in Malaysia actually they don't live like as openly as

we do like I don't think they probably have a YouTube channel or you know or an Instagram account but there are plenty of people who are in same seex relationships like we spotted them we had like I had like my favorite things to do I think often in especially online discourse there can be this thing where it whole country gets um kind of shoved in with the official policy with completely forgetting that every country is made up of individual people and everyone has different thoughts on the mat

ters at hand and also there are different cultures Within in each country well and also different states so there are known States within Malaysia that are more Islamic and majority of the population are Malay and maybe the rules about um public affection for anybody is much um higher and stricter whereas with other states like you know obviously the capital city qual Lumpa um and some more of the tourist popular destinations and also um like panang and Langkawi which we visited which also have

it to be like more Chinese populated um they are way more relaxed yeah we're in a very interesting position when we're traveling in Malaysia because we are both foreign we're both foreign tourists like you have a very British accent we both for br accents I'm incredibly pale but we also have Family Ties so if we're going to a local place and it's and we're having dinner there and you going to eat at ha stols we're generally with some of your family members and whilst your auntie is chatting to s

omeone she might introduce us as her niece and her wife she's like oh this is my niece and her wife and we'll go on that like okay she's introduced us as a niece and wife cool or she might say these are my nieces in which case we like oh subtle difference okay we we we'll go with that and so it's really helpful to have that sort of a little family there to help us judge and navigate that way but at the same time we can also move through spaces as tourists that is treated a bit differently and if

we go to a hotel and they say oh you want twin beds we go double bed and they just kind of sure yeah and if someone outright asks us I always remember that guy at the um the hotel in Thailand though was like so are you are you sisters like married and they and every time people just kind of go I don't remember that was that in Thailand last year yeah and then just kind of roll with it this year though it happened in England because as we were about we were in Heath row about to board the plane

you go through at the gate hand over your passports the guy checks it he looks at both of our passports Rupert's passport checks the three of us and then he goes h oh sisters yeah sisters you're like no no yes sisters no we're married he like no but you look like sister no he didn't there was a pause he went oh then he kind of looked down like maybe thinking it through like maybe he was thinking should this be an awkward situation have I made it awkward I will make it not aw and then he was like

well you look like sisters and we were like okay but I mean fair enough no is it fair enough oh yeah it is fair enough we have the same surname he thought we looked similar his go-to was that we were sisters I think that's okay whose baby is that like what it could be one of our bab one of our babies and one as the aunt what's the big deal we have totally got off the thing that I was I wrote to help us stay on track so one of the things that people have asked is what do we do when rert says Mom

my and Mama last year when we were in Malaysia he didn't have that many words that he could of string together he had a lot of words but they came individually or he would say like two words together or three words together so he would happily call us mama and Mommy but he wouldn't necessarily be able to point at us to go this is my mommy and this is my mama uh this year however boy can he talk oh he can talk so whereas last time if someone asked us oh who's whose baby is it we just say whoever

was holding at him or near him or had just been interacting go oh this is mine my yeah my baby it's true this time um we just kind of went with the flow of whatever he was saying at the time maybe last time because it was our first time traveling with him and maybe I did feel a little bit more awareness around us being a same-sex couple with our baby and whether or not people would register that and if they did Reg it was it going to be a positive or negative experience but this year I was like

really like blasé like I just didn't actually care and like maybe like but I think a part of that is because one we've had him for an extra year now so like I'm more used to our little like family units yeah and like I've become more confident in like well I have a right to be here as a as a tourist like with my family with my sexuality like you know that's not you're not not allowed obvious there are some countries you can't you are not allowed to travel to Malaysia is very much like a tourist

friendly country and I am half Malaysian so I'm like I I am coming to visit my family so I just think I just have that sense of more confidence in myself and our family and then also like the reception was way I feel like I felt like we were like more warmly received then and there were definitely less questions than last year so whether that's just like a movement a progression in people's thoughts from seeing more people traveling and more people in see sex couples um and just like more Global

awareness of like sexuality because like when we went to the when we were in our hotel for instance the wait one of the waitresses from the hotel in lanar immediately came up to us on our first night when we went to the to dinner to the restaurant and says oh hi you were here last year I remember you and I was just like and I think it was really nice and like she she knew that we were both the mom she knew that we were a family do you think it's cuz he looks different maybe last year there was

this whole thing about how he was a he was like a he's got like an Asian baby with blonde yeah he looked more Chinese really confused people maybe and then this year he looks more like a just mixed race kid yeah they were much more last time like why does this baby have your face and kind of like her hair what's going on I don't know who knows and now he's got darker hair and then I don't know or maybe the maybe people are less bothered about bab maybe more people want to ask questions when it's

a baby but when it's a child they still they still comment on how beautiful he is but they don't say yeah I mean like last year we definitely had more people coming up saying oh is the father Malay maybe I don't know like it was weird we just didn't get as many questions this year maybe because he's talking so much more that people feel they can't say because he'll hear as well so you don't just like talk about someone in front of them he will talk back to you yeah he will talk back to you or b

ecause he's talking so much they don't really get a chance to like ask a question because he's just talking yeah um we did get asked in a comment whether we'd had a conversation with him about homophobia and about whe when it's we should not mention having a mommy and a mama obviously at some point in time we are going to have to have a conversation with him about what homophobia is and when it's not safe to talk about our family unit and the way that it exists he's currently two and a half and

he will happily tell you that some people have one parent some people have two some people have three some people have more some people have two moms Two Dads one mom one dad a whole variation grandparents yeah some people just have an adult different of make um but I think if we told him about homophobia as a thing and kind of a reason like it was a thought maybe should we but then no because he come might just be like yeah I have a mommy and a mama but not a daddy but I probably shouldn't alwa

ys tell people that because of homophobia should I tell you that it's probably something he would say um because he he can talk to the cow's comp home I I think it's that's like an older child thing because at this point in time people just assume when he says Mommy and Mama they're like Mama that might just be a word he uses for his nanny or it's an affectionate term for his auntie it's not a a concern whereas last year I did feel it was but I think because nothing came of it it made me more ok

ay so uh when we're obviously been talking about where we're family and we have the safety of being with a family and um I think even if I think that almost camouflages us a bit as well because if there's just a big group of people sitting at a table it people don't other people wouldn't clock necessarily like who's a couple and who's not a couple around the table so like we feel quite you know we feel safe and and like that is not really a thing but outside of when we're with family so if it's

just the two of us traveling like when we go to the beach resort and things we do like our research and look ahead and we choose a hotel that is usually like I mean maybe I should I mean I think we should say that we're a little bit privileged in that we can we can afford to choose a hotel that's like of a fairly good class and I think that does make a bit of a difference personally to me I feel like it's going to be more International um like so we try and choose hotels that are bit more Intern

ational um like you can sort of look at that from um Trip Advisor reviews like who who has kind of what people stay there like whether it's good for families whether it's good for couples sometimes I even look in the trip advisor reviews to see if anyone has mentioned like same sex or gay or anything like that or like how they were with toddlers and families and things like that um and sometimes the hotel will say that they're like lgbtq plus friendly but I find like hotels that are fairly um re

p what's rep rep reputable reputable they have like more highly this is obviously a bit of an assumption but on the whole I feel like they have more um worldly staff potentially maybe people who are a bit more fluent in English and they also maybe a bit more culturally aware of other people's Lifestyles the hotel has to like deliver certain type of standard and therefore they aren't really going to be so even if they have a opinions and Views they know it's not their place to potentially say so

yeah I think it's unfortunate that we have to lump being lgbtq Plus in with like rich people demanding that their poodle gets to sleep on the bed yeah but you kind of at a certain point do have to I do kind of feel like that I feel like we are like the special weird Ecentric tourists because of our chosen lifestyle in the same way that some other very particular people might be yeah who people who are like I I want to speak with my it's very much not a chosen lifestyle um but it is slightly like

that you are paying for the privilege of being very secure and also there's and that is not to say that anything might happen or no would happen I don't think we've ever really felt unsafe in outside of that environment personally I feel like when you're in a hotel and within the boundaries of the hotel there's often like you know there's like there's certain levels of security that a hotel provide um you know you can't come in unless you are usually a guest you can't like use the facilities un

less you're a guest and then most of the guests there are international and therefore I feel like when there are other people who are from Europe or America or places like that not to say that they they themselves might be homophobic but for me mentally it just makes me feel safer like because I feel like you know generally those people are going to be more accepting of us and therefore I feel like there's a bit of safety in numbers yeah whereas whereas like you know obviously I wouldn't feel so

safe staying in an airbeam be house um just the two of us and ret you know yeah Fair because like if some strange person decided to follow us home or like there was a knock on the door like I would feel quite anxious about that I think whereas I think so when I'm tra so I feel when we're in Malaysia and anywhere that we go I do feel safer with that kind of Hotel protection you don't think that's a bad thing to say no I think that is I think it is and I think it's fine I think we we are definite

ly more aware and more careful now that we have ret I think that it's not a safety that we can um not we have like played played real life safety but it's not something we can afford to take lightly now that we have him because it's another it's another person it's a small person who we are we're looking after and and we need to be much more careful with him and we can't just be like oh we'll just go and you know stay in this backpacking hotel and and take things easy we it's strange it's like u

m no we're going to be really careful with you yeah in some ways like traveling as just two women could feel safer because if we needed to orever felt unsafe we could say we were like just friends on holiday you know and then make our exuses for why we don't want their attention or company right now oh we're both married yeah husbands are just over there actually just they're just coming yeah and then what I was going to say was like but sometimes now traveling with rets I feel like um sometimes

that's safer because less unwanted attention in terms I'm talking about male attention like it happens because they're like oh like they're with their one of them's clearly one of their child you know like they're not going to approach to women and also we're a bit older maybe like but I feel like if we didn't have ruper with us we probably would still be approached and then it be that we had to have those kind of awkward conversations yeah that used to be that used to be a whole thing so it's

like sa fake the fake boyfriends the fake husbands yes I kind of feel like safer and more protected by the fact that we're giving off like this family maybe not necessarily the family that we are but we're giving off a family um image to people which then like makes us invisible ible to like people we'd rather be invisible to the dog gromer it's the dog groomer hello oh hi CIA had to go pick up Tilly from the groomer so it's just me now I hope you've enjoyed our sometimes awkward and quite raw t

houghts on traveling as a two mom family obviously there is a privilege in being able to travel in itself for for us it's so important for rer to be able to experience the world in different cultures and specifically Malaysia prod is half Chinese Malaysian being her mother is ethnically Chinese her family has been in Malaysia for generations and her mother is no longer with us meaning that a lot of that tradition and the culture so much that she would be able to be passing down and and sharing w

ith us and bringing to rit's Everyday Life it also isn't financially possible for most of Claudia's Malaysian family to be able to travel to the UK and thus it's really important for us that we're able to take him to Malaysia so he's able to meet his family and experience his own Heritage and it's important for Claudia as well and for me I also take great joy in Sharing in a part of my wife and and what makes her who she is and those incredible innate things and corol memories that she has and r

ecreating them in our child the the smells that bring her Joy because she smelted them when she was a tiny baby bringing those to our child as well and recreating happy memories of Chinese New Year and being surrounded by lots of cousins and lots of aunties as everyone hands out umow and tosses salad and it eats delicious food so thank you so much for watching remember that there are two episodes of our Malaysia 2024 series that have gone out so far you can click to watch them by going clicking

the card that's just up here or the link that's in the description down below uh I think so far we have released the traveling with a toddler all the tips that you may need to know about traveling with a toddler which I saw so many people commented were actually helpful tips for traveling as an adult as well and I can't lie I also find many of rets many of rets playing things quite soothing for myself so I I would agree and if you'd like to see some of our experience the Chinese New Year then wa

tch that video as well the next video coming up has has some of my personal tips about when you're traveling in the tropics with a chronic illness something that I get asked about a lot and obviously have to put a lot of thought into so highly recommend the video that's coming up next as well if you'd like to see more from Claudia and I you can find us on Instagram @ Jesse and Claude which will also be in the description down below thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video bye-by

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