This Open Letter series features stories written by our own associates to highlight their experiences within the LGBTQ+ community.
I met my husband Ron in grad school and got married at 25 (which looking back now seems ridiculously young). I had my first son, Noah, at 28 and then my second son, Max, 18 months later. From the time my kids were born I was commuting to work in the city and had au pairs, but we always had family dinner together and spent focused time on the weekends with the kids. All of this is to say that I would have described myself as completely in tune with my boys.
Fast-forward to high school.
Noah excelled at his studies. He got into some typical trouble (e.g., drinking and smoking), but whenever he got into these situations my husband and I always told him that the most important thing was his safety and happiness. We then assured him that if he were to call us for a ride or if he wanted to share anything personal with us, there wouldn’t be any repercussions. Because of this, I believed that he was an open book. If you had asked, I would have told you that I knew my kids inside and out and that we were a stereotypical suburban family.
Noah turned sixteen his junior year and a couple of months later, on a night in October, we were finishing up dinner when Noah said, “Mom and Dad, we need to talk about something.” At this point, we had been having ongoing conversations about him dropping out of pre-calculus so I turned to him and said “Noah, you are NOT dropping pre-calc. Stop bringing it up.” Then he said, “It’s not that. I’m gay.”
I was in total shock, but I knew that I had 30 seconds to rise to the occasion and say the right thing. My response was okay. I told him, “This is a surprise and I need to digest it, but do you want to talk about it right now?” He told me, “No, not right now.” He then told me that his brother and his friends already knew. When I asked him how long he had known he told me for as long as he can remember. Ron and I told him that we were proud of him for telling us and that we loved him. We then told him that we could talk more tomorrow.
I had such a range of emotions, but mostly it was sadness. Sadness because I felt that I knew my kids so well. How could I not have known this? Sadness that he had to keep this in for so many years and didn’t feel comfortable sharing it with us. Sadness because I felt life would be so much harder for him, and not even from the prejudice or homophobia that he might encounter, but because I knew that he always wanted kids, and it would be harder for him. Sadness because there was now a part of his life that I would never be able to intimately know. When you have a child, you can almost always understand them because you went through the same things, but now he had this entire aspect of his life that I’d never lived. And lastly, I felt sadness because I never want him to suffer any pain. I don’t know what being part of the gay community feels like. I don’t know how easy or difficult it is to meet other gay people – friends or lovers – and that is an unsettling feeling as a mother.
After he told us, the next 24 to 48 hours there were full of many pivotal moments in my journey of acceptance. When I say acceptance, I mean accepting this change in who I thought my son was and how I needed to be supportive as a mother.
There was one day where I found Ron standing in front of the mirror in our bedroom saying over and over again “I have a gay son.” When I asked him why he was doing that he said, “So that it just sinks in and becomes second nature.”
I decided to meet up with one of my co-workers who I was close with (and who is also gay). I asked him to tell me all the things I shouldn’t say that would upset Noah and what he wished his parents had done for him.
Noah and I spent the next week doing a lot of talking together. I was worried that he would be bullied at school, but he assured me that nobody at his large, public, urban, high school “gives two sh***” (his words) that he’s gay. He was on the swim team, so I asked him if he wanted me to call his coach to let him know in case he were to be bullied. Noah looked at me like I was crazy and said no.
What’s really stuck in my head to this day is that at some point I was talking about it with my friends and Noah overheard me and said, “Mom, I don’t understand why you are talking about my sexuality with your friends. Nothing at all has changed about who I am. The only thing that has changed is who I want to love and have sex with. Why would you talk about that with your friends?”
And what I want you and everyone to understand is that while I have no tolerance for anyone who isn’t accepting of people based on their sexuality or any other nonconforming identity – it doesn’t make you a bad person if you need to absorb, accept and then embrace when life takes a different turn. My kids have grown up surrounded by many nontraditional friends and family, but for me I didn’t know anyone who was gay when I was in school.
Noah went on to have his first true love in high school and they went to prom together along with all of their other heterosexual friends. My favorite pictures of them from that time period are of them kissing in front of our lilac bush at the pre-prom festivities. The reason that I love those photos so much is that Noah is so happy and that’s all a parent could want for their kids.
It’s been six years since he came out and now I can’t even imagine Noah as a heterosexual. Noah being gay has made my life that much richer. I became much more politically active and involved in LGBTQ+ issues. I am so much more aware of microaggressions which I never would have been in tune with if I weren’t the parent of a gay son.
So I’ll end this letter with a couple of closing thoughts.
1. Recognize that even the most open-minded people have standard stories in their heads, and when those stories change it takes a period of time to shift that narrative. Don’t become impatient with that person. I am very judgmental of people that don’t embrace any type of diversity, but I am not judgmental of giving them time to reshape their thoughts and grow into a better person
2. Life is a journey and I promise you that your journey will have some twists and turns, but navigating those turns makes life so much fuller. I am a fuller, better, and more loving person because of Noah.
3. Lastly, if you know any awesome, early twenty-something boys – send them my way. As a typical Jewish mother, I would love to see Noah find a fab boyfriend.
Written By Nicole Zussman, Rue Staff
