As a mother, when you first have your precious bundle of life handed to you at the hospital, you don’t think what if… what if my child turns out to be gay?
At that moment, they just belong to your heart and your instinct is to protect them forever.
My second son Matthew was such a beautiful looking baby with big blue eyes and angelic blonde hair, but everyone used to tell me that he looked like a girl.
As he grew older, my son loved to play with dolls and always hung out with the girls in the playground – he was never short of female friends.
Call it a mother’s instinct, but I knew from an early age that he would one day tell me that he was gay. I didn’t mind at all. He was my son – a lovely and kind boy with a caring nature, one that now comes through in his day-to-day job as a mental health nurse.
It was a different story when my daughter Beth arrived.
She was the first girl to be born in our family for 31 years, and I was so excited.
At last, I could buy dresses, patent shoes and lovely hair accessories – but little did I know that my little girl would end up loving dungarees, jeans and leggings.
The shoes became trainers, and the hair bunches and plaits that I did were pulled out by the time we arrived at school. The only time I could get her in a dress or a skirt was when she was forced to wear the mandatory school uniform.
We are a very open dialogue family and there isn’t anything we can’t talk about with each other – but I won’t lie, when she first came out to me, it was hard to hear.
I still wanted this little girl who was into makeup and nails, and would wear pretty dresses.
At first, I described it as a ‘phase she was going through’, but as time went on I realised that ‘this’ wasn’t going to go away. I had to accept Beth for who she is. After all, I accepted her brother – so what was the difference?
Now when people ask me how I feel about having two children who are gay, my answer is: I love it. Our children do not get a choice when it comes to their sexuality, and I am proud to live in a rainbow house – life is never dull.
So I was saddened to see recent research that revealed 25 per cent of adults wouldn’t be proud to have an LGBT child. A gay child is no different to any other child – they just need family support and acceptance of their gender.
Once they have that, dealing with society and negative views is a lot easier.
When Beth told us about Christian Gay – her drag persona – I realised quickly it was the best thing to ever happen to her, and as a family it cemented our bond. We all love drag and personally, I love the queens.
When Beth entered competitions we all helped in critiquing her performance and putting together her costumes. I am so proud to see Christian Gay grow.
Just as mental health promotes the message that ‘It’s OK not to be OK’, well, it’s also OK to be gay – stand strong.
Both of my kids worked hard at school, then worked hard at university, and now they are both doing what they love. Why wouldn’t I be proud of them?
Please don’t disown your children for being gay.
Support them in any way you can and remember that they are still the same precious bundle of life that was handed to you all those years ago, that little life that as a parent you were contracted to care for.
Life is too short not to be proud of your children.
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