If I could pray away the gay...

I would not.  If you had asked me this three years ago, I might have a different answer, but as of today, I know for sure...  I am so incredibly happy to have a gay son. I hate that the world doesn't see his value, but I love everything about him. I don't love him "in spite" of being gay, I love everything about who he is, and being gay is at the core fabric of who he is.

This post is inspired by three things.
#1) Primarily, this TED talk. 

I have read a lot of the research he is referring to, particularly the parts about pre-natal stress, and there are times that this has really gotten to me. I love my son dearly, and I truly wouldn't want him to be any other way, as it really is a key element of his personality, and there are parts of me that feel so frightened for him to grown up gay in this world today, and to think that my stress levels likely caused it.... yikes. I was a college student trying to finish my degree, so I was working part-time. The same month we found I out I was pregnant, my husband left his long-term job pastoring at a church (we left, ironically enough, over conflicts with their stance on homosexuality, as many parents in the church were angry that we had gay friends whom their children had met) in faith that God would provide a better situation, even though he didn't have one lined up. (And didn't find another good situation until I was 8 months pregnant). When I was 14 weeks along, my husband's only living grandmother, with whom he and I were both close, had a stroke. After 6 long painful weeks in hospice, she passed away. It was a really crappy time in our lives. We were broke. We were stressed. It was emotional. But I LOVE the part of this TedTalk where he says, "It's like the mother's body was saying, 'I need a kind and clever ally to help me hold this family together.'" What a perfect, perfect definition. My daughter is my sassy pants buddy. But my son... he is my kind and clever ally. Being a minister's wife is hard. My husband is busy with youth ministry a lot at night. Tonight, my son saw I was busy on the phone comforting his aunt who is undergoing some testing for her son who might have autism. So he made his own lunch and his sister's lunch for the next day, because my husband or I usually do that. He wants to help out. He is my kind and clever ally. He listens in on my conversations and eavesdrops (which drives me crazy half the time) because he wants to know what is going on with everyone because he just cares so much. Gosh I am lucky.... "nature" (a.k.a. GOD) sure is awesome.

#2) I've started watching The Real O'Neals. 

The writers of this show really get it. The protagonist says all the things I have come to understand: he cannot change who he is. He still loves God. And that is not a paradox. And it is awesome. He doesn't want it any other way. 

#3) Calendar Shopping 

Every year, my husband sells these calendars at church that are nature pictures with bible verses. We end up buying a leftover as our calendar for our kitchen. I'm sick of it. I just don't want a Bible verse calendar. Too cliche. And my kitchen is more colorful than that. We are more colorful people. We are... edgy.

We didn't get a calendar as a gift this year, but there is a part of my wall that needs a calendar... and I wanted one that was US. Edgy. Colorful. Funny. Something that would make us smile. So, I looked up a bunch on amazon and was sitting at the table showing my husband. Of course my eavesdropping son wants in on it. He overhears my argument for the "Hot Dudes Reading" calendar, which he googled on his tablet, and then was like, "Yeah! Let's get that one." Even my six-year-old daughter was like, "Yes!" She is a big book nerd like me. And the boys are cute. My son made a quick plea for "Hot Guys and Baby Animals," but he vetoed it himself fairly quickly, "Oh no, some of the pictures are without shirts, and that isn't really appropriate for the kitchen." We were back to "Hot Dudes Reading," and my husband, who was arguing for a "We Live in a Beautiful World," exclaims, "Oh no, I am outnumbered here!" and he looks at the three of us. This was about more than the calendar. My son and daughter and I had a moment where we giggled and inside... I felt all warm and tingly. Haha.

While my husband and I continued to debate the few on the screen, my son giggles, "Haha, there's a 'Nuns Having Fun' calendar." Turns out that "Nuns Having Fun" tickled all of us. Okay, my daughter wasn't thrilled, but my husband and I both loved it. (The Hot Dudes Reading one is also mostly unavailable, so it is like $100. Ooops). And we are the ones who pay the bills around here, so, for the next 12 months, "Nuns Having Fun" will remind us what month we are in.

I adore my son and his quirky personality. I love everything about him. 

When Girls Chase Boys...

I am sure this is not a problem unique to raising a gay son.... but it puts a unique spin on it.

**** Context (for anyone new or who doesn't remember).... my gay son is 10 years old *****

There is a girl in my son's class who is frequently chasing him. I cannot believe that at 10 and 11 years old they are still engaging in this incredibly primitive form of flirting, but that's clearly what it is. This is really bothering my son. Earlier in the year, when she kept grabbing him and chasing him, he spit at her to get him to stop. He of course got in trouble for spitting at her, but didn't tell anyone that she wouldn't stop chasing him.

Girl keeps chasing him. I ask, "So, what if she 'catches' you? If you don't run, she can't chase you." He says she grabs him and holds onto him, and he hates it.... but of course he hasn't actually clearly said to her, "Leave me alone!" I ask why. He doesn't know. I think he is just trying so hard to fly below the radar.

He has been picked on in the past as being "gay," but he isn't flamboyanty "out" at school - he's only ten and he is on the shy side. I think perhaps he is afraid that if he seems uninterested in female affection people will figure out that he's gay? I don't know. It just seems that this element of his identity makes everything complicated. When a teenage girl at Broadway camp teased him once about having a crush on her, he freaked out. He didn't know what to do because he was afraid that denying it would = gay, but while doesn't want them to think he is gay, he doesn't want to just play along because, well, it's not true, and he doesn't want to be in the closet and hide either. That's not who he is. Sigh. He just makes this stuff so complicated. I've tried to explain teasing and flirting in the past and that it's just a normal part of life. It all frustrates him.

I finally just emailed the teacher tonight. Teacher is awesome and emailed me back right away. She and I both agree it is important my son learn to speak up when stuff is bothering him. I'm glad he feels safe at home, but he needs to find his own voice. He can't be relying on me in middle school, and he starts middle school next year.

My husband and I had a long talk with him tonight about growing up and flirting. Pretty much the next ten to twenty years of his life are going to involve a lot of giving of attention and receiving of attention, some of it physical, some of it in other forms. And it is important to know how to deal with it.

My husband is great. He knew just what to say, "Are there any boys you like?" There is. One. So my husband says, "What if it was him doing it? How would you feel then? What would you do?" My son blushes and says, "I'd kind of like it. I would probably grab him back." Exactly. How do we figure out who likes us and who doesn't? Flirting. But it is important to send clear signals. And my son does not send clear signals. He runs.

So, we explained the importance of saying "Stop. I do not like that. I don't want you to grab me. I don't want you to chase me. You need to leave me alone."

I think this is just a lesson more parents need to teach kids. I think we have all become so concerned with teaching our kids not to hurt other kids' feelings that we have forgotten to teach them that it's okay to say "Stop. I appreciate your attention, but it is unwanted attention right now, and I would like to be left alone."

A Year...

In the musical Ragtime, at the beginning of the first act, the father is leaving on an expedition to the North Pole. As he says goodbye to his family, he says, "It's only a year. Nothing much happens in a year. The world will not spin off its axis.  Nothing will change."

Although this musical debuted in 1996, I feel as though the author's words were practically prophesying 2016.  What a year. For marginalized populations, particularly the LGBTQ community, everything has changed. It feels almost as if the world has spun off its axis.

Who could have possibly predicted Brexit?  Or Pulse?  Or Trump / Pence?

My son will start middle school soon.  I have been dreading this for a while, as it seems that the mix of puberty and a shift in psycho-social development stages creates a perfect storm.  Plus, society's method of grouping students by age for schooling, and isolating them on campuses only with each other really creates this vacuum in which kids have no perspective and no role models. It's a recipe for disaster.  My son does musical theatre, and in the musical theatre community, "kids" typically refers to all of the youth in the production, and the youth tend to cling to each other.  My son hangs out with the other kids in the shows, as well as with the adults. He learns with all of them.  They do theatre games, they learn the music and dances, etc.  Why can't school be like that?  I understand why math class is taught in age groups, but most other subjects really have enough diversity that students of a variety of ages could learn together, but we don't do that. In this country, we don't even let them share the same physical space, so middle schoolers are caged up with other kids in this awkward stage, with only their teachers to model appropriate behavior.

But I digress....

I was already afraid for my son to enter middle school, but then I hear reports about middle school students targeting Mexicans with chants like "Build That Wall," and I hear about news reports of strangers telling gay people that Trump is going to put marriage back the way "God" wants it, and I am just so much more afraid.

Middle school is less than a year away.  If you'd have asked me a year ago what November 2016 would look like, I could certainly not have guessed at the increase in fear.

I can only pray that the next year brings an unexpected peace. Trump ran on a campaign of completely bucking a system that he now has to find a way to work within. I can only hope that he will find himself so incredibly humbled by the difficulty of the tasks facing him that he has a huge change of heart. I can only hope that this unexpected turn of political events has awakened liberal-sympathizers enough to turn them from bystanders into true allies. Perhaps it takes the darkest night to really see the stars.

Gay Role Models

I met some of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence tonight.  First off... a word about how amazing these people are. They are drag nuns who do community service. I can't even believe that this is a thing.  But I love love love it.

I asked one of the sisters, "What do you wish someone told you when you were a young gay kid?" 

The answer was interesting. I had hoped for some sage words of wisdom and encouragement I could pass on to my kid, but instead I got a bittersweet piece of retrospective.

He (she? I am unclear on how to use pronouns for male cisgender drag people) said that he just wished he had role models. Adults who were where they are and know what they are going through and can give an image of hope for a positive life and future.

Why is this bittersweet?  Okay, well, it didn't answer my question. But I love that my son does have gay role models in his life. Several of them, but most specifically a guy at church who volunteers teaching Sunday school and children's ministry. Rhett is a great guy who is young and fun and openly gay.  Being gay is just a small percentage of who Rhett is in my son's eyes. In my son's eyes, Rhett tells better jokes than anyone he knows.  Rhett throws himself completely into every game they play, even if it means eating 17 jalapenos, which somehow equals "hero" in the eyes of a little boy who cringes when pasta sauce is too spicy. Rhett sings well. Rhett is a good actor in the skits that they sometimes do in church.   But my son also knows that this great Christian adult happens to be gay. He has met Rhett's boyfriend. And my son sees that his straight daddy is also best friends with Rhett, and that gives my son a lot of hope too.  That he won't lose all his straight friends when he comes out to them. And that he will not have to choose between love and church. Because the two should never be mutually exclusive.

My son also does theatre. I hate to promote stereotypes, but some are true, and the gay male theatre stereotype is true. We have met many straight males. But it seems like over half of the men running theatre programs in our area are gay. And that's fantastic.  My son sees gay couples at cast parties. And he sees Human Rights Campaign Equality stickers on practically every car in the parking lot. He knows his directors and choreographers and producers are gay. But mostly he just loves them because they are great artists. And my son wants to be an artist when he grows up. Not just a gay man. 

But I know that we are so, so lucky. In a fairly large suburb (over 100,000 people) with something like 30 churches, we are one of only two churches I know of in town that truly welcomes full participation of gay members. That means that all the other little kids growing up in the other churches in my city do not have these role models. And I am certain that some of those kids are gay.

And the school district where we live is really conservative too. When you search for "gay straight alliance" on the schools websites, it seems like none of them have them. I have never seen a local GSA represented at any local PRIDE thing or gay community events, so I am pretty sure they don't exist.  If there are gay teachers in the schools, no one knows about it. Heck, there are rarely male teachers in the schools. They are all older white females.
 
Little kids need gay role models.  I hope that young gay men understand the importance of being involved in the community, and I hope that community organizations, YMCAs and Boys and Girls Clubs and churches and schools, understand the importance of supporting openly gay individuals. Because little kids NEED role models that remind them of themselves. They need people to show them that, even if they don't have classic cisgender heterosexual visions of a happy future, that it's okay. That happy and gay can be synonyms. They certainly aren't antonyms.

Pulse

When I heard about what happened in Orlando last night, I almost couldn't think about it.  I had to sort of look at it and then look away and not think about it.

When he was eight years old, already identifying as a part of the LGBTQ community, my son could not understand why it upset his grandfather to hear him identify as gay.  I explained that his grandfather was just scared for him.  This of course necessitated an explanation.

"Why would he be scared for me?"

"Because people sometimes really hate gay people. Like the way they used to hate Black people."

"Like Martin Luther King Jr.?"

"Yup."

"They killed him.  Do people want to kill gay people?"

            How does a mother answer that question?   
        In my opinion, one must tell the truth.

"Yes, some people do. There was a gay politician named Harvey Milk who fought for gay rights, and someone murdered him, just like Martin Luther King."

"Do people still want to kill gay people?"

"Um... yeah, some, but mostly it's getting a lot better. It's getting so much better."

Castro memorial - June 12

So how do I explain this???

I believed it when I said it.  That it was getting better. I am an optimistic person. There is no way, two years ago, that I could have possibly known that the worst LGBTQ violence in our history was yet to come. And a man was arrested in Santa Monica on his way to LA Pride. And there is no evidence that the two were tied together in anyway. It's not one isolated incident of awfulness. It is evidence of a resurgence of hate.

Hate that could cost my son his life. It hurts. So. Bad. 

We are pulse. As a mother, I know the fear. I know that all those victims have moms who have cried tears of fear that someday someone's illogical hate for their child, based on just who they love, would result in pain . And they probably have relaxed over the years and started to think, "It's okay. It's getting better. But here it is. 

I love my son as who he is, and his trailblazing childhood confidence as an out gay kid has made me a better person. If I could pray a prayer and make him straight again, I would not ever do it. 

I want so badly to just be 100% okay with my son being gay.

But I am never going to be okay with knowing that people want to kill my son just for who he is.

 I don't know if that will ever stop hurting. 

Beautiful Thing

My husband and I watched this movie tonight, Beautiful Thing, and while it was a good movie, it really made me think about something else that really is a beautiful thing in my life.

In the movie, the young man, Jamie, goes to a gay bar. His mom finds out. She confronts him about it, and he tries to lie. And it makes her so sad. Like it would any mom. 

"Why do you just talk to me, Jamie?"

"I'm knackered." 

"Jamie. Please. Just talk to me."

 "What about?"

"I'm your mother."

"Some things are just hard to say."

"I know. I know that."

 "You think I'm too young. You think it's just a phase. You think I'm gonna catch AIDS and... and everything." 

"Don't cry. It's alright. I'm not gonna put you out in the morning like an empty bottle." 

Jamie is wrong about his mom. She doesn't think it's a phase. She loves him for who he is. She's crying and upset because she found out that he's been bullied about it for a long time.

And I'm sure she's crying because she feels that there's grown a distance that she never intended there to be between her and her beautiful baby boy.  It's like, after you give birth to a baby and they put that baby in your arms and you spend your first few days just holding that child to your chest, and you think feel in your soul that you are one. That although this tiny little person is now outside your body, you will always feel as absolutely close as you do at that moment. 

No mom wants to imagine her son hiding out in a closet. 

When I go to PFLAG meetings, sometimes the topic comes up of the moment we found out. I try not to use the phrase "coming out" when I describe my son's story, because that seems to suggest that there was a closet that he was in, but in my son's case, well, he never felt the need to shut the door. 

And that is a beautiful thing. 

The door has always been open. Because there are gay people in our lives. Because I talk about issues facing LGBT people. Because I explained what the news and the supreme court victories meant. Because I listened when he was four-years-old and said his male camp counselor was cute. And so his daddy and I chose our pronouns carefully after that and checked our assumptions. We couldn't assume he'd marry a woman, because he might not. So we talked about families, not "bride and groom" or "husband and wife."  When we talked about his future, we used words like "someone you love," and we started paying attention to the homophobic language around us to try to shield him from it. Because you just never know.

And when he was old enough to feel something that he realized was different,  he had words to talk about it, and when he had something to say, well, he said it. 

There are no proverbial closets in our home. And that is a beautiful thing. My son is open with me. As open as any boy will be with his mom, I suppose. He probably won't tell me about his first kiss, but I didn't tell my mom about my first kiss either. 

My son is in the early stages of puberty. It's late childhood, It's that age, and he is aware of all the sexual references in society and pop culture. But  when he wants information about sex, he doesn't Google it. He asks me. Because he knows he'll get an honest answer. He'll get a kind, non-binary, love-centered, truthful answer. He knows that when I don't know something, I'll find the answer. 

And so my son and I talk about things. I know he has a crush on Karan Brar. And that he doesn't like when Karan Brar takes roles where he does a fake accent. 

Although sometimes I feel really sad for my son that he doesn't know anyone else his age who thinks like he does, I know it is just because too many parents build accidental closets. They build them when they speak in binary terms like "man and wife." They build them when they silently let crazy Uncle Henry rant about "dykes."  If you fear that someday your child might come out to you, just don't create a home with closets. Don't let binary-biased language go un-checked in your home. Build a home without closets and there won't be one for your child to come out of. 

Pride

What a roller coaster this past week has been!  Wednesday was a holiday, Veteran's Day, so the kids were home with me instead of at school. We spent most of the cold fall day inside, and my two kiddos really enjoyed each other's company and enjoyed the time, space, and freedom to be themselves.
For my son, being himself sometimes means dressing up like Glinda and singing Wicked songs on his karaoke machine.  Which he did. While I painted his little sister's nails.

While my daughter's nails dried, he sat down next to me. "Mom, paint my nails too."
We have been down this road before, when Jude on The Fosters painted his nails, which of course lead to my son wanting to paint his nails.
"Are you sure," I asked.
"What if the kids at school make fun of me?" he considered.
"Well, that could happen. You could just tell them that they are your nails, and you like them this way. If they don't like them, then they should just be glad they aren't their nails."
"Yeah!  That's what I will do. I really want blue nails!"

So I painted his nails. And I genuinely didn't think that much about it after wards. I naively believed that the kids at school wouldn't notice or just wouldn't care. When he was crying when I got home, I couldn't even figure out what it was about.

My son didn't stand up to them like he'd imagined he would. He crumpled into a pile of sadness. Worse, he actually lied and told all the kids in his class and his teacher that his mother made him do it. Sigh. His teacher must think I am a sick woman.

That night I asked him if he wanted me to take the nail polish off.  Oddly, he didn't. He apologized over and over again, although I said he didn't have to say he was sorry or anything, that I understood why he lied, although I did wish he'd handled it differently. He insisted that the next day, if anyone said anything, he'd stand up to them and tell them he likes it.

Of course I spent the next day worrying about his nails, even though I hadn't worried at all the day before.  And of course it was old news, and no one said anything.

I wish all gay kids could know that about... well... almost everything that makes them different. Yeah, there are going to be kids who discover your differences and laugh. And run around telling everybody. And sadly, they're probably going to laugh too. Because different things make us uncomfortable, and for some odd reason, discomfort makes us laugh.  But then, as quickly as it happened, it's over. People don't laugh forever. The newest thing to laugh about becomes old news overnight. Annie was right; the sun will come up tomorrow.

But on Thursday, to make my son feel better, I'd asked him if he wanted to go to a local gay pride march I happened to know was happening on Saturday.  I'd been debating on it, since we are crazy busy lately and a little under the weather, but I decided that if he wanted to go, we would go. Of course he wanted to go.  "Mommy. Do you think those proud adults [he takes gay "pride" quite literally] ever went through stuff like this when they were little?"
"Like what? Getting made fun of?"
"Yeah. I am almost certain that they did."

Even within the gay community, I've seen some odd reactions to my tiny little gay kid. He looks younger than his age, so that doesn't help.  Since some of them spent years confused by social messages before figuring out that they truly were gay or bisexual or whatnot, some LGBT adults are not so understanding of my little gay son. I think some people even think I am trying to push this on him.

Why.... the... hell.... would I push this on him?  What mother wants to walk this journey? This journey that leaves me feeling alone, frustrated, confused, and scared so incredibly often?

Anyhow... for that reason, I am not a big fan of gay pride events. I feel like people are going to take one look at our very stereotypical hetero family and be like, "What are you doing here?"  But you know... things are changing, because that's really not how it is.

I registered us for the event, and I told the organizers my son's story. I told them we were going because he obviously needs proud adult gay role models.

So, we went. All of us.  Mom, Dad, and Two Beautiful Kids. And my two beautiful kids picked a sign that says "Gay is beautiful" to carry.  One guy who looked at us (probably assuming that we were just really awesome activist ally parents) said, "See, if more parents were like this, then we wouldn't need events like this." I assume he meant that if all straight parents raised their kids to truly believe that all forms of love are beautiful, then there wouldn't be a need to stand up and proudly declare sexual differences. That's true too. But we were there to support our son. Who needs pride.

At the event, one of the organizers remembered me and picked my son out from the crowd. He brought him up on stage and told his fingernail story and asked for anyone who has "got his back" to raise their hands.  As the crowd raised their hands and cheered, I realized my kiddo was a little bit of a hero that day.  It made his day. And mine too. What a journey.

 Most of these adults came into their own as teenagers or young adults, even though many of them say they knew as children, but the average coming out age in American is getting younger all the time.  It is currently 12 years old.  If that's the average, then someone has done their research, and someone has to have stated a younger age, or else it wouldn't be "12" if you average in the kids who still come out in their teens.

Which means my son is not alone. There are other gay kids out there. And their moms and dads are going through this too.  Yet I bet we all feel so alone.  If you are out there, please email me. We don't have to be alone. We can have each other's backs too.
lovingmygaykid@gmail.com