Coming Out Day

In this neck of the woods it is GLBT Pride Month, or week really. It is also coming out day today. I haven't got much to say on the coming out thing really. No tearjerking story. My mother wasn't amused at how I did it but of course there were extenuating circumstances. It took a year or so but now my partner is her favorite daughter I think.

The big bemusement for me at least this year thus far has been church on this past Sunday. Our overly-inclusive congregation...umm fellowship...they are UUs...I always muck that up...annually has feeding time at the zoo Sunday. Scratch that...they have Pride Sunday. This means we celebrate all those GLBT folk in the congregation. Somewhat more conspicuously than Mother's Day in most churches but hey, whatever works for them.

As in what seems to be all churches these days, there is a children's time before they are released to Sunday School. This involves all the children going up front and sitting on the dais and hearing a little story and chatting with whomever is leading it. One of my children always chats a good bit. This week was no exception, except it was her complete long deep breath speed rendition of the plot of that penguin movie and her critique of it. (reason behind the penguins in a moment)

This week, being Pride Sunday, meant they read a Pride like story. Thankfully not Heather Has Two Mommies. (bad writing doesn't get justified by a good message) It instead was the story of the Central Park daddy penguins. (introduced by has anyone seen that penguin movie)

After the story the leader asked if anyone knew any families with two daddies or two mommies. A few kids raised their hands. One kid (the child of the leader) talked about his two uncles and their three boys) We braced for the very public outing we expected from our young talking child.

None of our kids raised their hand. Hmmm...odd...the oldest is old enough to know that feeding time at the zoo isn't really his gig and he doesn't talk in public that much anyway. Other daughter distracted by her hair, dress, people cooing, again not unusual.

But daughter who talks? Surely she was going to babble. Nope, not a word. Maybe she got some sort of message somewhere that this wasn't really what she wanted to say in front of her peers. (After all, this worked well for the eldest churchgoing child, she didn't mention it if she didn't have to for a long, long time and I think she still wouldn't gratuitously mention it.)

I was curious. After church, I asked. Non talking boy child said: "huh, didn't think of it." (hmmm, maybe he is still in the same place he was last year when he told me that most boys only like boys and most girls only like girls so why would he get teased for having a mom who liked girls) Talking child: "She didn't ask about families that had three mommies. (her father has remarried) If she had asked that I would have told her all about families like that. She only wanted to know about families with 2 mommies or 2 daddies. Do you think she would have been interested in having more than that? (Like she expected this was being saved for some other celebration)" It gave me a giggle.

So, no weird rambling coming out this week at the service designed for such things.

(note: We aren't a closeted family by far. We hold hands in public and all that stuff but never found it necessary to say Hi I am TW and I am a lesbian when we meet someone. People figure it out or they don't. We are good at answering questions if you ask.)