If you asked me 10 years ago to predict what my family would look like today, I can absolutely tell you that I would not have predicted our current portrait.

We have two kids. I call them that even though they are young adults…to me they are my kids. At 25 and 23 they have given us no trouble and even as teens, they were non-drinkers, non-smokers, no drugs, and decent students. Basically, not me.

But I guess easy and conventional is not what was to stay. It seemed adulthood for my kids was a jump-off point for major change. Not so much an end to how things were, but more a beginning to how things would be.

My eldest was born a male and my youngest a female and both were happy and healthy babies. When they were 4 & 2 when my then-husband and I divorced. It was not acrimonious, our relationship just fizzled out. We had two kids with one big family in two separate homes. It was no longer about us, but about them…the kids. We structured everything to happen in the same community, and all activities, parent-teacher meetings, and school-related events were divided up as equally as possible. It all ran quite smoothly.

As a slight blip, my eldest was diagnosed at 9 years old with high-functioning Autism (or Asperger’s as it used to be called). With this came psychological testing and eventually, extra help in school, but we always treated him the same and explained away any awkwardness as his “isms”. He wasn’t angry or sad, he was just focused. And by this, I mean he loved his video games, history YouTube videos, and animals. He had little interest in sports, fashion, or for that matter anything else. That said, we found a social group he could get involved with, and with this, he found his “people”.

He graduated from high school and went to work for a time until just this year, after much soul-searching and a few crummy jobs, he decided to go back to college.

My youngest daughter (at the time) was an excellent student, involved in many activities, had a good group of friends, and in grade 8 even had a boyfriend. By grade 10, things changed slightly in that she found a wonderful girlfriend. At first, we were surprised but recognized that this was a good change as we saw how happy they made each other. Who could think that was wrong? Then off to university for her with a focus on a Batchelor of Arts degree. All was well…or so I thought.

At 19, my then-daughter let me know she was seriously struggling with anxiety and her sexuality. I thought it had something to do with liking girls over boys or maybe she liked both? I had no idea that her racing thoughts and gender were a major problem. I don’t think she did either. However, after taking several courses in university, many in the gender studies vein, and doing her own research, she decided to start taking hormones and going down the road to eventually transition to a male.

This initially scared the shit out of me. Questions such as what is in these hormones and why does your voice now sound like your brother’s…rolled around in my head? I researched as much as I could find, and I talked with some educated friends who could help me understand what was happening. They reassured me that things would be OK, just breathe and be supportive and things will hit a new standard. And it did for a time.

Now my eldest announced last year that he too is also struggling with his sexual identity. He has started taking hormones and has been seeing a Counselor, and that is about as much as I know. He lives on his own, they both do now, and he has asked (as of a few months ago) to be called a different name. He also has said he wants to use different pronouns. I am shocked but not able to do or say much as they both are adults.

For all intents and purposes, things seemed “normal”. But here is where the question starts to form in my mind… “what is normal?” In today’s world there is so much information and sharing online (hence my blog here). So many places to look to find your people, and with this sometimes, some real asshole trolls that you bump up against.

I recall a magnet on my grandma’s fridge when I was a kid that said: “Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes”. I have tried to live my life this way, and I would hope most others would too…sadly not.

So here we are in 2023, where I like to argue it seems we have digressed in many parts of the world with equal rights. Our families have become more divided over many different issues and critical thinking is almost a lost art. What happened here and where are we headed?

As a concerned parent and a mother, I am trying to be: Positive. Upbeat. Supportive. Kind. Understanding. Loving. I am attempting to make sense of this all and in doing so, have decided to log my thoughts in an online diary. I am looking for my “people”.

I am also hoping that by writing it down, and remembering the journey, in the future I can look back on all this and say how proud I am of myself and my family for being brave and strong, and hopefully trailblazers for a new modern family. Fingers crossed 🤞 it just gets better on the daily. ♥