The last to know. Acceptance and a sense of the future

As Thanksgiving approaches and motherly sentiments run high, I ponder the reasons why I felt hurt that I was the last to know that my children were gay. Why did it take them each so long to tell me? Does this happen to most parents? Maybe they were hoping I would figure it out for myself. But I didn't. Eventually, they had to tell me. And everybody else already knew!
Maybe their inner turmoil kept the truth bottled up. Maybe society has discriminated against gays so severely, that they are afraid we will be disappointed. Do they keep it from parents because they think they're protecting us? We spend our lives trying to protect them, so maybe that's why "the last to know" hits so hard. By the time I found out each of my children were gay, their dad had died, and I was alone in my acceptance as I created a new sense of the future.
I watched an Oprah show once where her guests were all gay and discussed how and when they told their parents. Carson Kressley admitted that as "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" was about to air, he knew he finally had to go home and tell his mother--before she saw him on television. The conversation went sort of like this: "Mom, I have to tell you something. I'm gay." Her answer: "Newsflash!"
So there is the flip side of the realization coin. Why, if she said, "Newsflash," didn't she bring up the subject with her son years earlier? Obviously she had accepted it long before. Being gay is not a stigma, and if anyone should know early in the realization, it is parents. I hope that more gay children feel they can discuss this with their parents sooner and parents can do the same if they think their child is gay. Acceptance is easier--the sooner we know.
I feel sad that it's so difficult for our children to go through the process of realization and self-acceptance about being gay--and they need us. Wanda Sykes says it's easier to be Black than gay. You don't just wake one morning and tell your mom, "I'm feeling a little Black today."
Most importantly, we love and respect our gay children and will fight for their rights. We just don't want to be the last to know! Have you had to change the "rubber stamp" expectations that come with each child--marriage, children--that sense of the future we want for them? Well stop and realize that those very expectations are the rights of each and every one of our gay children, and it's time those rights are acknowledged. So this Thanksgiving, be thankful for our gay children and hopeful that we mothers can be a driving force toward gay marriage.