Meeting the parents calls for bravery
Thinking about a vacation Molly and I will take in four days, I am suddenly struck by how brave my fiancée is. We are traveling 1,500 miles to meet the parents.
This won’t be the traditional “come over for dinner and spend a few hours visiting with the kinfolk” kind of occasion. Molly has agreed to spend 10 days alternating between my dad and stepmom’s house in Los Angeles and my mom’s place in San Diego. (There’s even a visit to Grandma in Lompoc thrown in for good measure.) Yikes. We’re talking total immersion.
In the past two weeks, over the phone, Mom and Dad both have talked of trimming and spiffing up their yards in anticipation of our arrival. They seem as excited to meet Molly as I am to introduce her. Almost certainly they will be polite, curious and welcoming. Yet after spending so many consecutive hours together, inevitably they will let their guard down. I mean, at the very least, Molly will see my three parents in their morning grogginess with crazy hair, fuzzy teeth and no makeup.
Come to think of it, how brave my parents are, too. I wonder, though, if their need for bravery is lessened by the terms in which they are framing our visit. My parents have known for nearly a decade that I am gay, yet with my few other girlfriends they have tended to think of and refer to them as my “friends.” Are they thinking the same about Molly? Are they saying, “Oh how nice. Jill and her friend are coming to relax, play tourist, hang out at the beach. I wonder if they’d like to see the King Tut exhibit or maybe go to Disneyland?”
I honestly don’t know what to expect. My tendency has been to respect their slight uneasiness and rarely, if ever, refer to anyone as my “girlfriend” in front of my parents, and especially not when their friends are nearby. But when I visited in February, a week after Molly and I were engaged, I used that very word, “engaged.” By then, all three knew Molly and I had been happily dating for nine months, and in fact had regularly asked about her when we talked by phone. Perhaps I should have more faith and believe that my parents really do understand that Molly and I are the real deal, the goods for life, and will act accordingly.
If any of the three are silent at the mention of our wedding or appear reluctant to visit Spokane this fall to meet Molly’s two boys (this summer we are vacationing kid-free), I will remind myself of their fears. My parents worry about discrimination. Mom, Dad and my stepmom fret that as gay people we may face harassment on the job, from the friends or teachers of our kids or simply in the grocery store when writing a check from our joint account. They grew up in an era when gays and lesbians were first and foremost invisible. My decision to be increasingly visible, I suspect, confounds my folks. Should they worry more about possible harassment or should they help with wedding planning? Should they implore us to remove our engagement rings when visiting less tolerant relatives or introduce Molly as my girlfriend?
These are puzzles I cannot answer for them. But I can live and act as an example of the equality I believe is possible. Perhaps I’m the one who needs to show the most bravery. I’m the one who needs to stand before my parents and be absolutely, immovably myself.