On Becoming a Parent

For those of you who read my writings, you’ll find this one is different than others. It’s not insightful, or humorous, or ranting about something or other. It’s simply about a situation I’ve found myself in within the last few months.

You see, I’ve been mentoring a young FtM friend online for several months now. He lives many, many miles away, in a small, unaccepting community. Over time, I’ve become quite “attached” to him. Don’t get me wrong, as much as I love this young man, I don’t let my emotions gush all over the place. I am firm with him, but understanding and supportive. I show him tough love at times, and other times I reach out across the miles and wrap my virtual arms around him when he needs to be held.

He’s not quite 18, and is a very sad situation at home. He lives with his mom, who is, well, let’s just say “mentally unstable”. The circumstances are volatile. His emotional and physical well-being are at risk on a daily basis. He has absolutely no support locally from any transgender men. I’ve looked, others have searched, and if there are FtMs in his location, then they are so stealth they are unfindable. He is totally alone in his trans existence with the blessed exception of the online world.

His birth father has never been a part of his life, and he has mourned this loss for years as well as craved for the existence of a man who he could call “Dad’. Over this time of constant, almost daily correspondence with him through emails, IM’s and his personal online diary that he shared with me, he came to look at me like a father.

And I, my friends, have found a son. A beautiful young man so full of energy and life, but it’s all trapped inside him because he’s not had a safe place to let it out. A boy with honesty, sincerity, and open-mindedness, and one who is so much wiser than his years. Yet again, unable to show these virtues to the world, because he is trapped in this situation called “youth” with a manipulative, unstable mother who has everyone around her wrapped around her proverbial little finger.

I will be bringing my son to live with my wife, Lillian, and I in the next 1-3 months (once he’s 18 and dependent on decisions about school). He’ll have a home, with support and love. He’ll have many wonderful transmen for fellowship and support, as I have been blessed with these men in my life here in Phoenix.

He’ll be finishing school, finding a job, getting medical assistance. He’ll be doing chores, not staying up all hours of the night playing on the computer. He’ll be attending every single FtM meeting, group, and get-together there is here in Phoenix. He’ll be able to begin his physical transition to become seen as the man he and I know that he is. He’ll learn what it is to go to work even when he doesn’t feel like it, and he’ll keep the job even if it sucks, until he’s found an alternative. He’ll learn how to budget, and how to save. He’ll learn what priorities in life are all about.

He’ll “hang out” with another young man I mentor locally, as I’ve introduced them and they correspond online. They are a few months difference in age. They are both just starting out in their journeys to manhood, and have each other to lean on. My local boy is newly on testosterone, and will be able to share the joys of being with someone else just starting out.

Most of all, he’ll learn that he is loved, and that he is a worthwhile person. He’ll learn that he is not responsible for the wrongdoings of others, and be released from the guilt that he’s taken upon himself because of them. He’ll learn that he is not a freak, that he is a beautiful person with much to share and give to others.

I look within myself, and I see how far I’ve come, how much I’ve grown, since I began mentoring these two young men, and corresponding with others like them. I look at my involvement with TransYouth Family Allies, and I see how much I’ve changed. For a man who never wanted children, never spent any time with kids of any age – to having a passion, a fire burning inside, to wanting, no, NEEDING, to support these young men and others who are just beginning their lives in their true genders. To see them have the opportunities and chances that I didn’t have.

I have seen so much of myself in them, so much of the pain of my own youth, and I cannot imagine NOT being there for these kids. They need nothing more than someone to love them, to support them, to give them tough love and to hold them when they cry. They need someone to respect them as a person, as the individual they are, with their own thoughts and feelings and pressures around them. Someone who will be proud of them and say so, instead of laughing in their face, or kicking them out of their home.

I can’t save all the kids in the world, but I can start with these young people who have ventured into my life, and hopefully give them the tools and the means to grow into young adulthood, be happy in and of  themselves, and proud of who they are.

Seize the day!
Michael