Eight days. In eight days, it will be the holiday that I
haven’t exactly started shopping for. In eight days, it will be
the holiday that I’m going home to celebrate with people who are
all very new to my life. This will be the first year, since my
parents divorce, that I will be spending Christmas Eve with my
father’s girlfriend and her family of what feels like a gazillion
people. The first year that I will spend the day of Christmas
with my mom and her partner Elise’s unfortunately sick mother and
her family. The first Christmas that looks like an uncomfortable
frenzy on the outside but feels the most normal of any Christmas I
have ever had. Isn’t it funny that when I had that
hetero-normative “ideal” of a family, that the extreme right
just can’t stop talking about, I knew that something wasn’t
quite right? You know, as a child of a now out lesbian mom, I
feel that a painstakingly simple fact is often ignored by the
ultra-conservative right. A child knows what love is, what love
looks like, and what love should feel like – a child knows if
their parents are in love and needs to see and feel that. So I
had straight parents until I was 20, and now at 23 feel, for the
very first time, that both of my parents are happy and in love.
It was painful and confusing to wonder why my parents never felt
that way towards each other when I was really young. It’s not
having straight parents that matters. It’s not having
“normal” parents that matters. It’s having parents that
love each other and their children that matters. From experience,
I can honestly say that a child knows how their parents feel about
each other and it matters. It doesn’t matter who – kids
don’t care about that. But it wholeheartedly matters that the
love is there, and even if we kids fake it well, it hurts to see
that the love is not there. Congratulations mom and dad, I think
you’ve finally realized what makes you both genuinely happy.
And that automatically makes my holiday season 100 times happier.
haven’t exactly started shopping for. In eight days, it will be
the holiday that I’m going home to celebrate with people who are
all very new to my life. This will be the first year, since my
parents divorce, that I will be spending Christmas Eve with my
father’s girlfriend and her family of what feels like a gazillion
people. The first year that I will spend the day of Christmas
with my mom and her partner Elise’s unfortunately sick mother and
her family. The first Christmas that looks like an uncomfortable
frenzy on the outside but feels the most normal of any Christmas I
have ever had. Isn’t it funny that when I had that
hetero-normative “ideal” of a family, that the extreme right
just can’t stop talking about, I knew that something wasn’t
quite right? You know, as a child of a now out lesbian mom, I
feel that a painstakingly simple fact is often ignored by the
ultra-conservative right. A child knows what love is, what love
looks like, and what love should feel like – a child knows if
their parents are in love and needs to see and feel that. So I
had straight parents until I was 20, and now at 23 feel, for the
very first time, that both of my parents are happy and in love.
It was painful and confusing to wonder why my parents never felt
that way towards each other when I was really young. It’s not
having straight parents that matters. It’s not having
“normal” parents that matters. It’s having parents that
love each other and their children that matters. From experience,
I can honestly say that a child knows how their parents feel about
each other and it matters. It doesn’t matter who – kids
don’t care about that. But it wholeheartedly matters that the
love is there, and even if we kids fake it well, it hurts to see
that the love is not there. Congratulations mom and dad, I think
you’ve finally realized what makes you both genuinely happy.
And that automatically makes my holiday season 100 times happier.