As a parent, you learn to let your kid become his or her own person. But what if, in rolling with the punches, you’re hit with something unexpected?
At dinner with my daughter and her partner recently, the subject of gay marriage came up—New York State had just passed legislation not only recognizing same-sex alliances but also making them legal.
Looks were exchanged across the table, until finally Amy announced that she and Victoria were making plans to marry in the fall of 2012. We were delighted; they knew we would be.
Victoria has become like a second daughter and seeing Amy relaxed and happy has been a great source of joy—and relief—for my wife and me.
“Oh, I didn’t know that.” The female voice on the phone a few years ago sounded sad, disappointed, and just a bit critical. The woman, a neighbor, had called in hopes of setting our daughter up with a man she said was an attractive and very eligible lawyer. But …
Well, of course she didn’t know. We don’t “out” Amy often, and usually only on a need-to-know basis. Some people find such news hard to deal with. But we figure that if they care for us, and for our daughter, they’ll come around. We’ve lived with our knowledge for a long time, ever since Amy was a teenager.
I knew it before anyone else, actually. I got up for a bathroom visit early one morning and looked out the window. The street was empty, but suddenly a car pulled up, with my daughter in the passenger seat. I saw her lean over and kiss the young woman behind the wheel before getting out of the car.
My daughter had been with a high-school friend, a poised young woman I’ll call Emma. I knew they were close but had begun to suspect their closeness was less spiritual than physical. Now I was sure of it.
I was similarly sure that my daughter never disliked boys; in fact, her closest school pals always seemed to have been male. Their friendships were never lasting, however, always fading without recriminations.
But when Emma and my daughter split, the emotional backlash was visceral: anguish reigned, as did rage and despair. We contacted a child psychologist whom our daughter willingly visited, and within a few weeks, we began to discern a gradual lifting of the gloom that had overtaken her.
Finally, as a college sophomore, she came out—first to her mother, then me. “I may be bi or maybe gay,” she said, dispassionately. “I know I’m not straight.”
Such news was not unexpected, but, frankly, I didn’t know how to respond. I knew I couldn’t say, “Oh, it’s just a phase you’ll get over.”
I also knew it would have to be dealt with, first and foremost, by us.
My wife said, “We’ll never have grandchildren,” but I found myself thinking, “What about our families?”
My own parents were unyielding in their ideas about sexuality, particularly gender. I knew they’d never understand. And since they lived 3,000 miles away, it seemed OK to keep them innocent. But what about the maternal relatives nearby? Would they be accepting? Over time, it seemed, they were. So it all came down to our own parental concerns.
Of course we wanted our only child to be happy and content, no matter whom she chose as a partner. And, though far from masochistic, we also wanted to do whatever was needed to maintain family ties.
So we endured more than one relationship that seemed dumb or doomed. We were stoics even when a particularly conniving live-in partner was making our daughter’s life nightmarish.
When that relationship ended, our daughter queried us—how had we felt about that young woman? Then, and only then, would we be frank.
“Why didn’t you say something before?” she demanded. I had the wherewithal to say, “It would have been inappropriate. We felt you had to be the judge,” which was accepted as a satisfactory response.
A year or so later, Victoria entered the picture. We could see, from first meeting, that despite an age difference, the chemistry was right. Amy never asked, “What do you think?” She didn’t have to. Our positive feelings were obvious.
Is their relationship permanent? Expressing a mutual desire to marry suggests that it is. But, frankly, what’s important to us is knowing that our daughter is at one with her life.
While it’s true we’ll probably never know the joy of grandparenthood or experience the conventional family rapport, we’ll always affirm that our daughter is part of our lives, just as our lives will also part of her’s—and her spouse’s.
—Photo KLHint/Flickr
—
We are starting an ongoing section on Men Over 50. Please email submissions to [email protected]
—
i think its wonderful that your daughter is finally happy. i myself am getting married to a victoria. and i wish my family were more accepting of me and my fiance. just recently my family members berated me for being with her, that there must be something horribly wrong that i cannot “get a man” and that i was stupid for not being pregnant while 3 of my cousins are at the same time. ive already told my mother that i shall be adopting a baby when im 35 or have the finances to even care for one. but im… Read more »
We hear from friends about the various problems their grandchildren are developing because of flaws in their children’s marriages. It’s chilling to learn that youngsters under age 10 are being rushed off to therapists because the marital tug-of-war has penetrated their psyche so deeply. Our hope for our daughter and prospective daughter-in-law is that theirs will be an essentially happy and solid union. If they decide to adopt or, in some fashion, have children, more power to them, but we hope that it’ll be a mutual decision that brings the partners even closer rather than pull them apart.
The issue of grandchildren is not only something that parents of homosexual couples deal with. People might be putting off children due to the economy, getting married later, choosing not to get married at all (often the life of a bachelor or bachelorette is more appealing and less risky), having (or choosing) to change careers, lacking stability, travelling more, etc. My grandmother got married at 16, and had her first child at 17 (her own father had 3 wives, so I could see her wanting to get out of the house early). I’m already older than my mother was when… Read more »
I think our need to “accept” our daughter’s sexual orientation had less to do specifically with gender preference than with our determination to “accept” the string of partners she experienced in recent years. In this, we were not unlike a great many parents who harbor concerns and visions about whom their offspring will marry. We never regarded our daughter as different in any way, and she never challenged us to become more involved in her lifestyle or more approving of her choices. In fact, unlike so many fellow parents who become extremely vocal about the partners their children seem interested… Read more »
I’m wondering if this “string” of relationships was disproportionate to what you would have expected from your daughter had her dates been male? Or from a son who was straight, had he been the focus of the article. It’s not atypicaly for young people to casually date a number of people before actually setting down. In fact, many parents want their offspring to select carefully and only after weeding out those who would be inappropriate as lifetime partners. It is not atypical for GLBT persons to be considered promiscuous when, in fact, comparatively, their dating habits are quite typical of… Read more »
Unless they decide they don’t want children, there is no reason why your daughter or her partner can’t inseminate or adopt. Many gay couples are parents. Thank you for supporting and loving your child for who she is, she’s very lucky to have you.
Exactly. If Amy and Victoria decide[d] not to have kids, than you wouldn’t know grandparenthood… but that is a completely different issue and has nothing to do with them being gay. Straights adopt all the time, it doesn’t make them lesser parents, or their parents lesser grandparents. Plus – there’s always the turkey baster. Many straight couples do such things, too. This does make a greater point, however, that has taken me years to come to terms with. Many people can take someone coming out as LGBQT+ without batting an eye, or *think* they don’t bat an eye… but there… Read more »
I just wanted to drop by and mention that this was a fantastic comment. I couldn’t have said it better.
But for the marriage proposal… One of the final questions,”Is this relationship permanent?” suggests that the author is still not taking at face value that a relationship between GLBT partners is stable, committed and monogamous, until “proven” to be so. I wonder if the article had been written about a straight daughter introducing her boyfriend to the family how that question would have been framed. I suggest that it would have been more along the lines of “When” are they going to make their commitment official, as opposed to “Are they actually committed?” Again, a subtle, but important distinction that… Read more »