What I Learned From My NonBinary Kiddo

 Before I start, I just want to let you know that I talked to my kiddo about writing this blog. When I blog, there are times when my experiences cross with someone else’s, but I try very hard to write from my point of view only. To tell my story, and only my story.

I try to take responsibility for my choices and my understanding of life. This is especially important with my kids. I don’t post online about them really, because their lives are their own.

However, there were things about this experience that I wanted to share. Not my kiddo’s journey. That’s their story if they ever want to share that. I wanted to talk about this from my experience: the mistakes I’ve made, and what I’ve learned. My kiddo gave me the okay.

So…Here we go. I write this with permission. 

***

This summer my kiddo let me know that they were nonbinary and wanted to step into who they are, including changing their name and their pronouns. 

I thought I was prepared for anything my kids would throw at me. I’m a pretty liberal person and I thought if they were transgender or gay, I’d be fine, but I had a stronger reaction to this than I anticipated. It wasn’t the question of my kiddo’s sexuality and who they will choose for partner(s) in the future. It was something more fundamental. I didn’t understand why declaring themselves nonbinary was important. Dress how you want, act how you want, why does it matter? Why do you have to declare it? 

I just didn’t understand.

And changing the pronouns was okay, but awkward. As a writer, it’s hard for me to think of a singular person as a ‘they/them’ but I’m trying. 

What I struggled with most was the name, and the loss of that name. When my kiddo was growing in my belly, I can remember rubbing my hand along the swell of my stomach and whispering their name. “Hello, Little One (their name). I love you. I can’t wait to meet you.” And when they were born, I looked into their deep blue eyes, impossibly bright and open and said “Why, hi, Little One. There you are.”

When I imagined them getting older and growing, it was always connected to their name, and it hurt to let that go. That was their name. Their identity. Their name tied them to me. It was who they were to me. How could I change that? How could I let that go?

So I bargained, “Couldn’t we just keep your name the same, you know, just for family?” I saw that the comment hurt, but I didn’t understand why. 

“Sure,” they said. “It’s fine.”

And even though I knew what “It’s fine” meant (anything but NOT fine), I thought that it was okay.

***

My kiddo pulled away from me. I saw them pull into themselves. A light went out. They had trusted me with who they were, and I had betrayed that trust.

***

I tried to repair things. I apologized. I tried to explain that while they’d been living with this transformation for a while, it would take me some time to catch up, but I could do it. I would do it. They just might have to be a little patient with me, and I might need some time (and educating) to understand. 

Right before school started, they asked me if I could update their name and pronouns through the school system. We’d just picked up school supplies and clothes and I’d pulled into our house. The car was still running but I could feel the air in the car had changed. I looked at my kiddo and saw that they were crying. The pain was so raw and real I could feel it. “Honey, why are you crying?” I asked, because I really wanted to know. I still didn’t understand. 

And they looked at me with those bright blue eyes and said, “Because when I go to school, they’re going to call me by who I was, and not who I am.” 

That’s when I finally understood. 

It was more painful for my kiddo to live the lie of who everyone wanted them to be, than to step into their true identity and become who they already were.

It was harder to live a lie, than to live a truth. It was harder to live the ‘safe’ lie than to live the ‘dangerous’ truth. The truth challenged everyone around them to change their perceptions. That truth shook the foundation of what was known. That truth risked bullying and ridicule, and it was easier to do that than to live a lie. 

Hadn’t I spent years trying to teach my kids to be who they are? To be real? Authentic? To walk a life that was true? Isn’t that how I’ve been actively living these past few years? No more tiptoeing. No more justifying. No more saying “I’m sorry for being who I am and wanting what I want”. Hadn’t I taught them that there was poetry in being the exact person you were, even if it made others uncomfortable?

And wasn’t that exactly what my kiddo was doing?

***

I also realized, sitting in the car with my crying kiddo, that haven’t we all had these profound moments of when it was harder to live the life we had, than the life we were meant to have? Isn’t there a moment where you decide to lie or be true? It can be with identity, or wants, or work, or dreams. It can be anything. But isn’t there a time when you must make a choice to live boldly and do what you are called to, or to live quietly and do what others expect of you?

And in that moment, I got it. 

I understood.

***

My kiddo was stepping into who they were. They didn’t need to make it easier for me, for their family, for their friends. It’s not about that. And ultimately, it doesn’t matter how others process that. It’s not my kiddo’s responsibility to make who they are easier for others to understand. My kiddo’s greatest achievement….is simply to be. 

What courage. What beauty. What strength.

What a lesson my child has taught me. 

***

I asked the school to update their paperwork and call my kiddo by their right name. It’s not the name I chose for them, and while that is hard to let go, I respect that this is the name they feel belongs to them. At the doctor’s office, we let them know that my kiddo was nonbinary. They didn’t even blink. They updated everything. When my kiddo goes to school, there is a lightness about them that glows from the inside out and I know it’s because they don’t have to live a lie anymore. It’s the lie that dims you and destroys you.

They are who they are, and I love them with all my heart.

And, really, it wasn’t that I said their name while they grew in my belly, or I held them in my arms, or put them on my hip, or caught their puke with my bare hands, or cried with them or laughed with them or grew with them. It’s not the name that tied me to them. The name isn’t important.

It’s the love that matters most.

 ***

Now I can see them for who they really are. 

I can see, too, that I still have a lot to learn in life. I can see that I can learn a thing or two about living authentically and not trying to please others. I’m trying to learn. I am learning.

And I’m grateful to have this kiddo be able to teach me. 

ABOUT TANYA EBY

Tanya is a single parent, an LGBTQIA+ ally, a narrator, a tiny poem writer, and a flawed human doing the very best she can.