Oy Vey My Daughter's Gay (5 page)

“Change is such hard work.” - Billy
Crystal

“I’m really surprised you’re so upset by Lila coming
out,” my friend said. Other friends, family and colleagues apparently felt the
same way.

“She’s still the same person,” one friend reasoned.

The platitudes they offered, no matter how genuinely felt,
held little interest or comfort for me. I seethed with frustration. “If it was
your daughter, I’d be saying exactly the same thing to you − times ten!
You don’t know what it’s like unless it’s your child.” Not surprisingly, most
people gave up on me after that and changed the subject.

I’d had a preview of my reaction some years before, when
the subject of having a gay child arose in my school staffroom. I surprised
everyone by admitting that I’d find it hard to accept my child being gay.  Had
we explored the subject in more depth, I might have analysed my feelings while
it was still academic. As it was, I remember other members of staff raising
their eyebrows at my response. I’d always presented myself as the liberal,
hippy-dippy teacher who wasn’t fazed by anything. I, in turn, silently accused
them of dishonesty when they said that it wouldn’t bother them overly. I wonder
if any of them ever encountered the situation in real life and, if so, whether
they had reacted as well as they’d predicted.

Unswayed by my well-meaning friends, I tracked down some
self-help books in the library about parenting a gay child. I was amazed to
discover that my reaction to Lila coming out, including my ‘cry fest,’ hadn’t
been so unusual after all. Several books mentioned that the experience can be
likened to bereavement: apparently, I had been grieving for the life I thought
Lila was going to have and the grandchildren that were now lost to me. If that
was true, then it was on a strictly unconscious level. I had no idea that I’d
even had a plan for Lila’s life, but, apparently, I did, and her being gay was
not part of it.

Six months after Lila came out, things had returned to
‘normal’. Lila was settling well into medical school and, as expected, worked
relentlessly. Her capacity for study astounded me. She could pull a straight
six-hour stint without a break. I’d knock on her bedroom door and pop my head
in.

“Hi. I know you said you didn’t want to be disturbed, but
that was three hours ago. Can I at least get you a drink or something?”

“Why would I want a drink? I told you, I’m studying. I’ll
get a drink when I’m finished.”

Lila’s university life wasn’t all work. She started going
clubbing with friends, which gave rise to a whole new type of angst. In the
time-honoured tradition of parents of teenagers, I lay in bed waiting for the
sound of the last bus pulling up to the stop on the corner at 2am. Then I began
the silent pleading: 
Please be on the bus. Please don’t have missed the
bus.
Relief would flood through me as I heard the front door gently
creaking open. The ritual was completed by the gentle click of the door
closing, the key turning in the lock and Lila’s soft footsteps moving up the
hall to her bedroom door. Tired, but happy, I would snuggle down to sleep next
to John, who had been snoring for hours.

That summer, we even went on a family trip to Australia. We
all stayed with John’s aunt in the suburbs of Sydney, but ventured into a big
city hotel for the night so that Lila and I could attend the Aussie version of
one of Lila’s passions, ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’. Lila, who could be
surprisingly prudish, was shocked to discover that the live show was
considerably more explicit than the versions she’d experienced to date.

Our trip to the Great Barrier Reef was the highlight of our
perfect family holiday, but we were blissfully unaware how hard Lila was
working to maintain this illusion by suppressing all things gay. The fracture
within our family was, in some ways, like a broken limb. It had been rendered
immobile in order for it to knit back together. While in plaster, the patient,
in this case, our family, tried to carry on as normally as possible, hoping
that time would eventually do the job of healing.

It seems incredible that we carried on like this for three
more years without discussing Lila’s being gay, either with each other or with
Lila. I can understand John’s behaviour, up to a point, as he was only being
true to what I joke should be the motto on his family crest, ‘Least Said,
Soonest Mended’. My own failure to offer Lila support leaves me more at a loss
and I still find it hard to come to terms with that.

Lila opted to complete an extra general science degree
midway through her medical studies. As we strolled around the university
cloisters on Graduation Day, sipping champagne and basking in the glow of
Lila’s success, I chatted to other proud parents.

“Did I tell you my daughter’s almost a doctor?”

Being a doctor is a pretty big deal amongst Jews. Granted,
being a female doctor isn’t as highly rated as being a male doctor, as
evidenced by the plethora of Jewish mother jokes, such as, ‘Help, my son, the
doctor, is drowning!’ A female doctor actually has third billing, after
marrying a doctor. But still... we were bursting with pride.

We had booked lunch at a restaurant to celebrate Lila’s
achievement and were enjoying a pre-lunch drink at the bar.

“So where did you go last night?” I asked Lila.

“Oh, a group of us ended up at the Polo Lounge.” (A gay
bar.)

“Oh right,” I said, immediately glancing over at John in
trepidation. As I feared, John made no attempt to hide his crushed expression,
as he walked out the bar and through to the restaurant. “Let’s all go through
and have lunch,” I said.

The rest of the day was ruined. We ate our lunch in
strained silence and went home. I guiltily requested that Lila not mention any
gay references in her dad’s company without running it by me first. Lila
dejectedly acquiesced.

During the three years since her coming out, it seems that
John had clung to the belief that it had been a phase, and, as he hadn’t heard
anything to the contrary he assumed he had been correct. It had been a huge
blow to discover that his daughter was ‘gay to stay’. Now he was finally forced
to accept it. For John, that Graduation Day was Lila’s real coming out. The
plaster had finally been removed, but it was going to take some rehabilitation
time before normal function was restored.

 
“It’s not, ‘What am I going to be
when I grow up?’ You should ask, ‘Who am I going to be when I grow up?’ ”  -
Goldie Hawn.

Two-year-old Lila was becoming more independent and we
decided the time was right for another baby. It happened right away. Apparently
we were getting the hang of this baby-making business.

I don’t remember when we told Lila that a new brother or
sister was on the way, but she showed little interest. She was still a solitary
child, happiest with her head in a book. We had started attending Mother and
Toddler group. Lila never showed much enthusiasm for it, but I was over the
moon to finally have other mums to talk to. Unlike me, Lila wasn’t interested
in mingling and became enraged when, to please my new friends, I plunged her
into the melee of screaming, slobbering toddlers. At a loss as to how to
protect her precious book from a marauder in nappies, she lit upon a useful
weapon: her teeth!

Before Lila’s brother Lee was born, I re-read all my
parenting books. I was totally prepared for the jealousy and the abandonment
issues (and the haemorrhoids). In fact the only issue I
wasn’t
prepared
for was complete indifference. When the newly three-year-old Lila arrived at
the hospital to meet Lee for the first time, she burst through the door, pushed
Lee’s cot to one side, clambered up onto my bed and announced, “Guess what?
Daddy didn’t burn the toast today!”

“That’s great news,” I said, “but don’t you want to meet
your new brother?”

“Oh, okay.” She glanced at him disdainfully for a few
seconds before climbing down from the bed.

I’d bought presents for John to give Lila daily so she
wouldn’t feel abandoned during my stay in hospital and she described each one
to me with delight. I’d saved the best present until last. When I brought Lee
home from the hospital I presented my piece de resistance: an inflatable
paddling pool, which Lila had coveted since the one hot day last summer. Out it
came with a flourish −Ta-da!

Granted it was early April, in Scotland, and there was
still snow on the ground, but we had factored that into the equation. John
manfully blew up the pool; we filled it with warm water and placed it
triumphantly in the middle of our kitchen. Lila looked nonplussed. She showed
as little interest in the pool as she did in her new brother. She seemed
baffled as I squeezed her into last year’s swimsuit and led her into the pool.
She sat there without moving (except for the shivering) with a puzzled expression
on her little three-year-old face. Lila now attended playgroup on her own for
three afternoons a week and, while I’m not sure how much she enjoyed it (she
seldom talked about it), the reports were good and she hadn’t bitten anyone so
far, so I took that as a good sign. At last she found her voice. 

“Mummy, am I going to playgroup today?” she asked.

“No, Lila. Not today.”

“Why not? I want to go.”

“Because you’re going to stay at home today,” I said.
“We’re all going to have fun together. Won’t that be nice?”

“But I want to go to playgroup.”

“Not today, Lila. It’s a special day .Why don’t you play in
your new paddling pool?”

“But I want to go to playgroup.”

“Look at your wee brother sleeping. When he wakes up you
can meet him properly. Maybe you can even hold him.”

“But I want to go to playgroup.”

“Listen. Lee’s part of our family now, and we can all have
fun together.”

“I WANT TO GO TO PLAYGROUP!”

I finally admitted defeat. “Okay. Get out, and we’ll get
you dried off and dressed. Then Dad will take you to Playgroup!”

“Okay,” Lila said.

I tried to include Lila in her brother’s care. I was ready
to have her help me bathe him, change his nappy, even let her hold him. I have
a photo of Lila helping me bathe her new brother. She looks totally
disinterested. Nearly thirty years later,
when Lee and his wife had their second child and asked me for advice on
how to ensure our new granddaughter wasn’t squashed to death with ‘hugs’ from
her big brother, I racked my brain for a pertinent memory before I realised I’d
never faced these issues. Lila had simply not been interested.

Lee was a contented baby and slept well, so Lila’s life
continued much as it had before, with the addition of a crying bundle which
sometimes interrupted reading time. If she were in a good mood she’d share her
books with him, “...as long as he only looks at them and doesn’t touch them.”
When Lila was a baby she’d never touched anything she wasn’t supposed to. Now
we were faced with a baby who rampaged through the house like a whirlwind. When
Lee inherited Lila’s baby walker at eight months, he immediately used it to
tear around everywhere, throwing everything that would fit, including both our
watches, down the toilet.

Unlike Lila, Lee was walking by his first birthday and kept
us all on our toes. Lila regularly retreated to her room to escape him, and I
often felt like joining her. This was a whole new ballgame. One morning when
Lee had refused to wear two different jackets, showing his displeasure by
plucking at the elastic cuffs and screaming, I ran to my bedroom and broke down
sobbing with frustration and exhaustion. Meanwhile, Lila quietly held on to the
arm of the pushchair which held the screaming Lee and patiently awaited my
reappearance. I don’t think she even asked me what was wrong. Maybe she knew
how I felt.

Now in her second year of playgroup, Lila was beginning to
pursue her own interests. She joined a ballet class with her friends. I'm not
sure if she enjoyed it or whether it was another opportunity to escape from her
boring, yet stressful, brother. She acquired all the usual accoutrements:
tutus, ballet pumps, etc. At the Christmas ballet concert we smiled indulgently
along with the other parents as the four-year-olds in Lila’s ‘baby’ group
alternated between throwing themselves aimlessly around the stage and waving
furiously at their mummies and daddies. All except Lila, whose eyes were firmly
fixed on a spot just offstage where the teacher was demonstrating the correct
moves to ‘Frosty the Snowman’, which was blaring out from the speakers.

“Why didn’t you just let yourself go and enjoy yourself
like all the other girls?” I asked her later. She looked at me, pityingly, and
didn’t dignify my question with a response.

In the light of that experience and, with her first ballet
exams looming, Lila began to seriously ponder her future in the world
of dance.

“Mummy, I want you to talk to the dancing teacher.”

“What is it?” I said. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said. “It’s just about the dancing exams.”

“Oh, that’s right. They’re coming up soon. I’ll have to pay
for them,” I said. “I’ll talk to the teacher next week.”

“Mummy, that’s not it. I don’t want to do them.”

“Do you want to give up the ballet class?”

“No. I just don’t want to do the exams.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why don’t you want to do the
exams?”

“Exams are too much like school,” Lila said. “I just want
ballet to be my hobby.”

The ballet teacher’s face was a study when I related that
conversation to her. “Hi. I’m Lila’s mum. Can I talk to you for a minute?
Lila’s worried about something.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no, she just doesn’t want to do the ballet exams.”

The teacher looked confused. “Does she want to leave the
class?”

“No,” I said. “She told me she just doesn’t want to sit the
exams.”

“Are you sure?” The teacher looked at me sceptically. “Why
not?”

“She feels it would be too much like school. She just wants
ballet to be her hobby.”

“And she actually told you this herself?” the teacher
said.

“Yes. Of course she did!”

Lila had started school a few months earlier. At four and a
half, she was one of the youngest in the class. I still have the photo of her
on her first day; her dull, all-grey uniform, the dull, all-grey sky and her
face lit up by the red, yellow and blue briefcase she’d proudly chosen from our
local cobbler’s.

“Do you think we’ve made the right decision about sending
her to our nearest school, rather than the one all her friends are going to?” I
said to John.

“She’ll be fine,” he said. “She’s a resilient wee thing.”

Only it turned out she wasn’t, and it broke my heart. She
struggled to make friends, which is every parent’s nightmare. Academically she
was way ahead of her classmates, but that hardly matters to a wee four-year-old
standing alone in a corner in the playground every day. And the saddest thing
was that she quickly resigned herself to her friendless state.

“So did you play with anyone today?” I asked daily, praying
for a positive response.

“No, Mummy. I just stood in the corner and spoke to the
janitor. He’s nice,” Lila replied.

One joyous day she came home and announced, “Mummy, I’ve
made a friend.” I greedily drank in all the details of Stacey, and couldn’t
wait to meet her. When I did, I was shocked. She was a tiny little scrap of a
girl with dirty, frayed clothes; lank, tangled hair and a squint in one eye.
Obviously she was the class outcast. I felt terrible for judging her and her
family because they were so kind and so good to Lila, but, if I’m honest, it
made me wish even more that we’d sent her to the nice middle-class school to
which her friends had gone. We weren’t too worried, though, as we had already
decided by this point to move to Spain and we knew Lila’s first school would
only be a stopgap.