On Being Tolerated

I’m very pleased today to publish a guest post by J.A. Madrone, who also posts at Our Big Gayborhood. Please enjoy!

On Being Tolerated

By J.A. Madrone

My ear cocked back when I heard the kids in my carpool group all talking in the back seat on the way home from school that day.

“Jane is bi. Haley is lesbian,” one said.

“I think that Jacob is gay, but he says he’s bi,” said the other.

The kids were in middle school when this conversation took place. Curious, because I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be discussing such a thing, I probed. Turns out that things are a bit different than when I was growing up and the only semi-salacious thing discussed was the rumor that Darlene had “gone all the way” with a 9th grade boy sometime in the spring of 8th grade. It was all out in the open and just plain conversational. Like, “Haley wears a lot of pink.”

“Awesome,” I thought, “Finally we are getting there.” At the same time, I felt a little twinge of terror and whimsical melancholy as I realized that 300 middle schoolers were becoming sexual beings whether we, the parents, wanted to forever keep them 10 years old or not.

Time traveled on. The kids grew. By the time they reached high school, there was a gay-straight alliance firmly in place on campus.

By then though, I knew I had a child who was not going to be straight.

It kind of gave me an ache in the pit of my stomach or possibly someplace along the edges of my heart. Probably the same way it hit my own mom, who was more concerned about my life not ever being “easy” again, at least by her definition, once I said the words, “I am gay.” I remembered how it was for me and how suddenly people put my sexuality at the top of the human evaluation form.

But, I’m a practical kind of gal and I knew that it is what it is and I would do everything I could to support the kid and make him as safe as possible.

The kid kept it quiet. Didn’t discuss it with his friends. Didn’t join the GSA and didn’t take me up on my offer to take him to the GLBT youth group in town. I just let him know I was here and checked in with him from time-to-time.

He’s been troubled of late with the way his core group of friends is behaving. Kind of bummed out, actually. Not like him. Social butterfly that he is. They started not including him in some things, not hanging out as much as they did, and not responding to his frustration as he eloquently lays it out before them about their growing distance.

We talked for a long time the other day when he gave me the big reveal: he’d come out to them a few months ago. The timing of his complaints and their changed behavior aligning perfectly to me, but he didn’t see it. What I had imagined was the natural distancing between friends due to growing up and finding their own paths as they edge towards graduation took on another meaning for me. He said that they agreed to “accept and be tolerant” of him. He took them at their word. I, skeptical cynic that I’ve become, don’t buy it.

I want to go all Mama Bear on those kids. Bite down on them with my gnashing, gnarling fangs until they play nice.

I want my son to be more than tolerated. I want him to be embraced for the exceptional young man he is. And, I want his life to be easier now that he’s said the words.

But, we’re not there yet.

J.A. Madrone is a mother of four who happily lives in a fly-over state.