When we came up out of BART I said to B, "So, you know that Pride is about being gay, right?"

He squinched up his face. "No." Great, I thought. I have about two minutes until the parade starts. My mind flashed over all the things I was going to have to explain to him: leathermen, topless women, drag queens.

"Hey, why are there all those striped flags?" he asked.

OK, so E and I have totally failed at bringing up our children in gay culture. Now I only had 90 seconds, while E looked for a clear space along the police barricades on Market Street, before the Dykes on Bikes started the parade. "Rainbow flags are a symbol of gay pride," I told B. "They were created in San Francisco in the 1970s. But the reason we have Pride in June is because in 1969 - that's the year I was born - there was a bar in New York in Greenwich Village --"

"Enough with the history lesson," E cut in. "We have to find somewhere we can watch the parade." We were late. The parade hadn't started yet but people were already 3 and 4 deep along most of Market Street.

"We're just going to have to park behind some people who are sitting on the curb," I said. We found a bare-ish patch behind a straight couple in their 50s. I turned back to B. "OK, so in 1969 the police would raid gay bars because they were harassing gay people."

"Why?" he cut in.

"Because they were gay. They didn't like gay people. But in June of 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, the gay men and the drag queens fought back against the police and that is considered to be the beginning of the modern gay liberation movement. That was the year I was born - not very long ago. There were people who had gay groups before 1969 - like those women Mommy showed you who got married on TV. But the drag queens at the Stonewall Inn were the turning point."

I thought again about what would be in the parade - the leather chaps and bare chests and outrageous, sexy costumes - and realized I'd have to explain that, too. I had thirty seconds. I could hear the motorcycles in the distance, thundering up Market street. "The parade is a lot about having fun and looking a little silly. People are going to be dressed up in a lot of funny costumes, and it's just going to be outrageous and silly. It's for fun."

The motorcycles started to sweep past and I pushed B forward so he could see better. All the people who had been sitting on the curb jumped up. He ducked down to watch between their legs. I picked R up high so she could see. The Harleys were rumbling low. The women with grey hair and leather vests went past and past and I whooped for them. I was crying. There were women with wedding veils, white and pink and purple. I cried some more and I wasn't sure why. I think it was because I was born the same year the drag queens at the Stonewall Inn fought back against the cops and now, when I am 38 on the last Sunday in June I saw Harley after Harley after Harley ridden by lesbians in their 50s who had just gotten married.

The women rode Ducatis and BMWs and Triumphs and I could not stop crying. E turned around and wiped the tears off my cheeks with the heel of her hand. R was getting heavy so I put her down. She could not see anything. I touched the elbow of the man in front of us and he gestured for the kids to move in front of him. They clambered up on the police barricades.

When the Dykes on Bikes were done, there were bicycles and then the marching band. They were handing out candy. E and I looked at each other. We realized that the kids were going to get stuff from every organization that was handing out crap during the parade. The kids hung over the barricade and got candy from the next group and the group after that. They got stickers from the gay martial artists and the ACLU. They got temporary tattoos from the gay Google employees, postcards from the gay librarians, gum and pretend police badges and little LED flashlights that said, "U.S. Customs and Border Patrol." When their hands got full the would hand them back to us and we'd stuff them in E's bike bag. She and I ate the good candy ourselves.

When the guys from STOP AIDS started handing out condoms, the woman next to R reached out to snag one before R could get it. I mouthed "thank you" when she looked back at me. She smiled. When the third group of people with Mardi Gras beads looked like they were going to pass up the kids, the woman on their other side reached out and grabbed two red strings, one for each kid.

We'd been there a couple of hours when E said, "I can't believe R is still into watching the parade."

"Of course she is!" I said. "It's a parade made up of men in sparkly pink outfits. Why wouldn't she love it?"