“I Wanted to Ease [My Child’s] Journey – I Know Full Well How Scary Coming Out Is”: Agi Pihaj on Parenting in a Rainbow Family
By Agi Pihaj,
My name is Agi Pihaj, and I am a bisexual mother to a non-binary child named Nix, who is 13 years old. I work at CAPCO as a Principal Consultant, currently focusing on Delivery Management and large scale Agile implementations.
I’ll dive right in, parenting isn’t easy – spice that up with our last 12 months and you’ve got one hefty challenge on your hands. My cis male husband and I decided that we were better off as best friends instead of a married couple and kicked off our divorce in 2021. I met the woman of my dreams while this was happening, and in true U-Haul style moved across the country to spend my life with her. My ex-husband (shall be referred to as best friend from here on out) moved with us, supporting my happiness and our blended family dynamic.
I have known Nix was going to be a part of the rainbow community since they were about 3 – call it mother’s intuition, but I knew. Their first innocent kindergarten playground kiss was with that of the same sex, which made me surer that they would one day come to realize what I already suspected.
As Nix was growing into the young adolescent they are, I started preparing. I had in-depth conversations with my best friend, with his more conservative family, and anyone I thought significant in Nix’s life. I needed them to know that this was coming because I wanted to ease Nix’s journey – I know full well how scary coming out is. I made sure I spoke to Nix about my sexuality throughout their life, careful to only mention age-appropriate content such as “when I used to date a girl before I met your Dad, we used to go to flower markets” and “ah look at those lovely men over there, what a beautiful couple!” and when follow up conversations happened I made sure I emphasized that whoever they chose to love would be right, respected and loved in our home.
This led to Nix ‘coming out’ around the age of 11, which was a quick 5-minute chat because really they just wanted to let me know they now recognized this about themselves.
Fast forward to last year and Nix’s changed their pronouns to they/them, which has been a challenge to adhere to at times; simply because of the force of habit when we used their birth gender to fuel their pronouns. I still make mistakes, but Nix is ever so patient with us – they understand that it’s not a lack of respect from our side, simply the notion of ‘old habits die hard’.
Being born in the late 80s, and growing up in a small town in Hungary, the concept of gender fluid, and they/them pronouns are strange to me, my partner and my best friend as well; when we were growing up the ‘known’ options were very linear, a notion that knowledge has moved us away from in recent years. We were very honest with Nix about this, because we believe that children should be treated with respect and transparency where possible. However, the three of us not quite understanding the concept is no excuse for lack of respect for it, something we also made clear to our baby.
As Nix grows into their skin and will inevitably start feeling attraction towards people, a conversation that caused some issues in our home recently was me asking for the gender of the person they fancied. Because the other person was also a gender-fluid individual, Nix didn’t feel comfortable sharing this information, which worried me as a mother because I wasn’t sure which talk I needed to have with them if they chose to get physical at some point. According to Nix, this wasn’t in their plans, but I wanted to ensure that if something were to happen in the future, they would not be as uninformed as I was in my teens. Nix and I both got frustrated and needed to take a breather before continuing the chat – me on one side just wanting to give correct information for my baby and help them be protected from everything that physicality brings, and them on the other wanting to respect their friend's wishes.
When we came back to the topic I had already thought about what I needed to know and decided to be blunt, so I said: “Nix, I will always respect your and your friends’ pronouns, but as a mother, I need to know if the person you are attracted to has the ability to biologically make a baby with you.” There was a lot of silliness and laughter that followed, but this helped Nix understand where I was coming from and was happy to share the necessary information with me.
I have no doubt this is just one of the many challenges we will face heading into the thick of their teenage years, but if I have learned anything that I would pass on to other parents, it’s this: Be gentle with the kid. It’s so confusing growing up, try to ease their load. They’re scared too, so share your fears. Offer unconditional love and support, within your limits. My mantra for this is: So long as you’re not hurting yourself or others, we’re good.
