I am not a parent. 

Most parents I know suggest that they want the best for their children; they want their children to lead a life of happiness, healthiness, and success. These three attributes though, are subjective. An exact model for achieving happiness, healthiness, and success does not exist; each of us determines our own relation and paths towards these societally-determined standard-goals. Our parents, they attempt to guide us using their own paths, while giving allowance for individuality; allowing us to explore and determine our own methods of achievement. 

At least, that’s how it’s meant to be. 

In the circumstance of the black sheep children – the children who are emboldened in their individuality early on – we find that a parent’s methods often create tension, disappointment, and occasionally, abuse. Rebellious children most often are subject to the strictest and harshest of rules. Their own individuality is what becomes the reasoning for their discipline. A parent’s insistence on emphasizing their own path, methods, and means of achievement, only isolates the rebellious child further, creating resentment and amplifying the child’s perception of their own individuality. 

My parents were wed on May 31st, 1997… I think. 

You see, I don’t particularly care to know the year [I actually had 1996 written, but was given clarity by a family member]. I don’t much care to know the date either; I assume and I hope that one day I’ll forget it, but for now it remains. By the time of their wedding, my parents had been together a few years. They met at a mall food court and conceived my elder sister, Serena, in the infancy of their relationship. Had Serena not been conceived, I have not a singular doubt in my mind that my parents would not have stayed together. They, simply, are not meant to be. Instead, the best accident to ever occur – Serena – gave commitment to their relationship, launched their marriage, and the subsequent three siblings to spawn – myself, Andrew, and Katelyn. 

But, why weren’t my parents meant to last?

My parents fortified their commitment in the honeymoon stage of their relationship. Just months into knowing each other, they would change their entire lives, and dedicate what remained of them, to becoming parents. While I do believe they each wanted a family, I do not believe either of them was ready or actively trying to conceive at the ages of 16 and 17. The idea of what a parent is and does is much different at age 16 than it is at 26. Hell, even I recognize that my perspective on parenthood is much different now, at age 23, than it was even just five years ago, at age 18. By their own hand, my parents forced themselves to learn how to parent in their teens. In doing so, they learned what they thought they needed and refused to look back. 

My parents continue to parent as though they haven’t aged, matured, or changed. 

They argue like new couples do, over behaviors and topics that should’ve long since been communicated out. When they fight, their arguments become childish, smashing glassware and burning clothes, like I’ve previously mentioned. Their individual beliefs have faded in and out of existence, morphing into one another then subsequently separating like oil and water. My parents’ discipline comes in the form of restricted privileges, a belt, hand, or fist to bare skin, or washing a mouth with a bar of soap – all forms of discipline you might expect a pubescent teen to believe to be best. Having children in their pubescence, somehow, permanently fixed them to their ages at that time. All further physical, mental, and emotional growth ceased. 

Commonly, teenagers are referred to as the most stubborn age bracket. 

Adhered to a teenage mindset, my parents are perhaps the two most stubborn people you may ever meet. Though both of them have the capacity for average-intelligence, their refusal to learn is most-telling. Their stubbornness is not specific to solely their children; Unfortunately, their friends, their family, and their coworkers, also recognize it. Any attempts to share a differing perspective are heard, but not listened to; Regardless of topic, they will ignore any and all variance to their own point-of-view. My parents are wholly, undyingly, committed to themselves and their beliefs – a stereotypical symptom and presentation of narcissism. Should your religious views, educational background, parenting-style, favorite color, or your outwardly presenting fashion not align with theirs, then your authority and credibility has been lost. 

A teenager, though, cannot be a cult-leader or dictator; A parent can. 

While my parents haven’t matured, they have certainly aged. Their aging since their first pregnancy has brought them three more children and two grandchildren. With each child a fresh opportunity for learning and growth presents itself; Each child and grandchild provides an extremely unique experience and relationship to my parents as leading figures. My siblings and I share similarities in our thoughts, behaviors, interests, and beliefs, but these similarities do not stack up to our differences. My siblings and I were born of the same womb, not the same cell – and even in the case of monozygotic twins, lived-experience can be wholly unique. My nephews, their grandchildren, too, are similar, but require entirely different care. That is what’s special to us as humans: we are individuals. So, when my parents refuse variety and individuality, when they refuse to listen to a differing or opposing perspective, when they disparage growth and change, they effectively become dictators; cult-leaders. Their goal is not to lead their child to happiness, healthiness, and success; their goal is to create exact replicas of themselves to continue their cycles of oppression. 

Of course, we cannot expect someone to change. 

I cannot, and do not, expect my parents to wake up and change their beliefs, their lifestyle, or their worldview. What I can and do expect of a parent is for them to listen to their children, to hear their words and take them to heart, to attempt, by any and all means possible, to understand where their child is coming from. And that is where my parents consistently fail. 

Instead of asking Serena why she was frustrated and ‘mouthed off’, my mom would wash her mouth out with soap or my dad would throw her body against our dining room wall – either of which can and did result in agonizing wails and shared trauma. Instead of seeking professional medical help for the consecutive years in which I held my bowel movements for weeks on end, resulting in me shitting my pants, my mom would make me hand-wash my soiled underwear or leave frustrated welts across the bare skin of my ass using my dad’s belt. Instead of teaching Andrew that knives are utensils for eating and not for threatening, my parents would spank him. Instead of learning from their failures during my coming out, my parents took nearly the exact same actions with my younger queer sister: isolating her from the people she needed most. 

Parents of queers occupy a one-of-a-kind standpoint. 

Parents of queers are subjected to social deviance by way of their children, rather than of their own volition. Again, it would be erroneous to expect all parents to lean into this deviance, supporting without question. Instead of relying on blind faith, parents can and should attempt to learn and understand this deviance, how it relates to their child, their child’s existence in society, and how it alters how the child is socially perceived. If my parents, or any parent, put effort into these understandings, then they have an even broader opportunity for growth. Queers, so often, are required to defend themselves, or, have other queers defend them. Having a parent or other guiding figure, an ally, in support and defense of one’s deviance makes the experience that much more livable, even if still, not easy; Someone to defend you when your aunt calls you a faggot; Someone to support you when you cry yourself to sleep because the president-elect is determined to strip away your rights; Someone to guide their child through an adulthood that isn’t made for their equity. Parents of queers have the unique opportunity to uplift a demographic that our society consistently disadvantages. 

Queers of unaccepting parents also occupy a unique standpoint. 

My deviance empowers my vocalization. My parents refused to learn about me, grow with me, or provide even marginal support. My queerness, and my parents disapproval of it, enables my comfortability to unacceptance; I care not who read this book or their feelings towards it; I care not if my bleach-blonde hair and fake-tan reminds you of a recently-felonized-former-president; I care not if you support me, or if my parents support me, because I was forced to learn to support myself – and these days, I do so ecstatically. 

On my parents 27th wedding anniversary, I haven’t a second-thought about sharing my experience with them. Their unacceptance has brought me here, to the place where I am finally happy; finally free. Their lack of support validates my reasoning for telling my stories. Today, Tammy and Joe, I’d like to say thank you: 

Thank you for failing me; it prompted my success. 

Thank you for staying together; it gave me my siblings. 

Thank you for my siblings; it allows me to succeed in your failures – for my queer little sister. 

Thank you for marrying before I was born, I’m 27 years too late, but I certainly object. 

And to just you Joe – dad, if that better suits your fancy – I thank you in advance:

Thank you for the day when your balls finally drop. 

Thank you for the day in which you become your own man; the man that you say supports your children unconditionally, unlike our mom. 

Most of all, from the bottom of my ever-growing, love-shrouden heart: 

Thank you for the day in which you finally divorce her.