Fair warning. I am going to write about my experience as a mother of a beautiful lesbian over this Pride month, as I have time. I hope it will give others a glimpse into our experience and help nourish more understanding in a space that frankly, needs more perspectives.

Five years ago my daughter came out to me as gay, June 2018 (I wish I remembered the exact date). I have been thinking about this for weeks, and contemplating how my life has changed drastically since that moment.

I was comfortable in what I “knew,” from becoming a parent with her birth. I “knew” how to schedule feed her, so she would get a good night’s sleep– she slept through the night at 6 weeks. I “knew” how to teach her to memorize Bible verses, so she would subconsciously have a heart bent toward God (yes, we have videos). I “knew” how to teach her to read and write, although I remember her frustration and mine when I had her trying to write like a kindergartener at age 3. I did NOT know about developmental stages, but just assumed if I taught her she would learn. I shared my pro-parenting tips with others who would listen and verbally applaud (those people don’t applaud now 😅). I “knew” so much about how to be her mom. I did not. I knew very little, actually, as evidenced 20 years later. I am STILL learning to be a good mom with all my kids. I still “know” little, but I know I love them (cue Aaron Neville 🎵).

Having a gay child had been a fear of mine. I wonder if it is a fear of many Christian parents. The cost of it is high in this community. I remember warning her of it multiple times, as if it was something she could just slip into. We live in the Seattle area, which is very progressive compared to where we spent most of our lives. I worried that she might think it was ok, just because we lived here. But I know now it was not something she chose, especially in a family like ours. She was a strong kid, thankfully, but was a pleaser like her folks!

She had a migraine, so I picked her up from work that day. She was working for a drop in facility for sex trafficked women. She was particularly quiet and said, “I need to tell you something.” I said, “OK? ” Then she began to cry.

She couldn’t speak. She just sobbed. And sobbed. I asked questions until the truth came out. We sat quietly for the rest of the drive home. I made an immediate appointment with her at the fire pit once we got home, and then I sent a message to her dad at work, asking him to come home asap.

Being on this side of things, I feel so sorry for how I responded. I don’t remember being angry, or ranting. But my response was to be so personally overwhelmed that I went into execution mode. I needed to get some sort of resolution in my brain to this situation, and I was working through the motions of that process. I did tell my daughter that I loved her, but I wish I had told her that I was thrilled with who she was, no matter what. I wish I would have asked her if she was ok. I wish I had been in tune to her needs. I wish I could have appreciated the weight she had been under for the past 3 years, hiding from us because of what we “knew”. But I did not have that capacity. I just needed to “know.”

To be continued…