Gay Dads and a Son Who Thought He Was Gay
By: James Finn
Tags: LGBTQ, Parenting, Equality, Family, Creative Non Fiction

Brent’s voice squeaks as he walks into the kitchen. “Hey, Jim, can I talk to you?”

I’m throwing together a pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove and barely look up. His squeak doesn’t alert me that he needs to have a serious talk. At his age, his changing voice betrays him constantly.

His polite tone is what raises one of my eyebrows!

Even though Brent’s only been my foster son for about 18 months, he feels like he’s been family forever. I’m more used to hearing, “Hey! What’s for dinner?” shouted across the house than polite requests to chat.

So, I turn to look. His face is red under a mop of transparent blond hair, and his eyelashes are wet. I open my mouth to ask if he’s been crying, but clench my teeth down just in time to avoid mortally offending his adolescent dignity.

I turn the flame down and hop onto a stool at the kitchen island. I pat the seat beside me. “What is it, buddy?”

He doesn’t make any move to sit, just holds his body upright and tense. His question shocks me. “Is it OK I’m not gay?”

Brent joined our family out of the blue one winter’s night as a blizzard howled through Montreal. His social worker bundled him across town after calling to ask if we could “keep the boy safe” for a couple days while she searched for options. She said he had a bad reputation in the system, so it was either our house or a detention facility.

Kiddy jail.

When I say “our family,” I mean Jason and me. Gay partners, life partners, business partners. I was in my late thirties, Jason a few years younger, and we knew a lot more about partying than taking care of a 14-year-old.

But we knew Brent and his family and couldn’t say no.

Did I say we knew his family? We met Brent at a sports program we all loved. He attached himself to my partner Jason, a talented athlete. We met Brent’s parents just once — after he ran away from home and turned up on our doorstep. We drove him home, of course.

All our friends told us we had a quite the little apprentice on our hands. A junior version of his two gay dads.

That’s also how we met Gloria his social worker, who came over to ask for our take on why Brent ran away. She was as suspicious of his black eye as we were. When we told Gloria we often saw Brent with bruises and scratches, her eyes narrowed.

The midnight blizzard call came a few weeks later, and so did Brent, lugging a heavy backpack. Gloria never did find anybody else willing to take him, and she was shocked at our reports of his good behavior. He was (certainly!) no angel, but we didn’t observe any of the pathological behavior problems he was supposed to have.

So …

We didn’t make the decision lightly, but after a few months, Gloria brought over paperwork, Jason and I did a series of evaluations with other social workers, and before I knew it, we got a fancy document by registered mail naming me Brent’s legal guardian.

I swallowed hard as Jason picked Brent up and swung him around. Could I do this? Was I up for the challenge?

As for Brent, he clutched that certificate for almost an hour, refusing to let go, like if he did, the dream would stop being true.

Image by chetan kotadiya from Pixabay

All of those plain facts, of course, bypass the heart of the story, the love part. Jason and I came to love Brent fiercely, with that all-encompassing protective love I think most good parents feel for their children.

Human instinct? I don’t know. All I know is that I’d loved my partner Lenny before he died, and I loved Jason the same way. Partner love. Complementary love. Companion love. Plus sex and romance.

Jason comes from Australia. Sometimes he had to travel for days or weeks as part of his legal immigration process.When he was away, I missed him fiercely. When he returned, my heart cried out with joy, as sappy as that sounds.

But with Brent? When he was out with friends, I worried. When he came home safe, my heart didn’t sing, it melted.

The fierce, protective love I felt for Brent was completely different from what I felt for Lenny and Jason. The power of parental love awed me. I hadn’t known emotions like that were even possible, let alone that I could experience them.

And did he love us back? He demonstrated it over and over. Oh, he could get under our skin with loud and thoughtless behavior. Sometimes he took us for granted. Once in a while he whined and wheedled. He was a normal kid.

But in a million little ways, he let us know how much he cared. He emulated us. Did Jason and I love R.E.M.? Then Brent was going to listen to all their albums. Did we enjoy sushi? He was going to learn to make it for us. Did one of us look sad? He’d break out corny jokes and smiles until we felt better.

He even started dressing like Jason, who admittedly was pretty cool with a youthful, stylish fashion sense. All our friends told us we had a quite the little apprentice on our hands. A junior version of his two gay dads.

Therein lay trouble. For Brent and for me.

Royalty-free image from the US CDC

Brent had just turned 14 when he came to live with us, but he was a young 14. People usually guessed 10 or 11. We took him to an endocrinologist to make sure his growth was on track.

He’d experienced a lot of trauma and neglect as a toddler, including severe malnutrition, which the doctor suggested might have reset his hormone clock a little. “But don’t worry,” he assured us. “I can see his pituitary starting to fire up. You’ll have a surly teenager on your hands before you know it.”

The doctor ended up being right, but Brent remained behind his peers in growth for a long time. He’s plenty tall now as an adult, but when he was 16, people still guessed he was only 12 or 13.

I mention all this only to say that when we took Brent in, he was physically a small boy, not a hormone-ravaged teenager. Sexuality for him had not yet reared its head.

Many gay and bisexual people testify to being aware of their same-sex attractions as very small children. I needed a little longer. I knew I was gay by the time I was 11. By the time I was 12, I had all the vocabulary nailed down.

Not so for Brent. He says he was not aware of sexual attraction at all, not even when he was 14.

Jason and I worried a lot about raising him. Were we doing it right? Did we have what it took to make sure he grew up healthy and well balanced? In hindsight, we were both internally homophobic.

Some of our gay friends were fairly conventional like us, but a few others were walking stereotypes. They didn’t just swish and sway, they flamed and flounced. Brent even called our friend Paul, “Aunty P.”

Which brings us back to that day in the kitchen. Pull up a stool and listen in.