Q about coming out to children in extended family?

[AnyDream]

Thanks AC for sharing something that has caused you so much pain. I'm hearing that this is a really deep wound for you, and I'm sorry that it's pain that is still unresolved. Which is all the more reason why people reading this will be reminded to be present and honest and loving with their own children (no matter what the family configuration or sexual orientation is).

I blame my mother's lifestyle choices for her distrust, dishonesty, disengagement and disappointment in me when I needed her as a parent. This was mostly due to the fact that she resented being 'chained down' by children (as a reminder of her hetrosexual past) and didn't recognise that we were intelligent, sensitive children who would have been most accepting had she have been open and honest.

FWIW parts of your story really resonate with my own experience - the disengagement, emotional absence, harsh criticism and lack of approval from my mother had a lasting effect on my wellbeing and nearly sent me to the madhouse. I have often struggled to understand WHY - and my best answer involves understanding how tenuous her own mental health was under the pressures of single parenthood and her own childhood with an alcoholic father (who she idolised) and her own emotionally-absent mother (who I'm sure was struggling just as hard to hold it all together). In my case though it was all wrapped up around issues of spirituality/religion and goodness/badness, which is really fundamental to our self-hood in the same way that sexuality is.

What I really learned from that was that it's the parent's job to love unconditionally. That's the most important thing we can do. Hopefully when our children are older they will be able to forgive us our flaws, but that is far more likely if they are whole and healthy children who have grown up appreciated as they are.

I feel very guilty for venting this on a forum where there are many happy and loving lesbian mothers/mothers-to-be - so please accept my apology - but there will always be 2 sides to every coin. Let there be more love and honesty in the world - regardless of sexual preferences.

Please don't feel guilty for speaking your truth. This is a part of your story, who you are today. And I thank you for trying to be sensitive to the feelings of people who will be reading it.