A couple of years ago I volunteered at my boys high school for a few hours each week. I worked in the office checking people in and out, taking phone calls, and general mundane stuff like that. I am not one of those ever involved, eager PTA moms. 😬I really did not want to work at the school… I only did it because my sons were having some struggles and I thought it could potentially help them if I built relationships in the school office, knew who to ask for help, created some goodwill towards my kids. 😂 So I was there for purely selfish reasons, but I am very grateful I did it because of the relationships I made there. The school's office manager will remain one of my close friends for years to come.
Anyways, from this work I also had a chance to get to know a few of the students better. Some of the students who knew my boys liked to come hang out with me and chitchat. I am a pretty open minded person and sometimes my kids' friends find that they can vent their problems better with me than with their own parents who may be more quick to judge and shut them down.
One day while I was working in the office my boy's sweet friend came to chat with me. I will call her Anna for reference, but that's not her real name. Anna shared with me that she had been on a couple of dates recently and she was very excited about the potential of these relationships. One of these dates was with a girl and one was with a boy, because she was bisexual. She said it very casually. An unimportant detail, like including what kind of sneakers she wore on each date. Just a little detail that was part of the story, and not THE story. At the end of her story she added that she had to keep all of this secret from her parents because they didn't want her dating at all, and they would certainly kick her out of the house if they knew she was bisexual. She was 16. I smiled and nodded and listened. We hugged and then she trotted off when the bell rang.
So this was the ah ha moment. I stood there listening to another human share their truth with me and yet I felt unable to share my same truth back that might possibly have comforted her to know that she's not alone. That I too was bisexual, that she was not a total weirdo, that she was not alone, that I really did understand her excitement over the potential of each relationship, and that I was a safe space who would not judge her sexuality. I suppose somehow she knew that already by the fact that she shared all this with me, but still I felt very choked by not being able to reciprocate honesty back to her.
Why could I not reciprocate? Because I had not even revealed my truth to my own children. Up until then I didn't think it mattered or that it was appropriate to share my sexual orientation with my kids. But when I realized it was holding me back from relating to others, I knew what I had to do. I couldn't be my full self with their friends who might need it, if I hadn't first told my own kids. They didn't need to first hear that their mom is bisexual from their friend in English class. Lol
If you're not being your full self within your own home with those you love the most, it doesn't lead to a very open or honest life outside of your home. You end up hiding parts of yourself to this person, and hiding different parts of yourself that person based on who you deem can handle what. This is a no-win game.
Plus, I had always advocated to my kids that all sexual orientation's are okay! You are what you are. And yet I had hidden my own from them...? How did that make any sense? I was not walking my talk and that is really intolerable to the deepest parts of who I am.
So I told them one by one. None were aghast or seemed shocked. My daughter seemed a little uncomfortable, like she was eager to have the conversation end 😂. But afterwards she started telling me about different classmates who, in seventh grade, we're already coming out and identifying as gay or bisexual. She still shares this kind of stuff with me 2 years later.
My boys were a different story… They acted like, "hello. Okay. I get it. No big deal. You can stop blabbering now mom 🙄…." 🤣 I think I was rambling on a bit when I outed myself to them from my own nervousness over the conversation. I was not expecting them to shun me as I've given them nothing but total acceptance their whole life, so why would they give me anything less in return?
So anyway that's the story of why I had to out myself to my kids 2 years ago. Nothing has really changed in their life...It's not like I'm actively dating and parading different men and women through the house. I just needed to be honest with them first so I could live more honestly with the rest of the world.
I followed up with their friend Anna a few weeks after the talk with my kids. I wanted her to know my truth and why I couldn't share it earlier. I wanted her to know that she's not alone and that there are healthy well-adjusted adults who are just like her, and who won't judge her sexuality as bad or wrong. I also wanted her to know the power that her honesty had on me. 🙏🏽 Honesty begets honesty begets more honesty... It is a beautiful ripple effect if we allow it.
photos are mine and were taken by the great @sean-king 😘 in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Summer 2014.