Oy Vey My Daughter's Gay (2 page)

“Food,
love, career and mother, the four major guilt groups.” - Fran Lebowitz

In the three days since Lila dropped her bombshell, I had
started to wonder if I’d ever really known my daughter. I walked around the
house like a zombie, going through the motions of everyday activities, but
being largely unaware of my actions. We conversed about the usual mundane
family things and, on the surface, it was business as usual, although my eyes
were red and swollen.

Since neither John nor I have any memory of this time,
whatever Lila tells me I have to believe.  Especially as there is hard evidence
in the form of her meticulously kept diary.

I took a deep breath. “What happened next?” I asked Lila
recently.

“Well, you suggested I should leave, so I packed my things
and went to stay with a friend for a few days. I was pretty scared about
phoning you to wish you Happy New Year, but I thought it would be weird not
to,” she said. “Thank goodness, when I did, you were both fine and acted as if
nothing had happened.”

“Did we?” I said, as if I was hearing about it for the
first time. It might just as easily have been someone else’s life I was
listening to. I was scared of what Lila would tell me next.
This is what a
person who’s lost her memory must feel like,
I thought to myself.

“Mum, do you really not remember anything about that time
at all?”

“Honestly? No. Not a thing.”

When I relayed this conversation to John, he admitted he
too was drawing a blank on any memories of this time and could neither confirm
nor deny Lila’s version.

John and I continued to struggle separately. Inevitably we
came out of our ‘stuck’ phase and progressed onto the argument phase, tearing
ourselves apart instead of supporting each other; but it was progress of a
sort. At least we were finally talking about it. Let the games begin!

“I blame you,” John said. “You’re the one who took her to
all that gay theatre.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know. You think you’re so cool and modern, filling her
head with all that rubbish.”

“Okay,” I said, in a quiet and patronising tone. “The only
reason we saw a lot of gay-themed theatre is that they were often the shows on
at the theatre.”

“Don’t speak to me in that voice.”

“What voice?”

“You know: that teacher voice. I’m not one of your pupils.”

“Well, it’s either that voice, or I slap you.”

“I think I’d prefer the slap.”

“Don’t tempt me! Anyway, what’s theatre got to do with it?
She didn’t just see a gay play and think, ‘That looks good. I think I’ll be gay
now!’ ”

“You don’t know
what
she thinks.”

“Well I sure as hell don’t want to know what
you
think.”

I suppose it was a healthy sign. We were finally talking
(or rather shouting), which indicated that we had taken the first step in
acknowledging to each other that Lila was gay.

For me, the Christmas holidays couldn’t end fast enough. I
longed to get out of the house and test my ability to function as normal out
there in the world. One of the great things about teaching is that it doesn’t
give you time to dwell on your problems. Once you are in front of a class of thirty
kids, it’s pretty full on and everything else recedes into the background. By
the time school started again, I was more than happy to try and return to
normal.

As I had predicted, being back in the classroom and
endeavouring to meet the needs of my class of seven-year-olds (which mainly
consisted of listening to what presents they got from Santa), I felt as if a
huge boulder had been lifted off me. I was surprised to hear myself laughing −
I hadn’t done so since Lila had made her announcement.

None of my colleagues knew anything was wrong, although a
few friends commented that I seemed quieter than usual. Normally my philosophy
is, ‘I speak, therefore I am.’ Yet, I didn’t feel anywhere near ready to talk
about it and I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to do so without reopening the
floodgates, so I stayed quiet.

However, later that day, when my colleague, Andy, and I
were alone in his classroom, he innocently enquired about my holidays and I
fell apart. Given that he had recently come out to me, I sensed he was the
right person to confide in. I blurted out the whole sorry tale to him. While he
didn’t volunteer for the role of coming-to-terms-with-your-gay-child
confidante, he was not found wanting.

“Look,” he said, “What you’re going through is perfectly
normal. Most parents react the same way. It’s a big shock.”

“Really?” I sniffed. “I can’t even depend on John. He’s
trying to blame the whole thing on me, like it’s my fault because I took her to
see gay theatre.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Are you serious? Of course I know it’s not my fault.”

“Well, that’s good then, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but I can’t believe John’s behaving like this. I’m
really shocked and bloody angry.”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” he said.

“What? Are you serious? Why the hell not?”

“It sounds as if he’s doing his best.”

“That’s his
bes
t?”

“Yes. He’ll come round.”

I wasn’t sure if this was what I wanted to hear. I had
expected Andy to support me in decrying John. Over the next few weeks we met
regularly−or, I should say, I stalked him and burdened him each time and,
all the while, he continued to be there for me.

Most of the time Andy just listened to me, as I suppose a
good counsellor should.  When he did talk, it was not to give advice, but to
throw it back on me. “Why do you think John acted like that? How did that make
you feel?” 

“I can’t talk to John at all. He’s acting like Lila coming
out never happened. Can you believe it?”

“Yes, actually, I can,” Andy said. “I’m afraid it’s just
part of the process. Don’t be too hard on him.”

“AHHHHH! If I hear that again I’m going to scream!”

“So scream. It’ll make you feel better.”

Andy counselled me to be patient and assured me on a
regular basis that John was probably doing his best. I found that hard to accept,
but, to be honest, I suppose
my
best wasn’t going to win any ‘Parent of
the Year’ prizes either. Andy made me laugh and, with his encouragement, I
started learning how to cope. He was like the gay version of an Alcoholics
Anonymous sponsor. Like most Jewish children, I’d been deterred from any
temptations towards alcoholism by the horrible cough-syrup-like Palwin wine
that we all had to drink after prayers at Passover. So, while I may have had no
need for counselling from Alcoholics Anonymous, I was definitely in need of the
services of Parent of Gay Child Anonymous – and its special adaptations to the
AA’s Twelve-Step Plan.

1  - Admitted we were powerless over alcohol. (Our daughter
being gay.)

2  - (I) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity. (Thanks, Andy.)

3  - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to
the care of God as we understood him. (Sorry Andy, you're not that powerful.)

4  - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves. (No changes required, although this proved to be a long-term
project.)

5  -  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and another human
being (Lila) the exact nature of our wrongs. (This one also took a long time.)

6  - We’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects
of character. (All? Not sure about all!)

7  - Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. (I think
that one can stand.)

8  - Made a list of all persons whom we had harmed, and
became willing to make amends to them. (I don’t know if we’ve ever said sorry,
Lila. Certainly not in print. So here it is: We’re so sorry for the hurt we
caused you. You didn’t do anything wrong.)

9  - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible,
except when doing so would injure them or others. (No Lila, we’re not buying
you that new car.)

10 - Continue to take personal inventory, and when we were
wrong, promptly admit it. (Stop laughing, John! Anyway, it says ‘we’, not ‘I’.)

11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our
conscience contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of
His will for us and the power to pursue it. (I continue to practise
meditation.)

12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of
these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics (parents of gay children)
and to practise these principles in our affairs. (So buy this book!)

I hadn’t realised when I first met Andy what a big part he
would come to play in my life. We had both started teaching at the same school
on the same day. As we looked around the empty resource room, noting the
tumbleweed blowing around, our eyes alighted at the same time on the single
pack of pencils sitting on one of the dusty shelves. We were both too polite
and too depressed to grab it. We became friends over comments like, “It’s only
the first day. Things will get better,” and, “Do you think it’s too early to
ask for a transfer?”

As we passed a class of kids going up the stairs, we looked
on bewildered as every one of them jumped over one particular stair. As Andy
and I looked at each other with a ‘What the hell?’ look, we heard one kid
clearly advise his friend, “Don’t step on that−that’s the gay stair.” I
was shocked, and more than a little intrigued. I was dying to ask the child
what made a stair gay. Had a supposedly gay person stepped on it? Did stepping
on it
make
you gay? Was it a little cleaner or well cared for than the
other stairs? Did it just have a
quality
? In my twelve-year stint as a
teacher at that school, I never did find out.  As far as I am aware, it is
still ‘the gay stair’. Andy and I resigned ourselves to our fate at our new
homophobic school.

Happily for Andy, it soon became apparent that the school
was
not
homophobic and it turned out to be the best school I’d taught
in. After coming out to me at the Christmas party, Andy came out to the rest of
the staff by inviting us all to his house to meet his partner. If they hadn’t
already guessed he was gay, his apartment would have confirmed it: all bright
and clear surfaces, immaculate kitchen and shiny pots and pans hanging from the
ceiling. We could have eaten off the floor. We all stood around chatting just a
bit too loudly and laughing just a little too heartily at his and his partner’s
jokes, as each of us vied to appear the most at ease.

Some time later on a staff night out, Andy took us to a gay
nightclub. Lila was newly out and I was frozen with fear in case she would be
there. When I later related the story to her, she said, cheerfully, “Oh, you
should have phoned me and I’d have made sure I didn’t come.”

I had little or no opinion of Andy being gay. I suppose it
could be said that as a staff we treated Andy differently, but that was more
likely to be because he was the only man. We once discussed the potential
problems of him coming out to the pupils’ parents. Only then did I begin to
contemplate the complexity of the issues he faced. I now realise that, with my
limited experience, I didn’t even scrape the surface. Just being male is
problematic enough when working with young kids. Back then, I interpreted Andy’s
penchant for clasping his hands behind his back in the classroom as an attempt
to emulate the male members of the Royal family. Either that or he was trying
to look serious and scholarly. In reality it was so he didn’t accidently touch
a child.

As a man, Andy was all too aware of possible accusations of
abuse. In theory, touching a child is a no-no for all teachers nowadays. In
practice, I can’t imagine not being able to hug a distressed child or give the
odd pat on the back where it’s due. I can remember a male teacher who used to
stand at the door at home time and selectively trip up kids who had annoyed him
that day− but he didn’t actually
touch
them, so, technically, I
suppose that was acceptable.

I don’t know if Andy’s pupils suspected he was gay. Calling
someone ‘gay’ was just a general insult. A teacher friend tells me that
currently calling someone or something ‘gay’ is now used in general vocabulary.
But one thing remains the same: it’s never a compliment. One day I overheard
one of Andy’s pupils murmur under his breath, “I hate that gay teacher.” I’d
dearly love to have replied, “Well that gay teacher hates you too!”

Andy was eventually promoted to Head Teacher in another
school. My parting words to him were, “I’ll miss you, Andy. I’ll miss your
humour. No… wait a minute. Actually, I’ll miss
my
humour at your
expense.” I was clearly back on form. If you are reading this, Andy, thanks so
much for your input. It meant so much to me.  And if you aren’t reading this,
then why the hell not?

“If
you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button.” - Sam Levenson

My own parents had been almost forty when I was born. I
was a tiny eight-year-old when my beehive-haired sister tottered off on her
stiletto heels to marry her respectable, Jewish boyfriend. I was fourteen when
my Jesus-lookalike brother went off on the not-so-respectable hippy trail to
India, only phoning to say he’d married a girl he’d met in a kibbutz* in
Israel. As a teenager, I felt like an only child.

My parents were too tired or too apathetic to bother
disciplining me. When I was six I told my sister’s boyfriend his black Teddy
Boy coat looked stupid. When my aunt bemoaned the lack of light in our sitting
room, I sarcastically suggested, “Why not go and knit in the toilet? There’s
plenty of light in there.” My parents looked on impassively. That’s not to say
they weren’t capable of imposing discipline. My dad proved that when a
pickpocket tried to relieve him of his wallet in the rough part of town in
which he worked. “It won’t happen again,” he assured us. “I’ve got a razor
blade in there now!”

Discipline or not, I was indisputably a daddy’s girl. Every
Saturday afternoon, without fail, my dad would take me to a cartoon matinee at
our local cinema, followed by a visit to a Woolworth’s store where I would
debate the merits of buying the plastic brown and white cow versus the duck
with tiny ducklings for my farmyard collection. His one vice was a ‘wee
gamble’. He shamefacedly approached me one Christmas and admitted he’d lost on
the horses. When he asked me to help I didn’t hesitate in signing over the £100
left to me by my grandfather. I was flattered to be grown up enough to help and
felt very important and special. My mum, on the other hand, was furious.

Although our family didn’t have much money to spare, my mum
took great pride in her appearance. She never went out without her make-up.
Arriving at my brother’s Bar Mitzvah
*
,
she noticed to her horror that she’d forgotten to apply her nail varnish. She
immediately did an about-turn and went all the way back home to apply it. When
I was seven years old, my mum went back to work, so she could finally afford a
little self-indulgence like going to the hairdressers every week for a ‘shampoo
and set’. My mum’s thick black hair was her crowning glory. She always wore it
stylishly short and tucked behind her ears. My sister and I would have killed
for that hair, but sadly we inherited my dad’s family’s sparse, flyaway
variety. At least, being a teenager in the ‘70s, I could wear mine long and
straight.  My sister had to employ several hairpieces in order to achieve her
‘beehive’ hairdo. 

My mum relished the compliments she regularly received on
having ‘a good leg’. My dad’s joke, ‘It’s a pity about the other one,’ was
never well received. Sorting through family photographs after mum died, my
sister and I realised with delight that our mum had always ensured a stock pose
in which her legs were crossed and her dress slightly lifted to showcase them.
Her feet in their ‘sensible shoes’− made necessary by her bunions−
were tactfully tucked out of sight.

My parents loved dancing, and they went every Saturday
night. My mum wore her favourite black dress with the rhinestone collar, her
hair newly washed and set. My dad would look dapper in his suit and his
Brylcreemed hair. Years later, when my mum’s balance was compromised by Multiple
Sclerosis and my dad was crippled with arthritis and barely able to walk, they
still managed to make it onto the dance floor.

Growing up, I don’t remember ever having a serious
conversation with my parents, but maybe that was the norm back then. My mum was
the cliché queen. She warned that if I slept with a boy before marriage he
would likely “get off his mark”. She pointed out that, “Nobody will respect you
if you don’t respect yourself,” and, from my personal favourite of the old
chestnuts, she sagely predicted that, “Nobody will buy the cow if they can get
the milk for free.” She lectured me on a daily basis on the perils of dating a
non-Jew. “It’s alright now, but wait until something goes wrong. He’ll cast it
up to you that you’re a Jew,” she predicted. Sadly this was based on her
sister’s experience of ‘marrying out’. My mum and dad had been thrilled about
my brother marrying the 'nice Jewish girl’ he’d met on the kibbutz. Then they
found out she wasn’t (Jewish, that is. She was definitely a girl!).

At the time, I couldn’t appreciate how my parents must have
felt as Jews who’d lived through World War Two. Even though they had been lucky
enough not to be directly affected by the atrocities, it’s not surprising they
found it hard to trust anyone outside their own religion. I had never known my
grandparents. All I knew was that both sets had been Jewish refugees from
Russia in the early 1900s and that they died before I was born and I felt that
loss keenly.  Especially when my sister told me stories of our maternal
grandparents - like how our grandfather used to write love poems to his wife
and had apparently died of a broken heart six months after she died. They
sounded like such a romantic couple. I wish I’d known them. 

“Our grandfather was a genius, you know,” my sister said to
me one day, apropos of nothing.

“What?” I said. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, it was common knowledge in mum’s family,” she said.
“…Or maybe I got it wrong…Maybe what they said was he was a ‘
genie.
’” We
both cracked up with laughter.

Both my parents had been brought up with Yiddish* as their
first language and I loved the smattering they taught me. The words were so
descriptive and made me feel close to my ancestors.

Notwithstanding my family’s history and with complete
indifference to my parents’ feelings about me dating a non-Jew, during my
temporary break up with John I dated my friend’s non-Jewish neighbour. He was
considerably older than me, separated from his wife and a little sleazy. In a
touching scene of parental love, my dad went round to my new boyfriend’s house
and practically dragged me out. I’m guessing my mum’s nagging was behind that
action, as my dad tended to lie low and hope things would blow over. I remember
screaming, “What do you think you’re doing, you crazy old man! Stay out of my
life!” Secretly, though, I was delighted as I was trying to find a way to
finish it anyway.

The next day my mum subtly suggested, “Why not invite John
round for dinner? I’m making knaidels*. He loves knaidels.” (He still does,
actually.) Having a son who’d already ‘married out’ no doubt made it easier for
my parents to accept John. (Thanks for that, bro.)

My mum was a great mother and cared deeply about me, but
she was adept at avoidance. Not only did she deftly side-swerve any discussion
of potentially serious subjects, she wouldn’t even dignify the subject by
naming it. It was referred to as, ‘the other thing’. “How did you get on with the
other thing? How’s the other thing?” Often there would be so many ‘other
things’ on the go it was hard work guessing which particular ‘other thing’ she
was referring to. I don’t know why she even bothered with this charade; she
didn’t want to know about any of the ‘other things’ and had absolutely no
intention of discussing them.

I loved my mum, but there were so many things that I, as a
parent, was going to do differently. My daughter would able to tell me
anything. And I would listen. I wouldn’t respond in tired old clichés or by
referencing what ‘ibidy else’ (everybody else) did in any given situation.
“Ibidy else helps their mother around the house.” My mum’s other time-honoured
avoidance tactic involved food preparation. Both my parents died before Lila
came out, but I wonder what they would have made of their granddaughter being
gay. I’m guessing my dad would have just nodded and smiled and hoped it would
blow over. I am also smiling about this imaginary conversation with my mum:

“Mum, sit down. I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Make it quick− I've got to put the dinner on.”

“Okay, I’m just going to say it. Lila’s gay.”

“What do you mean, ‘gay’?”

“She’s gay−as in she’s a lesbian.”

“What are you using a word like that for?”

“I’m telling you that your granddaughter’s gay.”

“Where do you get such a mashugass*?”

“What mashugass?”

“About the other thing?”

“Mum, it’s true. Don’t you care about your granddaughter?
Don’t you have anything to say?”

“I don’t understand it. Ibidy else’s daughters are normal.”

“Mum, for goodness’ sake, listen to me. We’re not talking
about ibidy else… I mean, everybody else. We’re talking about my
daughter−your granddaughter.”

“Look at the time. I’d better get the mince on.”

*
Kibbutz:         A
collective rural community in Israel

  Bar Mitzvah:  Jewish religious ‘coming of age’
ceremony for   

                          boys at the age of thirteen

  Yiddish:          The historical language of the
Ashkenazi Jews

  Knaidels:        like dough balls, but made from
matzo meal.

                          Usually  served in chicken
soup (See Appendix)

  Mashugass:    Stupid notion or idea