Pater........in loco parentis

It’s been a while since I discussed the matter of my children. Let me first say that I love my children dearly and I always have from the day they came into this world. Rachael is a bright and beautiful young woman with many talents and a college education although a bit of focus of direction on her part would help her immensely. She is a writer like her father and the limits of what she can do and create are truly unlimited and I hope that someday she finds that calling of hers. My son Ian is also a bright young man who is attending college and performing well in his first year and he was a very talented baseball player as a left- handed pitcher who I enjoyed watching play the game so well for so many wonderful years. I tried to support my kids in their activities. I have helped them both with their college education and bought each of them a car. Maybe I did destroy their image of dad with my coming out and transitioning to live my life in my true essence but does that correspondingly mean that the relationship of “parent” is also likewise at an end?
I miss my children a great deal. I cannot think of them during the week or look at their pictures on my desk without crying. Things are happening with them each day of their Generation Y lives and I am left out of it. Many times transgendered people are told “we abandoned our family members” when, in fact, due to their lack of comfort on their part with our transition and living life as who we really are and it is our families who have abandoned us, shut off communication and cut us out of their lives. Believe me- I would come in a heartbeat if I was invited to a dinner or even to grab a cup of coffee with them. If they called or even texted me and said they wanted me to come to an event I would do so without question. I love them and I always will –even if that invitation never comes and we are not actively part of each other’s lives in the near or distant future.
However, this discussion brings up another interesting point. Why is just because I am not the “dad” they knew that it is written in stone that I cannot be their loving parent. I will always be their father even if I don’t necessarily look like their father. Why cannot I just be a parent of them? Why do we have to celebrate father’s day or mother’s day and why can’t we just have parents’ appreciation day? Society is still stuck in a binary system, as it is with all gender issues, where every child is suppose to have one male parent- “the father” and one female parent –“the mother”. We know however that many children are raised by one parent and in some more progressive minded states and locales a gay or lesbian couple is more accepted to raise children so that the child has two dads or two moms. One of the partners is not even the child’s biological parent although I truly believe parenting is defined by love and Not by genetics. Why then is so difficult for many children to accept their parent if he or she transitions to live life in their true spiritual gender? Does that transition change the way they feel about him or her? Is transition a barrier to love and understanding? I know very well I could continue a loving relationship with my children if they gave me a chance.
Again, although technically I am their father, they can just treat me as a parent without all the gender labels and realize that we can still be a part of each other’s lives. We can still share, still feel, still love and understand and support just the same if only they will let go of the stereotypes and the artificially created gender defined roles that society has placed upon paterfamilias ( Latin for father of family or male head of household ). The parent (me) can stand in place of the person they once knew as their Dad and do pretty much the same things I did for them before and love them all the same. It’s like the old Latin doctrine ….in locos parentis ….”in place of the parent” or in this case- in place of the old dad who lived in the repressive shell. What I could really use on their part is if they would lose the paternophobia (“fear of the father”). I will keep my arms fully extended and my lines of communication open for them and hope someday they find the courage to call, write, e-mail or text me a message and maybe begin the process of opening their heart to their parent who loves and cares for them dearly and whose heart aches from their continued abstinence from my life as Melissa- their parent!

Nothing will ever be the same again!

Where did Dad go? Here today….gone tomorrow. Nothing will ever be the same anymore in the house where I raised my family. We were this nice two income couple with two cars that grew into four as our kids matured from floor sweeping, toy spreading, ever growing little darlings into the young, car owning adults they are today. I remember the days of pushing my daughter’s Girl Scout cookies on my co-workers so she could get her prizes and cheering her on as she played soccer and driving her to her first date with a boy. I recall the hours spent on the ball fields coaching and umpiring and cheering as I watched my son play the game of baseball he loved and played so exceptionally well for 13 years. The crafty lefty who loved sports and the times we spent on trips together to football, basketball and baseball games as “father and son”. I remember the wonderful family vacations to places out west, the Florida beaches, England and Scotland and regions such as New England and the Pacific Northwest. America’s family of four…mom, dad and two kids- one girl and one boy all rolled up in Americana and living the American Dream. Today, I shattered those images and crushed that dream in a dose of hard cold reality called coming out fully as a transgendered person to my children and telling them of our impending divorce over this matter accompanied with words of comfort from my wife such as “you just destroyed their lives as they have known it”. I have cried so much my eyes actually physically hurt and the pain I feel so deeply is the greatest pain I have ever known. My wife did comfort me and she saw the deep sadness that I was causing more pain and I was in more pain.

After today, nothing will ever be the same-EVER! I know I have changed their world and I pray I have not pushed them somewhere where I may never find them again. I pray that they will not do something foolish or God forbid do something to themselves over all this mess. I hope they cling to and support their mother and pull together as a family as others in the extended family rally around them as well. I can be the one they all hate….. ..the one who ruined it all ……the freak who imploded “his” family ( it will be a long time before anyone in the family ever addresses me as ‘her” and for a few on the tiers beyond my wife and daughter, it may very well be a cold day in hell before that ever happens. My daughter said she knew and actually knew for about 4-5 years. She had found pics of me as Melissa although they were taken a long time ago. My son recoiled badly and was angry and after talking with his mother for two hours locked himself in his room all day until he left for his summer work. I really could care less about the in-laws and nephews or nieces. I am not saying I don’t hope someday that they may understand and accept or at least try but the immediate family is one I must find a way to reconnect with as quickly as I can as a parent to my children and hopefully a friend to my soon to be ex-wife. They will need time to heal, think, digest, understand and maybe reach out. They will need space, they will need love and they will need information- information on what it is to be transgendered and what is to become of the person they knew until today as their father and the husband of their mother.

My daughter had suspected something for some time, primarily because she is a curious, snoopy type and she just received her degree in psychology and completed course work in gender psychology where she studied transgendered people. She saw the long manicured nails, the lack of body hair, the changes in my face, the earrings….she is a bright girl and always did well in school. She could add it up and maybe she did many times in her head- but still no one actually said it so it must not be true. My son suspected so much less but mostly because he closed his eyes so tight when around me so he would not see but what he wanted to see …the “man” who is his father. Twenty four years after saying “I do” and fathering and raising two beautiful children I undid all that in on swift move and the utterance of a few simple words….You mother and I are divorcing and I am transgendered. I tried to explain it as best I could to them but emotions made it hard and they looked at me like I had just told them I was some strange alien from another planet. I hope someday they will understand and move forward to reconnect with me as Melissa and see me for whom I truly am and always have been even when they saw me as their father! They are older and maybe this is truly possible but not without time and space and finding answers and understanding. I have no idea how anyone handles all this when the children are younger I really don’t. I can only hope for peace and understanding and wait for the day when I can once reconnect with my family as Melissa and as a parent of my children as they move forward in their lives. For now, “Dad” is gone and nothing will ever truly be the same again-ever!