#childing

I know I have fellow parents on here, so let me please please stress the importance of respecting your children’s privacy - if their bedroom door is closed, you absolutely MUST knock on the door, and then, please hear me, WAIT until you clearly hear a “come in” type of response before opening the door. Then, when you’re done, exit and close the door again.

I say all of this for three reasons:

1) Your children are actual people and are entitled to their privacy and to assume that their privacy will be respected. Hopefully, you have been respecting this fact while raising them and have given them all of the tools you want them to be employing to make good choices. And you should therefore be able to demonstrate that trust that you place in them by respecting the trust they are placing in you. 

2) Yes, you pay rent or mortgage, but your children didn’t get any choice in whether or not they were born or even, usually, the fact that they live in that house. You are their parent, not their owner, they are your child, not your pet. They are sapient and sentient people who live and live in your home through no active choice of their own, so the least you can fucking do is respect their humanity and refrain from abusing the unholy amount of power you wield in their lives. 

3) Doing this while they are young will give you muscle memory should you ever, as an older adult, move in with your now-adult children and you see their door closed when you have something to say to them. There is even LESS excuse for not respecting their privacy in those circumstances. 

Just KNOCK ON THE FUCKING DOOR AND WAIT FOR AN AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSE BEFORE YOU OPEN IT.

This rant brought to you by my step-mother who moved in with me in October walking right into my room with the most cursory knock without waiting for a response while I was dilating and naked from the waist down, necessitating a very awkward conversation about Zen and the Art of Neo-Vagina Maintenance and why I shoving a hard plastic stick up my twat, while also teaching me a very important lesson about apparently needing to lock my god damn door in my own home that I pay for. 

Long response ahead, as per usual. And it looks like I’m getting it in under the wire, too. Sorry it took so long. 

So, ok. I hear this. Now … I don’t know the relationship between you and your dad, and I don’t know if you have siblings, or if it’s just you and him … now, I know it’s not super fun, but …. have you considered asking your dad to come with you to Pride? I don’t know what your particular pride plans are (ie, the queer stuff), but it’s possible that you both might benefit from you taking him to his first pride - he’s your dad, it might be nice for him to see into your world, to see people like you who are happy, proud of themselves, surrounded by other people like them. It might be good for him to see that you have a future and that being queer doesn’t mean you’re going to come to some bad outcome, or that whatever concerns he has for you aren’t the only possible outcomes.

He might even be able to see PFLAG parents and learn a bit more about how to support you. I think as queer folk we don’t always see how little our parents understand us and our lives, and we also don’t see just how much terrible messaging they get from the rest of the world.

I’m a father, as I’m sure you know and I do get hurt a little when my daughters plan other things on Father’s Day, or worse, aren’t with me at all. It really sucks. And while I understand that as they get older, they develop lives of their own, or having two houses sometimes scheduling conflicts arise, it still sucks. Dads, for a lot of reasons - often self-inflicted, get a bad rap, or don’t get as much credit as parents most of the time, and Father’s Day is supposed to be the day that’s all about celebrating us as fathers, instead of, like, birthdays which celebrate you as a person, you know? 

Maybe this could be an opportunity for you to let him see this window into your life, to share your life with him and spend time together. It’s another way to celebrate Father’s Day - maybe instead of doing the same old thing, or set of things you normally do on Father’s Day, you can give him the gift of sharing your life with him. You can assure him that no one’s likely to think he’s gay - we’re pretty good at spotting the straights at Pride :P And if they do, then be flattered if someone finds him attractive - it’s a pretty good feeling when someone finds you attractive, right? But you can assure him that no one is going to expect anything from him or expect him to do anything, if that’s a concern of his.I know it might crimp your style and drain your mojo to be out at Pride with your dad, but it might be kind of cool and interesting too. That’s the trade off you’d be making. “Listen dad, I’m not getting laid tonight because I’m choosing to share this with you, Happy Father’s Day” isn’t exaclty a Hallmark card, or the best way to phrase it, but I’m sure you can get the sentiment across.And yeah, telling him that you wanted to skip out on spending time with him so you could go do queer stuff probably hurt him more than he’s willing to say - and not because of queer stuff, or even you calling it queer stuff, but because you’re choosing queer stuff over him on what’s supposed to be “his” day. And asking if you “have” to stay home, instead of asking if it was alright if you left to go to pride, was not the softest, kindest way to ask him for permission to leave. It makes it sound like you think spending time with him is a chore. Even if it were true, it’s not really a kind, loving thing to say, you know? Dads have feelings too, even if we’re not always the best about sharing them with our kids. Whatever you do next, I would consider offering your dad a sincere apology for hurting his feelings.

I can’t speak to your relationship with your dad. My dad and I had a complicated but close relationship and we had our misunderstandings, too. Honestly, this will be the second Father’s Day I have to celebrate without my dad and it really fucking sucks. I’d give just about anything to be able to visit with him on Sunday but I will never get to do that again. 

If you have any kind of decent or better relationship with your dad, do what you can to appreciate it while you have it. I wish like hell I could have taken my dad to some kind of Trans Pride event so he could see that while being who I am comes with danger he didn’t face, it also comes with joy I’d have to deny myself in order to avoid it.

Otherwise, if you can’t get him to come out to Pride with you and celebrate your relationship that way, then I recommend finding some kind of compromise. Maybe skip the parade and head to the gayborhood after dinner and presents to other celebrations. Or go to the parade and come back for dinner and presents and a movie night with Dad or something. 

Don’t punish your children because they survived this far. And don’t pat yourself or your chosen imaginary friend on the back because they’ve survived. The human is a resilient species, even after they’ve lost their minds. Don’t punish your children because you lost your mind before they did.