An Open Letter to My Son This Pride
My love,
On this special occasion of LGBTQ+ Pride, I want to impart to you the most important lesson for families like ours. You have two moms and that is something that won’t always be easy, but it will always be right.
I want you to always be proud.
You are still a baby, too young to grasp the world around you in all its stunning heartbreaking contradictions. You were born into the front of a storm, conceived on what we thought was the eve of an historic ushering of a new world order where women were in charge, of a world that was leaping into the future. But we were wrong.
Instead you came into the world a tiny pile of pure love and innocence as hate rose all around us.
As you grew so too did my fear for your safety, for what your eyes might witness as we walked down the street as a queer family on the receiving end of stares and comments, court decisions and legislation that chip away at our right to exist.
I want to shield your eyes and cover your ears when the evening news blasts word of the latest atrocity committed in our name, with our tax dollars, forming the heinous legacy that you will one day inherit.
I watch as you learn language and skill, as you so earnestly work to define the little things around you. You watch people intensely and you can see their pain. Your empathy will one day serve you and the world well, even though my heart aches that you must carry that burden of pain.
I pray you never feel the deep cut of discrimination because of who your family is, but I know you probably will. Kids can be mean and so can adults. They will say things and do things that make you feel like our family isn’t equal to theirs, maybe even that our family is somehow wrong.
I hope in those moments you can keep your head up and draw on your pride to help you through it. I hope you will remember that hate doesn’t win and that their ignorance doesn’t define who you are. I pray you can feed from a vast well of pride that we’ve helped you to build, that the generations of LGBTQ+ people who came before us have laid down alongside their own sorrow and shame. So, you don’t have to carry the negativity; just the pride.
I hope you can find inspiration at the epicenter of the pain and seek camaraderie with those who don’t conform. I hope you can learn to draw from that strength to fight for others less privileged and help make the world a better place.
Because you are the most beautiful and genuine person I know.
And nothing created out of love is wrong.
You have two moms and the world may not always understand that. But you should know that what it means is that two people tuck you in each night. Two people care about your well-being before their own. Two people give you hugs and kisses and live and breathe to help you achieve your own dreams. In many ways, having two moms may actually be an advantage. Plus, if one mom is amazing, two is clearly twice as amazing. Of course, that also means twice as much concern and, at times, twice as much nagging.
You’ll get over it.
We have so much to be proud of. On this 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and with the world watching us in New York, you, my sweet child are the essence of all that we’ve fought for and all that’s come before us. You are the priceless prize of a hard-won war. You represent all that we’ve achieved — a chance at a normal life — and mark a new generation that can help take freedom to new heights in your lifetime.
You are not just an average child; you were born in a time as a product of a movement that has proven to the world that love can win over hate, light can beat out darkness.
You were born to fighters who didn’t think they’d ever make it here, and you are so very loved.
Always stand tall. Be proud.
Happy Pride my sweet child.
