Fumbling My Way Through Step Parenting and What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

By Corina Hawkins, Talent Acquisition Partner at Immersive Labs

I’ve always wanted to be a parent. I’ve always had a strong affinity with kids, and a strong maternal instinct. It was actually part of why I stayed in the closet for so long, I didn’t think it was possible to be gay, in a long term relationship and be able to have children. This was mainly due to the media in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Then when I finally came out, I feared having children for the worry of the stigma of having gay parents. All this internal conflict led to me never taking the plunge and having my own child. Fast forward to 2020, and I met my wonderful partner, Amy, and her son, Theo.

Life didn’t really prepare me for suddenly becoming a stepparent to a 9-year-old. My partner had come out later in life and I was her first serious partner, so when I was introduced to her son, we also had to go through the process of her coming out to him. I was shocked to find very little resources to help you go through this stage of life. We literally had to muddle our way through and write our own playbook as we went.

Coming out to a child might be rocky to start, but it will not ruin their life

I wish I had been prepared for the worry of coming out to a child. Also for the flurry of opinions that come in on how you should do it. People giving what they think is helpful advice, on how the child doesn’t need to know and how it will ruin their world. It won’t ruin their world. What will ruin their world is the people you surround yourself with, and the advice they give your child as they go through the process. Surround yourself with people who back you, who love you and who normalise your relationship. Make sure your child is in a good school with teachers who are LGBTIQA+ friendly. Most of all, make sure they continue to feel loved and safe.

Keep talking to your child

It was important to let Theo know he could ask as many questions as he wanted. It was also important for us to keep checking in on how he was processing the information. We lived in an area where there weren’t many gay role models for Theo, and unfortunately a bit of casual homophobia. His main fear was how we would be perceived and that he would be bullied at school. We didn’t lie to him that it would be easy, but we explained that the people that were mean to him were not really his friends and his true friends would be those that supported him. It gave us an opportunity to explain to him what good friendships look like.

Speak to your family and friends about the process you are going through

It’s important to talk to those around you for support. But, if like us, you live in an area of low LGBTIQA+ presence, then you have to educate those around you about what is ok and not ok to say. You have to have a lot of resilience in this process. For example, we had one instance where a few people complained that a teacher at the school had spoken about homophobia in class, and had talked about her gay sister. There was uproar with a group of people, and they discussed their objections in front of Theo, they talked about how it was inappropriate to discuss ‘gay things’ in front of children. This upset me, as people could not see that this was homophobia in action. We had to remind people that these discussions were more damaging than the process of us ‘coming out’ to him. It’s important to remind people to normalise that a same-sex relationship is just the same as a heterosexual relationship. The love is the same and the love should be discussed as happily as you would a heterosexual relationship.

You are not going to diminish the bond with their parent

One of Theo’s biggest fears was that his mum would ‘love me more’ and that his mum would not want to spend as much time with him. I think this is probably the same in any new relationship where the child has had the majority of their life with just them and their mum/dad. He had 5 years of just him and his mum, and suddenly I arrived on the scene, the balance of dating (where you have to get babysitters or the child has to stay with Aunts, Uncles, or Grandparents) and involving the child in what is happening, is a tough one. You can see how they can suddenly feel threatened by a new person being on the scene. Again, it is then spending quality time with them and talking to them at an age-appropriate level that you also need to invest time in developing a new relationship, but it will never replace your love for them.

It will all be ok

The biggest piece of advice is that time is a wonderful thing. It is a huge cliché in life, but it is so true. I was just talking to Amy about writing this blog, and we both said we had forgotten how hard it was at the beginning, all the tears, the worry and the nights she had to comfort Theo that his mum being in a relationship with another woman would not ruin his life. Now it is a moot point - which is exactly how it should be. We fumbled through our process of ‘coming out’ and integrating our lives as a same-sex couple with a child. I hope one day in the future, the only battle same-sex parents have is dealing with the child's fears around a new partner moving in, and their fear about whether you are going to affect their relationship with their parent. That to me is all you should have to deal with, and then show them they are loved and they are safe.

You do get there, and in fact, the one thing Amy and I kept saying to each other is - this is a journey, not a destination. That helped us through the rougher terrain and focus on supporting him through that journey rather than rushing him to the destination.