Parents ... Can't live with 'em, Can't shoot 'em

Parents

For most of us, when we were growing up our parents represented an ideal personhood. They loved us no matter what. They defined expectations and taught us what was right and wrong. For some they taught us about God. For many they were are our picture of God. As little boys and girls, we picture our parents as the canon by which we want to live our lives. Because they give us such great love and grant us happiness, we want to make them happy in return. Sure, we may rebel, but even in the angst of teenage rebellion we understand that if we really screw things up, our parents still love us and we can come back. Rarely do even rebellious teenagers actually want to hurt their parents, they’re merely exploring who they are beyond them.

Later, at a certain point in life, we discover that our parents are merely people. Like all people, they have their foibles. They make mistakes – maybe more than we ever understood as children. They sin. They aren’t perfect. At a certain point we come to realize that our parents are not a measure of our worth – that we must make our way regardless of their determinations and find who we were made to be irrespective of who they maybe wanted us to be.

But even on reaching that point, we still don’t want to disappoint them. We don’t want to hurt them. After all, they’re our parents. And even if we merely hold onto the ideal that they are perfect rather than the reality, that’s a tough nut to crack. And many people simply can’t, at least not very quickly.

The thought of disappointing our parents is a wretched one. For most of us, their judgment would be intangible. Sure we may get written out of the will or not get Christmas gifts or our partners ignored, but we live with/out those things – our parents aren’t trying to kill us. The judgment is arbitrary, but it’s emotional impact is extraordinary.

I think a lot of that extraordinary impact comes not from the fact we want to honor our parents for all they gave us, but because when we realize our way is different than theirs and they’re not going to accept it as honorable, legal, or godly, it breaks our image of a canon. For many of us, our sexuality and personhood cannot coincide with a measure of a man that says we are worthless souls.

I’ve always been rather independent so the grip of my parents’ hold has always been light, but that doesn’t make it any less of a pain to deal with. While I don’t judge myself, my accomplishments or my life based on them or their approvals and disappointments, I do have a natural desire to respect them and carry out a relationship with them.

As parents have done for millenia, they communicate what they will and what they think about you through quips, quotes, asides, or in my mother’s well-honed passive aggressive ignorance. My father will, whenever we talk on matters of sin and life and right and wrong and Scripture and the church (which is more often these days), bring up, throw in, cast off, or just briefly comment on how he and “don’t agree” or how he may not like my “lifestyle choice” or some other nonsensical mantra of the confused middle-right. I can generally deal with that … at least for another year and then he’s gonna have to deal.

My mother, on the other hand, presents a whole new set of challenges. As you know they’re going through a not-so-unbitter divorce and naturally their two grown adult children end up in the middle of it on occasion. In this latest case, my mother is visiting my sister for Thanksgiving and invited me along for a homecooked Turkey day meal. Yes … just me. She knows I’m gay (she poked around my room at my house until she found out). She’s knows the Beau and knows who he is. But. she. refuses. to. acknowledge. anything. ... hoping, beleiveing, or whatever, that if she shames me or the Beau for what she doesn’t approve of, we’ll change.

I’m comforted (in my mind) to know that I’m not alone on dealing with crazy parents. Not only do vast majority of gay folk have to deal with theirs (and compared to many I’m lucky), but this is common to everyone in my generation. I just felt like venting. :)

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Filed under Family-Matters
10/06/06 10:52 AM
by The Blogger

peterson Toscano says (Oct 6, 08:37 PM ):
I hear you, and glad you can vent here.

My mom recently passed away, so I think a lot about the many wise things she had to say to me.

I talked to her a lot about the queer folks I meet who are rejected by their parents in many different ways.

My mom, a genuine supporter for both queer folks and their parents, reminded me on several ocassions that I have to give parents a little more grace.

She said, “When we were growing up, no one ever talked about these things. It was a different world. To be gay was the worse thing you could imagine, a nightmare life of ridicule, danger and sadness. It is the worst thing a parent could imagine for a child they love.”

I know with each of our parents it is different, but my mom’s words help me to remember that they have been encoded with messages about us queer folks and as a result can react out of fear coupled with quilt that maybe they messed up as a parent.

We have to show them something new to replace the stories they had learned about us.

Thinking of you as you navigate choppy waters.
Peterson
kene says (Oct 8, 07:22 PM ):
my mother THRIVES on denial, even when all the evidence of my being gay was staring at her in the face, she secured her horseblinders on nice and tight. needless to say, she’s semi-accepting of me—especially as I’m her only living son and child—so that in itself can be shakily referred to as “progress” on her part. :)
This Gay Christian Blogger says (Oct 9, 12:10 AM ):
Peterson,
Thanks for your words – I know your mom meant a great deal to you. I do believe I give my parents a great deal of grace. My mom is not a good place these days with all that’s going on emotionally between her and my dad. Yet at some point, I can’t let her live in denial forever – not when it conflicts with the founding of the Beau and I’s fledgling family. Not that I’ll force her to be happy about anything … but I do need her, at some point, to deal with “the facts, ma’am.” My dad’s better off … he just need to get the lingo down, more or less. More visibilty, exposure, and candidness will help, I do believe.

Kene … For others like me who are heartened by your brief story of progress with your mother, how long as it taken for this progress to proceed?
kene says (Oct 9, 09:01 PM ):
It took many, many years. She’s always suspected. But as I grew up, her will and mine were at constant, unpleasant loggerheads. As a result, I grew very defiant and rebellious towards her in my teen and early 20s. The bigger the shock, the more gratified I became knowing that I was breaking her heart as her son. We fought constantly. She didn’t want to see her only surviving son end up like her younger brother. All she could see was sadness and despair if I were gay, but I had to prove to her time and again that MY life wasn’t going to be a repeat of my uncle’s; that times had changed, that I had more opportunities to be a happier, if not mentally stable individual in spite of a sexual orientation she was not happy with. As it stands today, my mom and I have declared a truce. She doesn’t ask and I don;t tell. But if she asks and the question is wide open for me to answer with all honesty—then I charge right in and take advantage of the opportunity. I’m not about to go editting out the parts she doesn’t like. If she asks me what’s knew, then she better brace herself for complete honesty. If my dad could handle it (and he did), she should too.
jeanpotts says (Jun 23, 07:06 AM ):
the above content perishes my heart and without parents no one could survive and mee too cant live without parents
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jeanpotts
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