A Mom Shares Her Son's Coming Out

How To Talk To Your Kids About Them Being Gay

It's hard to pin down a 17-year-old, for a heart-to-heart talk. Ben wasn't the most receptive to mother-son talks anyway, always brushing off my concerns and barely listening, since he was a little boy. But I felt strongly that he needed to have a "safe sex" talk from me more than almost anything else. I had found out that Ben lied about Alex being 17. He was 21 and a junior in college. I felt that Ben might be in over his head with someone more experienced than him. I knew this wasn't going to be easy.

Not knowing how to begin, I decided to just jump in. I couldn't make my mouth form the "g" word, though. It's not that I didn't want to say it, I just didn't know how it would be received by Ben. What if he wasn't gay? Would I hurt him worse by asking him if he was?

I asked, "Is Alex more than a friend?" Ben wouldn't look at me and gave me one of his famous "non-answers."

"I don't know," he said.

I persisted. "Because if he is, then there are things we need to talk about."

Ben was panicking a little, "Just stop!" he begged.

"I'm not stopping. I need to tell you this stuff because I love you and don't want anything to happen to you."

"You need to stop!" he pleaded again.

"Why do you want me to stop?" I kept my voice calm.

He turned away and mumbled with a catch in his voice, "It's embarrassing." My heart broke for him. I understood what he meant. He wanted to be true to who he was, but he wasn't ready to take on the full load of being gay. He didn't want to be outed by his mother. But, in effect, he just had been outed by his mother.

I apologized for bringing it up, but I also told him that if he was gay, that there were things that I had a responsibility to address, his safety being my number one priority. He said that, yes, Alex was more than a friend.

I told him that he couldn't tell me to stop talking anymore, that I was motivated by love, and that he was going to listen. What I told him was that I was completely okay with who he was. It didn't change anything. Ben would be Ben would be Ben, until the end of time. I very lightly touched on safe sex without saying the "s" word, because saying it made him cringe visibly. And I left the conversation open, telling him that he could always come to me and that I would always be a soft place to fall. And then I backed off and stopped. I could feel that it was about as much as Ben and I could handle at that point.

The next days that followed were hard for me to deal with. Now that I knew for sure that Ben was gay, I was terrified. I couldn't imagine a harder life for him. I knew he would be up against discrimination for the rest of his life, and my heart ached with the thought of it. I was grieving for my boy. We had always had a close and warm relationship. He was a lot like me in a lot of ways. But now, he suddenly seemed older and unreachable to me. He had crossed over to a land that I knew nothing about. I was scared and distraught. And I was surprised that I felt like that. I always assumed I was so open, and accepting. I prided myself on being a "free spirit" child of the sixties, and when it came down to it, I could not understand for the life of me, why I was having such a hard time with this.

It was awkward between us for several days. I was also in the process of divorcing his father during this time and had been looking at apartments. I found one with two small bedrooms, one of which had a big closet. Ben was discussing the possibility of sharing the room with his sister, when he said, "I could always live in the closet... no... wait.... I just got out of the closet... I don't want to go back in." It was just so funny that we both burst out laughing, and suddenly all the awkwardness was gone. We were all right again.

It's been about six weeks since I found out that Ben was gay. I see him for who he really is, for the first time, and I can tell you, he's amazing. He is strong, clear-eyed and focused. Being gay is an indelible part of who he is, but that is not the only defining thing about him. He continues to see Alex. I've met Alex and have tried hard to work through that first impression of his sullen glance. I try to see Alex like Ben sees him, and I hope that Alex sees me the way that Ben sees me.

I'm proud of my son. What he's lived through his whole life has not been easy. I'm glad that I know. I'm glad that he doesn't have to live in the shadows. He can be who he is. And he's happy.