Mom A and Me

If you haven’t read this – http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/ – please go read it and then come back here.

Who are you in this story? Are you the little boy? Are you the mom, fighting to make a world for her son in which he doesn’t have to be ashamed or afraid to be himself? Or are you Woman A, B or C? I read this story and I said to my husband, “If I post this to Facebook, chances are, so many of the women and men who really need to read this won’t.” He said something to the effect of, “Sadly, the women and men who really are like Women A, B and C won’t recognize themselves as being so.”

I read it and was enraged. I hated Women A, B and C just as one might expect I would. (I’m not the “Bless that poor, ignorant soul’s heart” type. I’ve tried. I know my mother would be proud if I were, but I’m not. I’m like a furnace. I’m constantly burning, and certain things really stoke my fire. Like bad freeway drivers. Much to my husband’s chagrin, I’m the bird-flipping type. Don’t get me started.)

I felt my heart break for that little boy. I thought of my best friend, who knew he was gay at five years old. I thought of 4 or 5 other men I know who said they knew by 4 or 5 they were “different”. Whether or not this little boy grows up to love men as opposed to women, he knew, he KNEW that was going to take flack from the kids at school for wearing that costume. And he sucked it up, and with the support of his mom, he wore it anyway. That thought alone makes me tear up even now.

Think about this: When a little girl dresses as a boy, people think it’s adorable and many have a “you GO girl” attitude about it. When a high school girl decides male-only sports teams are sexist and fights to be on the football team, it empowers girls everywhere and makes national news.

Sadly, a boy who has to fight to join a girl’s cheerleading squad (and I’m not talking about the boys who stand there looking studly and hold the girls up on their shoulders) or to wear makeup if it makes him feel more attractive, or who wants to dress as a girl for Halloween, has to deal with a double standard. Who cheers him on, except for the gay and the gay-friendly? Not the school board members. Not his peers. Not his town.  If he’s lucky, his parents will. So many don’t even have that.Let’s take out of the equation the gay factor.

Let’s pretend that these women (Woman A, Woman B and Woman C) aren’t secretly scared out of their minds that their little boys aren’t going to grow up gay. Mkay?You know what’s left? It’s sexism. Why on earth would a man (who’s superior, right?) want to dress as a woman (who’s inferior), or do things associated with being a woman, such as cooking or cleaning or wearing makeup to cover a blemish or knitting or whatever? Because MEN, being the stronger sex (yeah, ok, right – anyone who’s carried a baby knows this is BULL. SHIT.) must also be manly, must also appear strong and must only wear colors associated with being a manly man, and must enjoy trucks and football and yada yada yada. Those are the rules.

The whole thing makes me want to scream. It’s all so OLD. These are old, tired ideas and they destroy people. This kid wasn’t hurting anyone! He didn’t bring a gun to school. He didn’t pull anyone’s hair or tell them they were fat. He didn’t cheat or steal. He wanted to dress as Daphne for Halloween. HALLOWEEN, people! When creativity is supposed to be rewarded. When fancy can take flight. When the whole point is to be something you’re not, so you won’t be recognized.

But that’s not my point. Let’s take Halloween out of the equation, as well.

Another mom on a forum of which I’m a member said this: “If (child’s name withheld) was gay I would still love him just the same. But until he was old enough to comprehend what he was doing, I would not let him go out in public dressed as a girl. I definitely wouldn’t look down upon or insult a child or it’s (sic) mother for that. If they want to do that, that’s cool… But I wouldn’t.”

This is a fine example of a woman who doesn’t recognize herself in the story I’ve linked. She believes she’s open minded. She believes she’s a progressive mom, doing what’s right for her child in this world. She doesn’t see that she’s Woman A in a more open minded woman’s clothing.

She says, “If others want to do that, that’s cool. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t allow my child to dress like that in public.” Let’s pretend I’d had the balls to address her personally and to have asked her, “Why wouldn’t you do that?”

I imagine she’d say, “Because I just wouldn’t. It’s just not something I would do. Others can. But I wouldn’t.”

But why wouldn’t you?

“Because that’s my choice! That’s theirs and that’s fine, but I choose to raise my son this way!” But whyyyyy do you choose that?

puhKOOOOOOSH! She explodes. Little bits of Prada loafer, a few strands of formerly perfectly styled ash blonde hair and a shredded country club membership are all that’s left. Okay, that was mean. Sometimes I’m mean.

I didn’t ask her why, though. I kept calm, typed a few responses aimed directly at her (within my entire response to the initial post, some of which is pasted here and refined a bit) and then deleted them, but eventually responded, “If you wouldn’t allow your child to dress that way in public, you are, perhaps without even realizing it, judging those who do.”

I also said, “You make a choice every day of your life between two things: Love and Fear. That’s it. You choose to decide with love that your son will be what he’s going to be, or you choose to fear other people’s reactions to it, or fear that he will become something you don’t want him to be, etc. Though it goes against my nature (I was raised by a fearful mother, who loved me intensely but kept my life very small), I’m going to try my hardest to raise my son with love and only love. If my son ends up loving Dora more than Thomas, then that’s who he is, that’s his choice. And I’ll stand behind him, 100%.”

And all of that’s true. I am going to try. Part of trying to be a better person is to dig deeper and to admit to yourself your failures at doing so.

Recently, we were in Palm Springs visiting my best friend and his partner, who are two of the tallest, loveliest men anyone could ever hope to know. They have friends all over the world and both are close with their families and have never been anything but loving and supportive to me and my little family. I owe them my undying gratitude and love. And they have it. My best friend was my Man of Honor at my wedding and his partner performed the ceremony. They are uncles to my child. Now, if you don’t know about the Gay Uncle, let me tell you.

They like to shop.

Each time we see these two, we get gifts for the baby from them. Now my baby, who is nearing 6 months old, looks more like a toddler now and is wearing 18-24 months size clothing. He’s grown out of a lot of clothes before he’s even gotten a chance to wear them. Those clothes go over into a box that I will either forward to my sister in law, who’s becoming a foster mom (Applause for her, please) or to a consignment shop. After reading the story of the five year old and his monther, I started thinking about clothes and colors and Women A, B and C and what sort of world I would like for my son. And I remembered the lavender and pink sparkly shirt. In the box. Never worn.

We talked about it a bit when the uncles gave it to us. One of them said something along the lines of “She doesn’t want him to wear that one because it’s got pink on it, I bet.” And we all laughed it off.

But I didn’t. I didn’t want him to wear it. Because it was lavender with pink sparkly, rounded-off words on it. In my mind, it was plainly meant for a girl. So while I loved the thought and my son is always wearing the other shirts and onesies they’ve purchased for him, that shirt went right into the box. I can defend myself and say that it’s because it was Size 6 Mos, but the truth is, I didn’t even try it on him to see if it fit.

I’m Woman A. And I didn’t even know it.

You make a choice every day between two things. Fear and Love. And now I ask myself, “what was I afraid of?” Was I afraid other people would look at my son and not know whether he’s a boy or a girl? Who cares, right? So you correct them. “Actually, he’s a boy.” No harm done. Was I afraid that after correcting their assumption, I would get a blank stare, an uneasy smile and a re-glance back down at Declan and the shirt? Was I afraid some little old lady with the best of intentions (because those little old ladies with the best of intentions always know the most about your baby and how you should raise it, have you noticed?) would say “Well, you’ve got him in a girl’s shirt! Why’s he wearing a girl’s shirt!?” ?

Was I afraid of having to answer that question?

I know one thing, I certainly wasn’t afraid that wearing the purple and pink shirt would MAKE him gay. You can’t make someone gay any more than you can make someone straight. (Not even through religion. If I thought you could, I would have had Gay Uncle No. 1 in church with me every Sunday in college, in hopes that he would “turn”, and one day marry me.)

Every single minute, of every single day of your entire life, you will make a choice between fear and love. I’m not afraid of what my son will be. I love him. My son will be what he will be. My best friend will be what he will be. Your son will be what he will be.

When will we all just let them be?

I regret my choice of letting fear dictate whether or not my son wore that shirt. I regret worrying about what others would think. Thankfully, I was presented with a choice of whether or not I should write about that choice. Whether or not I should tell the truth about what I perceive to be a weakness in my character. I choose to talk about it. I choose to tell this story so that others might think back to a time when they bought an inferior stroller or pack n play because the better choice only came in pink, or to a time when they judged another mother for buying her son a toy kitchen instead of a work bench to hammer on. So that others might realize, as I realized, that Woman A is every woman, caught off guard perhaps, not at her best moment, but not evil, either. Just a woman who needs to find herself in a story about another woman, like I did.

Today I’m choosing love.