Sweet Child o’Mine

These past couple of weeks have opened up our lives for outside influences and growth opportunities more than our wedding and giving birth to Emma. Our ‘coming out’ has put us in the spotlight and with that a lot of good, and a lot of good intentions.

Some however, were not received as well as intended. Don’t get me wrong.  It has been an incredibly powerful time full of unexpected surprises – from gifts to hugs to heart-felt messaging to support, our little family is feeling a sense of peace and safety we haven’t felt in years. But with the newfound exposure has come a lot of feedback and words of wisdom, all of which has spurred many conversations between all of us. 

As we work through the words of support and the words that trigger, I can’t help but shift my mindset back to a dear friend/warrior spirit/soul-family/former colleague and co-lead of the Diversity and Inclusion committee I worked with and their wisdom.  Holly’s (shared with permission) sage advice and guidance for us was beautiful and exactly what I needed to hear:

When you said that Emma is surround by a “soul family” that made me smile. Too often when young folks identify we see once supportive adults stray from being their most fiercest supporters and that is so incredibly sad. Just remember, supporting one another and changing the narrative about “the norm in our neighborhoods” or “the norm in our churches” or “the norm in our political views” was purely something almost always learned, passed down and accepted as “gospel” or “what we have to be/meet to be deemed worthy of love or acceptance.”

But now that we know better than what we were “taught to hold true, what’s approved of or accepted” we have the opportunity to be better and show up better for those we love.

It starts with one simple step, one change, one small affirmation or movement…after that, if you keep your courage up to challenge our thresholds of what’s deemed as “the norm”…you can help to create the ripples of the fiercest chain of change out there. Don’t let up…keep your head up and know you are doing exactly what Emma needs and deserves as human in this world. 😀🌸💞

For Emma: You ROCK my friend! Keep shining that beautiful light of yours in this world…we sure need it! ✨🤗

We always used to end every Diversity and Inclusion presentation at work with “when you know better, do better”. Holly infused all of this into my way of thinking and being — and continues to through her messaging. How brilliant – how awesomesauce it is to have Holly in our worlds, right!??! 

The other truth that Holly shared that I embraced was around “keep your courage up to challenge the thresholds of what’s deemed as “the norm” you can create the ripples of the fiercest chain of change out there”.

Pushing the boundaries of the norm is something I am very versed at, and because of that we’ve had quite the journey.  It’s more personal now, especially when it comes to that incredible sweet child o’mine, but it’s for that reason I’m going to push a bit and share some of the lessons learned through the feedback and experiences we’ve had since ‘coming out’. 

Know too that I’m sharing lessons Emma taught me, as xe has been hearing and reading a lot of the feedback and says things like “can we tell them I don’t use the word daughter or girl?” or “can I write a blog post on how to talk to someone who is non-binary”? 

All of Emma’s wisdom has been invaluable.  And, for the first time ever, I was able to hold a conversation with her and I got my pronouns and terminology correct. It was nice not to trigger her – and to feel pride in knowing I represented properly!

In addition to Emma opening up and showing up fully as themselves, We’re seeing a shift in the neighborhood (and how we show up around others). Don’t get me wrong, this little neighborhood rocks, but I think the ‘lockdown years’ closed us off a bit. The messages, support, and love have been so heart-warming!

After one of my favorite people in the world who lives across the street brought us a stunning and yummy raspberry chocolate cake in a box decorated with a Pride flag, we started talking about all of the attention we received this week.  Emma has completely changed – not just her mood has shifted, but her actions and you can see that she feels safe. 

We took many walks through the neighborhood this week and Emma even asked to go for walks instead of us ‘nudging’ her to get fresh air! They went with me to Food Lion and didn’t seem phased by the outing.  They obviously feels comfortable showing up as themself.  At the same time, they seems to be working their way through the recognition and expressions of love being shared and a few comments did trigger her a bit.

I challenged Emma the other night and said something to the effect of – “you know that they mean well, and for some of these people this is so outside their norm and perhaps their belief system but they love you and want to show support?”  I added “we have to recognize too that they may be offended by us sharing how to use gender pronouns properly or correcting anyone who references you as ‘daughter’”?  Emma then simply stated “Mom, we aren’t going to open the doors for change by not speaking our truth”.

We also had a good family discussion around someone else who has mentioned a few times that Emma is young and hasn’t had enough life experience to know better and that they can’t understand why we put all of this ‘out there’ for everyone to read. Emma simply said to me “we don’t need them to understand, just accept me, acknowledge me, support me for who I am right now”.

Please know, Emma is the most compassionate and powerful human being I know. She has so much life experience and has learned from our family’s trauma-drama better than we have in some cases. She witnessed first-hand what my Mom disowning me did to my well-being. She know how hard it was to work through divorce with my strict Catholic parents who didn’t ‘get me’.

I’m not going to do that to Emma, and thus why we ‘came out’ publicly. I want her to know she has a circle of support. I want her to know she is safe. I want to be that fierce strong Momma that Emma needs and when I falter or get stuck in my own head and fear the unknown landscape that faces us the morning after a blog post or … So here we are, and here is the awesome support circle that Emma can go to at anytime for chocolate cake, hugs, words of wisdom, and unconditional love. We still have a lot to work through, but we’re not doing it alone anymore. Thank you all! You made a tough decision so worthwhile! More to come soon! ❤