the delicate dance

I uploaded a YouTube video last night but I think it looks kinda bad. And tends to go on a bit. It's a response to a friend who sort of lives his life on YouTube so I thought it was n appropriate medium for a reply. Watch below if you like, but I think it comes across better in print. And I certainly looks slimmer in type.

Basically I got a text message from a friend returning to New York from a visit to his family in Texas. He was rather upset and disappointed in his family's lack of acceptance of his life and more importantly, the love of his life. But what he said in the text message was he wanted to talk to his parents about drawing the line. What I perceived in this was a typical "returning home to boundaries issues with the parents." It turns out it's more serious than that but that was my initial reaction and hence the reply.

Over a decade later and it is still a delicate dance when I go to Nashville and stay with my parents. There are topics we stay away from, and sometimes boundaries have to be clearly defined. It helps that I started recognizing this issue and set some ground rules ten years ago. We don't have any real issues any more, but it still gets tricky when I talk about the parts of my life that are particularly "gay."

The photo annual I sent them has been put out of sight of children and passers-by.

Looking back, I realize I tend to avoid long one-on-one periods with either Mom or Dad, because then I get trapped into topics like why I don't go to church anymore or what is my "long term career plan" and other perfectly appropriate parental topics but nothing I want to talk about. They never ask about my love life, but they never did that with my sibs either so it's not so much a gay thing as they think that's a boundary to respect.

I can't help but dwell on the idea than it about 36 hours I will be trapped in a car with them driving an hour and a half, each way, from Atlanta to Gainesville.

I'll just want a roadie and a nap.

So, anyway, at work yesterday I was thinking about the absent-grown-child and parent dance a lot, and it was even a topic in a long meeting. The interesting thing there is I got to hear about the dance, and openly declared boundary setting, from the perspective of the parents of grown children.

And so now here is my advice, such as it is, for speaking openly to your parents on topics you'd rather argue about.

On generally being treated like a grown up:

Right Way
I recognize that the last time I lived in this house I was 18, and I think we're in danger of reverting to old behaviors. I am not a child anymore and you're going to have to remember not to treat me like one. In my time away, I've grown and become who I am today. And I'd like you to get to know who that is.

And I'd like to know who you've become too. How are things with you?

Wrong Way
How about a little less nagging and a little more shut the hell up.

Wrong Way
I'm sorry, can I go in the back room or are your flying monkeys back?

Right Way
Mom, I'll always be your baby but we are not mother and child any more. I'm a grown-up and there are going to be some things we disagree on. Strongly. So to keep us both happy there are going to be some topics that are just off limits: my weight, my career, and dear God politics. And I won't ask you why you're hiding Oreos in the laundry room. Anything else?

Wrong Way
If I had thought this much eye makeup would make me look cheap I wouldn't have put it on.

On the "Gay Stigma:"

Right Way
It really shouldn't bother you any more. People everywhere are learning the truth more and more: Being gay is common. More than that, it's a fact of nature. And coming out is an act of honestly, and that should be applauded. Besides, having a gay son is cool now. Soon everybody will be wanting one.

Trendsetter.

(Should your parents not be your birth parents, you can call them "early adopters." Talk about gay adoption!)

Wrong Way
(also known as "what I said.")
Seriously mother. If you are that bothered by your 'beauty parlor" you should just embrace the fact you have a gay son— It's not like I don't know 20 fags who couldn't do a better job with your hair.

On fashion:

Right Way
Mother, I have grown into my own man and along my voyage of self-discovery I have developed my own sense of style. I grant you, fashion is contextual, but I and my personality are part of that context. Even attending the same event, what is appropriate attire for you and yours is likely not appropriate attire for me. My cultural distinctiveness is evident in how I present myself, in the vocabulary of fashion as well as speech. Just as your look is yours, this look is mine.

Wrong Way
(And again, what I said—I was in my late twenties)
I am a "fashionable" young man living in San Francisco. You are a sixty-year-old woman living in Nashville, Tennessee. You may ask for fashion advice, but you may not give it.

Once I was coming home for a black-tie function and chose to wear the dress shoes so I wouldn't have to pack them—a fabulous pair of square-toe Kenneth Coles, black, shiny, high ankle.

"You can't wear those shoes with a tuxedo!"
"Mother, never criticize a gay man about his shoes."
>awkward silence for more than a block< "What does 'orientation' have to do with shoes..."
"Mom, gay men are so tied fashion I could make three phone calls and have hemlines rise so high the whole world would be your gynecologist."

On drinking:

Right Way
I don't find the devil in it. I respect your decisions and I just ask that you respect mine. And I've decided I'd like a cocktail.

Wrong Way
...because it's been cooped up inside all day and now I have to take my liver out for a walk. Trust me, if I don't there's going to be a mess in here you don't want to clean up.


On religion (or the "Gay Stigmata"):

Right Way
If you have an issue, that's an issue with your relationship with God. My relationship with God is just fine. Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. The rest is just theater. I respect your faith, and all I ask is that you respect mine.

Wrong way
Oh please, Jesus was so gay. Even his mother was Mary.

Right Way
There is a voice in the wilderness crying, and it is crying out for me. I'm preparing my own way for God: the valleys shall be exalted, and the lofty hills made low. We're just preparing different highways.

Wrong Way
Seriously, a single Jewish man in his thirties hanging around with the same dozen guys all the time. For Heaven's sakes the man invented Easter brunch. I'm surprised there isn't a parable about loaves and cantaloupe wedges.

Right Way
C'mon Dad. If you are having some conflicting feelings about homosexuality and religion, have a little faith. God is love. The rest of us are not here to add any criteria.

Wrong way
I did not make the Baby Jesus cry!

On significant others (and of which I have zero experience):

Right way
Mom, Dad, I do love you. And I do love him. In all the ways that matter, he is my family. And I expect you to love him too, if not for the simple reason that he loves me too. I understand this is not what you always imagined for me, but I do hope that you had always wanted me to be happy. He makes me happy. It's okay to mourn the death of what you imagined, but it's important to celebrate the joy in what has happened instead. You've always wanted me to be happy, the only thing that is different is that what makes me happy is something unexpected. It's not bad, not at all. It's something else, and it is better than good.

Wrong Way
His c*ck is huge.

Right Way
I love him, and he completes me. He is my family. You may have given me a life, but he is what makes me alive.

Wrong Way
Don't make me choose between the two of you. I got you with the whole getting born thing. I chose him.

The Really Wrong Way
Seriously. Like a baby's arm holding an apple.