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On Letting Your Kid Be Who They Really Are
They say there are moms who won’t hug their children. Dads who kick them out of the house. Parents who cannot love their children because they are lesbian or gay or bi or trans or queer. Parents who dismiss their very own flesh and blood because they love someone other than what the world deems “appropriate”.
I know it happens, but every time I hear another story, I am shocked all over again. My gut drops because I can’t imagine. Immediately I think “they can’t mean it.” They cannot honestly stop loving their daughter because she loves a woman? Stop loving their son because he loves a man?
Really? It is love we are talking about, right? L-O-V-E. Not violence or mayhem. It’s love. Their child loves someone and that’s a problem? How can that be?
Or maybe that son feels like a woman and wants to live that way — or the daughter identifies more like a man. It might be a lot to get used to, but I still can’t see how that leads to kicking your kid out of the house. Sending them out into the world to fend for themselves when they just took the biggest risk of their lives telling you who they really are?
Seems impossible, but, in fact, there are whole groups of moms and dads offering free hugs at Pride parades just because…
