For some of the parents in our group it has been a long journey. Not physically, although some often travel for over an hour to meet up with others over coffee and cake, to share and understand where others are on their journey. No, these journeys are more lifelong esoteric journeys of the mind, of our soul in fact. Oh that sounds deep, sorry.
When parents are told, or even, inadvertently, find out that their child is gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender or queer, whatever the label society uses, life can crash down around them. They find it bewildering, struggling to understand what their child will do in the future, how they will cope.
"What about their children?" is a familiar response heard.... "our grandchildren?"
We discussed this a lot yesterday at our periodic parents support group meeting.
Here we are showing that we stand with the LGBTQ community and especially our LGBTQ children.
When parents are told, or even, inadvertently, find out that their child is gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender or queer, whatever the label society uses, life can crash down around them. They find it bewildering, struggling to understand what their child will do in the future, how they will cope.
"What about their children?" is a familiar response heard.... "our grandchildren?"
We discussed this a lot yesterday at our periodic parents support group meeting.
Here we are showing that we stand with the LGBTQ community and especially our LGBTQ children.
We don't always stand around a pot of daffodils but heck
when you have that chance, wouldn't you?
Together we chatted over those dreams we had for our children, those careers, that security and then it all dawned on us that they were our dreams, our aspirations and our children had not changed given their recent revelation. They were still loved.
We noted that often our children felt that
"this wasn't anything to do with us".
This had hurt at the time. It was our battle: that knife, slowly turning, did hurt excruciatingly especially at night...but upon reflection... they were right.
The real issue of 'coming out' was their battle: one that we had to support, to stand alongside them. Nevertheless, there was another battle we also had to win - our own battle. For those parents with transgender children we noted that we often struggled with:
You can't replace that feeling.
* When we say 'appropriate' we are still dealing with teenagers here... :-)
We noted that often our children felt that
"this wasn't anything to do with us".
This had hurt at the time. It was our battle: that knife, slowly turning, did hurt excruciatingly especially at night...but upon reflection... they were right.
The real issue of 'coming out' was their battle: one that we had to support, to stand alongside them. Nevertheless, there was another battle we also had to win - our own battle. For those parents with transgender children we noted that we often struggled with:
- Pronouns and their sensitivity if we ever got them wrong;
- Clothes; and
- Make-up.
You can't replace that feeling.
* When we say 'appropriate' we are still dealing with teenagers here... :-)
At our meeting, we sat for 2 hours, parents drawn from around the county of Lincolnshire, to share, encourage and support each other. It didn't matter what 'label' was used to describe our children, this parents group provided strength to continue, to realise the rational from the torrents of irrational perceptions we often faced. It was such a positive time to know that we were not alone, that we do have support from many quarters and that our children haven't really changed... in our eyes - they are still wonderful. |