Transcriber: Thanasis Zantrimas Reviewer: Δέσποινα Τσιάρα
“Mommy likes me best.”
(Laughter)
This was the biggest source of power while growing up with my siblings.
Knowing that I was her favorite,
compensated for the challenges of being different.
Because I was gay.
The term “mother” evokes such a powerful
thought inside.
So take a moment now and think about your own mother
and what she means to you.
I’ve been a psychotherapist for 39 years.
Hearing all about mothers.
And according to my calculations, that’s over 7,500 hours
of mother talk.
(Laughter)
I’ve heard mothers described in every way imaginable.
Like hero.
Role model.
Monster.
Or broken, to name a few.
And when I share that I’m doing a project about mother acceptance,
everyone laughs,
has a loaded story,
and most mothers thank me
and then ask me to talk to their kids.
So why is it that the term “mother” is so loaded?
Because regardless of your age, your mother is still your mom.
And what she could have and should have done differently
remains front and center.
My suggestion, if you want to work on this,
is that you view your mother as a whole person
who possesses both strengths and vulnerabilities.
As I've sat with my gay clients over the years,
I’ve been struck by the ways that they described their mothers.
Frequently positive and idealized,
or painful and traumatized.
Like Sammy
who came out four years ago.
While he was in high school, but only to his mother
swearing her to secrecy.
Fortunately, she found her way to my office
where she convinced him that it might be safe to come out to his father,
his best friends and even the guys on the football team.
Or Jack,
whose mother refuses to speak to him
and blames him for bringing his problems on himself.
And despite this, he still yearns for an embrace and acceptance.
Or Billy, who at the age of nine
was bullied by his classmates
and when his mother got word of this,
she found a house and a different school system,
without even consulting her husband,
moved the family there.
These are the kinds of stories that I was interested in.
When I looked at the literature,
all I found was one short article and one blog entry.
Why?
Why was this powerful topic overlooked?
And why is the bond between gay boys and their mothers pathologized?
I started a nonprofit
where I set out to define and explore
what these relationships are all about.
I’ve interviewed hundreds of sons and mothers
from different ethnicities and cultures, different ages.
I'll share the findings with you in a moment.
But first, a few things.
If you’re sitting in the audience and you’re not gay and you’re thinking,
“There’s nothing here for me,”
think twice.
Regardless of your gender or identity
the issue of mother acceptance applies.
The other thing is
if you are not quite in a place
to work on accepting your mother, of course, that’s your prerogative.
Just do your best.
When we look at moms from a cross-cultural perspective,
her role transcends everything.
Her role is universal,
she’s the hub of communication in her family
and in her greater community.
So back to my findings.
What I’m about to share may not seem like a big deal,
but remember there’s been no research on this topic before.
The first point is that when a mother supports her child,
he is psychologically healthy.
Many healthy gay men report that their mothers
didn’t stop him from doing the things that he loved to do.
And that means if he wanted to
play hopscotch, or wear glitter, that was okay.
Next.
Up until the mid to late ’70s,
the mental health and medical community
blamed mothers for making their sons gay.
Imagine what these messages meant.
What would happen if she spoke to her medical provider,
her pastor,
or even her husband?
And there was no Internet back then.
No way of getting information.
Like Sally,
who raised her son in the late ’60s.
And she said to me,
“You know, David and I really we’re best friends.
But I always worried.
Did I love him too much, or not enough?
And all I needed was someone to say to me, ‘you’re doing just fine.’
And it never happened.”
You’d think that mothers getting this message
with a son that’s different wouldn’t accept him.
But there are a variety of mothers out there
who ignored the message that they’ve gotten
and instead have followed their intuition
frequently in private.
And the last point and the most important
is when a mother supports her gay son,
magic happens.
Their bond is private and powerful,
frequently unspoken and even unrecognized.
She senses that he’s different,
goes out of her way to protect him, and he feels grateful for this
and for their shared common interests.
Like I can attest.
In her own private way my mother let me be me.
She never stopped me from doing the things that I loved best.
Like breaking into my sister’s Barbie dolls and accessorizing endlessly.
(Laughter)
Things she wouldn’t have chosen for her son,
but she also took advantage of my special skills
by helping her choose that perfect outfit for a night out.
Right, mom?
She’s here tonight.
(Applause)
I'm sure she's mortified.
Her acceptance was a saviour to me
and allowed me to thrive in a world that had previously been cruel.
And I’ve spoken with many other gay men who have had similar experiences
and then have went on to make incredible contributions
in our world in any variety of ways.
Frequently, the first people they thank is their mother.
Thank you, mothers.
So let’s bring this to a larger audience.
If you want to work on mother acceptance, you've got to let go of grudges.
And instead of just focusing on what your mother didn’t do,
think about what she did do and what her strengths are as well.
Appreciate that she grew up in her own imperfect world,
in a vulnerable family system that existed
long before you were even born.
Recognize that how she was parented
became the model of how she parented you.
And maybe she did the best that she could.
So, go inside for a moment. Let’s go on a little journey.
Think about a moment of connection between you and your mother.
For some of you, it may be hard to pinpoint only one.
For others of you, there may only be one.
When was it?
Where was it?
How old were you?
What did she look like or sound like back then?
Excellent.
Anchor this memory deep inside of yourself,
because even if she didn’t give you enough of what you would have wanted,
what you now have is the experience living inside of you forever.
In the ideal world,
mothers are the emancipators.
But now it’s up to you.
Turn the tables and emancipate her.
You’ll know when the right time is and when the right moment is.
And if you can do this,
it will change everything.
Thank you.
(Applause)