Saturday, September 29, 2012

Letter to my hypothetical gay son


Dear hypothetical gay son,

Right now, you are just an ovule in me and a sperm in daddy but daddy and I have been talking a lot about you and who you are. While daddy isn’t too amused to be a father to a gay son, he says he will love you no less than he would love his straight son but he also thinks if his son is born a gay, it is because of his karmic action and I get a little hurt he thinks that way because who you are is not a result because of some bad fusion of consequences, who you are is a beautiful fusion of your daddy and I.  Daddy will get that notion in his head soon and I hope you will never blame anyone, not even God for who you are because if you do, trust me love, I will slap the living light out of you.

We are still in the world of hypocritical people who are just going with the crowd of saying ‘yes’ to same-sex lovers but when they open their shielded mask at the end of the day they will make you feel vastly different from everyone. The world in which your very own grandparents might just walk out a room whenever you are around and your siblings might wish you were not different because they get teased for the ‘mistake’ in your genetic structure. Your friends might not want to share a drink with you because they think they might get HIV. Yes love, I forgot to add in, they are not much of an intelligent and open-minded crowd but that is the situation in the year 2012; gay marriages are not fully legalized. It is not even okay to say it is partially legalized. The people just don’t get it. I will be truthful, ever since I have known your daddy and thought I would get married to him, one of the reasoning I used against him to get me a beautiful ring was that our future daughter-in-law would get proposed to with the same ring he gave to me. I am sorry I thought you would marry a lady. I am sorry I thought of all the times the wife would complain to you about the monster in-law I could be. I am so excited to meet your boyfriend, I swear I won’t make you look like a fool and show your naked pictures as a baby to him the first time you bring him home for dinner. I will do it the second time. I am also very excited to rate men on the streets with your sister and you over a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter afternoon.

I could keep you safe under my mothering wings if I have to but I don’t want to. I would fight all the ugly people with ugly thoughts and I would like to fight them all with you, your daddy and siblings. I would bring war right to the doorstep of all those against you, those who refuses to let you marry whomever you deem suits you perfectly and if they still don’t accept you, love, let it be. You don’t owe them a living. I might flip them a finger but I will let it be, too. If they can’t accept reality then we’re better off not caring for their existence! Sure, I might not be able to ever hold my own biological grandchild and I know as a parent, as a friend, and as a person I will fail you a lot of times but no one taught me how to be a mother to a gay son, if being just a mother at all to a vulnerable, dependent straight child is not enough. There will come times as we are discovering you when I might not understand why you rather play with your sister’s toys or why you would want to go shopping with me instead of going on a hike with your daddy but my darling son, I will accept you as you are with little struggles on the way. I hope you will understand.  Actually, the term gay and homosexual doesn’t even matter to me. Hand to heart, you are my baby whatever way anyone puts it. Your sexual orientation does not matter to me one bit as much as it should and I will always be fighting for your rights – whatever they might be; your right to have ice creams when you are sick, your right to go clubbing, your right to fall headless in love, your right to have an untidy room once in a while and your right to marry the man of your dreams. I can imagine you and your future husband in well-cut tuxedos getting married before a group of our family and friends. I see the gleaming smiles on everybody’s faces and I see the two of you so delighted in finding each other as you promise each other an eternity of love, truth and happiness and if you and your partner decide to have children through a surrogate mother or through adoption or all those fancy science things that your time might bring, your children could possibly take some time adjusting to the ‘normality’ the society has created but it will turn out fine in the end,  we will make it a point and this, I promise you.

I don’t care for what the rest of the world thinks of you and you shouldn’t too. While there are people who will love you for who you are and acknowledge your unique identity, there are bound to be people sneering at you if you hold another man’s hand. People will call you hurtful things, people will bully you and steal your lunch to give it to the dogs because they won’t dare to eat it themselves and they might lock you up in the toilet after school. People will still be giving you and your boyfriend odd looks when you decide to kiss him while waiting for the red light to turn green because he said something sweet. Or when you go furniture shopping for the house you both are sharing mortgage for. There is a piercing pain in my heart just imaging and writing about the things you might and will be put under and I want to rescue you, I kind of want you to be ’straight’ now if only for my weakness to see you not suffer but love, don’t give them a reason to bring you down, please don’t, it will just break my heart to witness how pathetic a man we have bought up to get affected by the judgmental eyes of those that doesn’t matter. It will most definitely not be easy to be gay even in the time you will enter into, I am afraid, even with the increasing throngs of people getting more supportive of the rainbow community every day, but Daddy and I will teach you to be a brave man, a man who will be his own man. All we want is for the best for you and for you to lead a normal life as your siblings, classmates and friends. Remember love, we are always here for you if you need a little cheer-me-up or a time-out when all you want to do is bake cupcakes and eat them and you can go to the gym with daddy after that sinful session.  

Hugs, mummy x

Note: As published in the September'12 issue of Living magazine. 

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