Role Reversal: The Older Parent

One night, a couple of years ago, I was sitting in my car waiting for my son to finish his karate class. It was a beautiful late spring evening. I was reading an interesting biography and reflecting on how comfortable my life had become. Finally, after a number of years, my mother had accepted the fact that I'm a lesbian, my children were making excellent progress toward the alphabet, and my partner was enjoying her work. All was well with the world. Then, my cell phone rang. To make a long story short, it was my mother calling with her own coming out. Now, let it be said that wasn't entirely suprising to me. I had spent many nights wondering about that very question as a teenager. Of course, I wasn't really upset at this news, just suprised. That evening my mother told me about her need to find out who she really was. I encouraged her, telling her that self examination was a part of human nature. I also assumed this wouldn't really affect my life very much. Sure, the family would have to get use to this new girlfriend at Sunday dinner, but other than that, things would probably stay exactly the same. How wrong I was.

The next few weeks were eye opening. Still being quite young, it had not occured to me that my parent was also an adult sexual being. As my mother pressed for more and more information, I felt more and more like crawling under a rock and dying. Having my mother ask even general sexual questions on topics that apply only to lesbian woman was completley embarassing. So, I did what any self respecting, educated individual would do. I bought her about fifteen books on the topic, and left them on her bed the next time I visited. Now, this wouldn't be much of an article on the emotional support of older parents if my methods had been effective. Indeed, that was only the beginning.