Parents and Children, Coming Out Together

Today is National Coming Out Day. Most of us who are LGBT have stories to tell—good, bad, exciting, or boring—about our own coming out. It’s something of a relationship marker, in fact. I know I’ve reached a certain level of friendship with someone when we start telling each other our coming out tales. Being a parent, however, adds further dimensions to this process.

Parents who were in opposite-sex relationships and come out after becoming parents must find a way to come out to their children. This wasn’t my situation, so I’ll point readers to my go-to source of coming-out-to-your-kids advice: Abigail Garner, author of Families Like Mine and the site of the same name. Garner has a number of posts offering advice to parents and other relatives coming out to children. The last two posts in my Family Voices interview series also include reflections by adults on a parent’s coming out to them, and Julia Bean of the Family Equality Council recently wrote about her own experience on the FEC blog.

Those of us who bear or adopt children after our own coming out must still find a way to come out to our children and teach them, as their age and need warrants, what makes our families different. Yes, children of same-sex couples will inherently know they have two moms or two dads, but as Garner again wrote:

It’s not fair to assume that [children] understand that the word “gay” is attached to that relationship when parents are not specifically using that word in front of them. When parents assume that their kids “get it,” they miss a wonderful opportunity: teaching their kids what “gay” means before they hear it as a negative word. . . .

Some parents worry that pointing out what makes their family different will only make the situation more dramatic than it needs to be. If they just live their lives, they tell me, they are demonstrating to their children that there is no reason to be ashamed of their family. But talking about family differences is not the same as instilling shame in children. . . .

By continually “coming out” to children and giving them permission to ask questions, parents pass on an amazing gift of shame-free sexuality that their children will take with them into adulthood.

Well worth reading the full article.

Finally, our children, whether LGBT or not, go through a coming out process every time they tell someone about their families. They ask themselves the same questions about how to approach the topic (casually? as a big announcement?), and have the same concerns about people’s reactions. Parents and children may not, however, always agree about how “out” to be in any given circumstance. Kids may not want the local paper to print photos of their family attending the Pride Parade for everyone to see. Conversely, a teen may relish wearing a “I Love My Two Moms” t-shirt to places that make said moms cringe. Negotiating these boundaries can be one more ride along the often bumpy path of parent-child relations.

It’s obvious when one thinks about it, but until I read Garner’s book, I hadn’t explicitly considered the parallels between the coming out process of an LGBT person and that of our children coming out about their families. (This doesn’t only apply to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, of course. Children may be hesitant to “come out” about being adopted, their national origins, their religion, a disability (their own or a parent’s), or many other things. We shouldn’t minimize the importance of coming out about having LGBT parents, but nor should we assume it will be the sole or largest concern in a child’s mind.)

This post sounds like a paid advertisement for Garner’s work—it’s not, though Garner is a friend. It’s just that her years of advocacy for children of LGBT parents mean she has met people with a wide variety of coming out experiences, and has much insight into the matter. Another great resource is the one-page Tips for Coming Out to Your Kids from COLAGE. It’s slanted towards those who come out after becoming parents, but with advice like “Think of this as a lifelong conversation, not a one-time deal,” is a good read for all LGBT parents and prospective ones.

What are your own experiences with coming out to your children, or about your children coming out? If you have not yet come out to your children, what are your thoughts or concerns?