I Don’t Want Two Moms!

It all started in a pet store, of all places. The debate began over picking out scratching posts for the kittens we were adopting. I wanted a purplish pink one that would match the décor in my apartment. “No, I don’t want colorful ones! Why do you always have to pick colorful things?!” My son was digging his heels in and fighting with me over cat supplies!

If I wasn’t insightful, I would say this argument was ridiculous. It’s just my Aspie kid playing out his rigidity. But his emotions were charged. There was something deeper going on and I knew exactly what it was.

The colors that mom wanted represented an issue my son did not want to face. “We are taking this outside,” I said to my son. I was trying to ride the fine line between empathy and my own personal hurt and pain. Sitting in the car, I tried to get my son to talk. He was shut down and angry.

I didn’t want to join him in his anger, but I felt like I was letting him down. Being gay wasn’t a choice. It was just who I am, and my son was rejecting this difficult awareness. It felt so personal even though intellectually I knew it wasn’t.

“Why are you so against Mom liking color? You used to love colorful things!” “Well, I don’t anymore!” I said to my son “But what about those colorful shoes you used to wear?” (He had gym shoes that were black, purple, pink, light blue, orange and lime green!) He informed me that he didn’t like them anymore. I decided to just dive into these raging waters.

“You don’t like that Mom is gay, do you?” “NO!” “Why buddy?” He yelled, “I don’t want two moms!” His long standing idea of family was being challenged. What happened to the mom that was married to his father? Where did his assumed heterosexual mother go? He didn’t know this new mom he acquired without choice.

I tried to explain that lots of kids have two moms and they are happy with and love their families. This idea was too foreign for him and he wasn’t going to embrace it. My heart was breaking, but I knew he needed more time.

So later that evening, I decided it was time to give him space to grieve. At home, I broached the subject again. This time I got in his shoes and I spoke the words I knew he wanted to say.

“I hate having a gay mom!”
“I hate that you moved to California!”

As I mirrored that pain to him, the rage appeared. He stomped around the apartment. “What do those feet want to say?!”, I asked him. He growled and glared at me like a ferocious and caged animal. I continued to mirror his pain and validate all the feelings that were coming out, not in words, but in yells and gut wrenching snarls. I stayed with him and told him how much I loved him. Thirty minutes of pacing, stomping, and growling, and he settled his head on my chest. The growls turned to purrs, and he snuggled with his mama as I wrapped my arms around him.

Yes, my son’s mom is gay but she is still, in many ways, the same mom that loves him dearly. And, in that moment, he knew and felt it too.