Pride

NOTE: I have full permission from my little family to share this post. I also realize there may be backlash. Please be kind and consider what you would do if a loved one was having a similar experience.

I pride myself on being a good Mom and a decent human being, and as a relatively self-aware person…

I was thrown for a loop though on a recent trip. We took our teen to New England and spent quite a bit of time in Portsmouth, NH. I used to travel there for work pre-pandemic and it became one of my favorite destinations. I so wanted share the beauty of the people and place with my family.

One afternoon we took Emma (she/her they/them) downtown, and immediately she lit up, which was quite the fascinating experience given we were working through some deep despair the day before and she refused to leave the Airbnb.

Don’t get me wrong, I have worked incessantly to create a safe environment for Emma, especially for the past couple of years when we started having conversations I wasn’t quite ready for about non-binary and other LGBTQ+ related topics. We include gender studies and discussions in most of our daily homeschool-related conversations. Emma is surrounded by a soul family who gets the journey she is on… and I’ve purposely chosen work that puts me in Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion projects.

In fact, most of last year I championed DEI Toolkit development for a large healthcare company – not just for the company, but for mainly for Emma, Emma was front and center in helping find content, explaining that content to me in a way that helped me build out training, and reviewing the Toolkits and providing feedback for the team. It was a way I could keep her connected to a world that supported her, and they did. She joined meetings, we did a podcast and interviewed her, and colleagues even sent her recognition and letters for all of her contributions.

I’ve continued supporting DEI activities for different organizations and infuse my podcasts and trainings with kindness, civility, compassion, equity… and she is right there with me providing insights and helping me with my messaging.

So, how is it that Portsmouth made her so happy? Here are some of the photos she took and shared with her friends. In some cases, she made us stop the car, back up, cross the street, you name it, if she saw something that made her feel safe, she captured it and smiled doing so!

So, it’s a week later and this truly has been keeping me up at night. The whole travel day home I thought a lot about how could I help her feel safe in our small southern conservative Christian town. There are no Pride flags, if anything there are too many Confederate flags. There are no Pride signs, just a lot of F* Biden signs. There are no doormats that her feet feel safe stepping on, just a lot of ‘bless your hearts’ or ‘Thank you Jesus’ references.

Almost everyone here has asked if Emma has a boyfriend yet. Family members are less than accepting of her. Almost everyone here challenges me on the choices we have made to support Emma – from letting her color her hair to homeschooling without the Christian curriculum. I keep my mouth shut as much as I can, play it small, and try not to stir the pot. We are outsiders – with her and Jeff having Canadian roots – to our spirituality, to our political views, to how we work and play. We don’t ‘fit in’ here, but that’s ok. We do love our neighbors and friends – we just are very careful in how we present ourselves.

On the flight home I thought a lot about how I’ve played it safe in order to protect Emma, and I realized helping her feel safe was as important as protecting her. I knew what I had to do. I ordered doormats, flags, banners, and other representations of our views. It starts with us… I just finished hanging the first-round of banners and flags up. My pup and I set up new doormats. Perhaps our community will join us as we promote peace, love, acceptance, inclusion – as I’ve never seen a pride flag anywhere nearby.

I don’t need everyone to align on our views beyond that. I think starting with that is good enough and lets Emma know she is safe being herself when she walks in our neighborhood or when visits with neighbors.

I may lose some friends over this post, but I’ll be honest, I’m kinda hoping I gain some too! 🙂

I’m so proud of my teen and appreciate her patience as I figure out how to walk the talk and stand with her, as I truly embrace her needs, as I finally get ’empathy’ at a very deep level.

How can you best support someone, even when it’s tough? Trust me, putting it out there was really hard today, but I know it’s the right thing… Peace, love, and pride y’all!