A Modern Mom

A few years ago, my friend and I were given bracelets from a mutual friend. This bracelet had LGBTQ colors and was very special to me. Later, I thought I lost it. But I found it in the most unexpected way. Last Sunday, my mom invited me to attend church meetings with her. I picked her up at home, and we made our way to the chapel. While we were siting in sacrament meeting, I noticed she was wearing my lost bracelet! I asked her if she knew what the colors of the bracelet represented. She gave me a knowing look and said, “Well, I am a modern mom.”

I still was not sure if she really understand what those colors meant, but I decided to wait until after sacrament meeting to ask her again. On our way home, I asked about the bracelet again. She told me she knew what it meant and shared that, for her, having a gay son was something she had to process slowly. One step at a time. My deeply religious mother, a Latter-day Saint, was willing to, step by step, understand more about the LGBTQ world.

This experience with my mom caused me to reflect on how our mothers have to process having a gay child. It is as if they too have to come out of the closet. I thought about what we could do to help them understand us and support us better. It’s a process that happens one step at a time. On some occasions, especially when talking about me to others, she’ll express her hopes that I will give her grandchildren after finding a good woman to marry in the temple. But at other times, she asks if I have a boyfriend and when I will introduce her to her future son-in-law. I have to understand that the process for her has been complicated. Progress has happened gradually as she’s tried to understand a completely foreign reality. I suppose many others go through this.

It’s important for us to share our experiences as LGBTQ people with our mothers. Share with them our feelings. Our goals. One of my mom’s greatest fears when she found out I was gay was that I would become a different person and distance myself from her. I opened my heart to my mom and included her in my life. I might, at times, have shared things she did not want to hear, but little by little, she became more open. This process has been more than mere days, weeks, or months. It’s taken years to reach the point that my mother, fully knowing what the bracelet’s colors represented, wore it proudly to church and embraced being a “modern mom.”

I have come a long way on my path of self-acceptance, and my mother has too. Affirmation has helped a lot in this process. I know it won’t be long before my mom will accompany me to other LGBTQ activities. I hope that one day, she’ll attend an Affirmation conference and enjoy with me the family I have formed in Affirmation.

For our mothers and our families, the LGBTQ world can be something terrifying, something difficult to understand, and something that perhaps scares them. But just as they helped us understand much of the world, we can help them understand many aspects of belonging to a diverse community. Being a modern mother means being an understanding mother, a mother willing to reconstruct her knowledge by forgetting her prejudices and learning.

I enjoyed this Sunday with my mom. She’s keeping the bracelet. She gave me permission to share this story, even though she did not want to pose for the photo. Progress. Step by step.