Helping our children through a crisis requires open lines of communication, love, and support.
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This comment was by Anonymous in reference to the post – What Do I Tell My LGBT Teens After the Orlando Shootings?
If the question in the title is genuine, as a seventeen-year-old lesbian, I think the most important thing you can do right now is to listen. Reassure your kids that you love them, because this is an incredibly difficult time for our community, and we could all use some love right now, but then step back and let them lead the way. In some ways, your kids are the experts right now, because they’re the ones who understand what it’s like to watch this tragedy from within and to grieve not only fellow Americans and fellow human beings, but fellow members of the LGBT community. I mean this in the kindest, gentlest way possible, but it’s just not something straight people can comprehend, and it’s something even I’m struggling to put into words.
We’re a community with a lot of hurt in our past and a lot of love for each other, and even without having met any of the victims, it feels like we knew each other somehow, like we were irrevocably bound and now they’re just gone. It’s not even that it could have been me, or it could have been my best friends, or it could have been my sister. It’s that fifty people were here and part of this, and now we are fifty members smaller. It’s that I genuinely love every single person in the LGBT community – and it sounds so fake to express love for strangers, but I promise you, it’s real. I remember the Paris attacks and those were horrible, but it feels so, so much different to witness tragedy from the inside. (And obviously, I can’t even begin to conceptualize what the victims’ loved ones are going through, and I won’t try; that’s their story to tell. All I can do is send them my support.)
Probably one of the most important things my mom has ever let me do was just get it all out last night. When she interjected with something that bothered me or felt like it wasn’t her place to say, she let me shut her down without getting into an argument or even a debate. When I was angry at the world, she didn’t take it personally. When I cried, she let me speak instead of rushing to comfort me because she knew I needed release more than I needed a hug – and I’m sure it’s a horrible feeling to be a mother and watch your child cry in silence, but I really appreciated it. And obviously, not everybody needs the same thing, but it felt really important for me to kind of control the conversation a little, if that makes sense.
Sending lots of good vibes to you and your family. This is hard, and I can’t imagine watching it as the parent of LGBT kids. If it helps at all, you sound like a very accepting parent, and I’m sure your kids know that you support them. Your children are very, very loved, and they will never be alone in this.
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