The One Mistake Good Parents Make That Pushes Kids Away

0:00Welcome to Transcendent. I'm Raya and I'm the daughter. And I'm Joe and I'm the dad. There was an important invention that came out in 1876, the first telephone. But did you know that there was something even more useful that was developed in the exact same year? No, I didn't. It was the second telephone. Well, with that, I think we better call it a day. I guess so. What are we talking about today, Dad? We are talking about parental control. And stay tuned until the end because we're going to give you four important questions to help you understand whether you are approaching it from a place of control or whether you have relaxed your control in order to privilege your relationship.

1:00The problem that we're really looking at, a lot of times when someone comes out to their parents, they are really concerned immediately. In fact, what they really probably are is afraid. And I can tell you this is how I felt. We have a list here of things that, what are the things they're afraid of? I can tell you I experienced all of these when I first heard you tell me about it. So there's a first thing is I'm concerned about your future. I didn't say this if you remember when you came out, I didn't say anything at first. All I thought of was either I accept it or I lose you. So I said nothing. But over the next couple of months, I had all these concerns.

2:03I was concerned for your future. What's that going to be like? After all, you and I were working together in the company that I owned. And I saw you as the person who was basically going to step in to the ownership and continue it running. So I was concerned about that. But I was concerned about other things too. I said something about, well, I sure hope you're not going out somewhere in bars or something. I was concerned if you're safety. Right. You remember me telling you that? I do. Yeah. That was one of the earliest things that you said before I even transitioned that you were really worried about that. Yeah. What else was that concerned about? I was concerned about what others think. I didn't say anything to anyone for about six weeks, maybe a little longer than that. And then one of my friends in one of the organizations I'm involved in, I told this one person in history

3:10reaction was holy. Yeah. And really, your issue, I think, is that you didn't know what it was going to be like. So all you could do was imagine the worst. You imagined me as the media had portrayed trans people. And as your experience was with trans people up until that point, I'm sure you figured that I would look silly and I would be ostracized by people and everything would be bad and not go well. You assumed the worst. That is correct. But I also was concerned for myself as well. One of those concerns was not about you, but about me when I said, what will others think? I was concerned about what other things are people are going to think about me. And I also was concerned about losing influence. After all, you were my child and you're going to go off in a completely different direction

4:12that I know nothing about. I'm not going to know how to guide you. I don't know how to parent this. That was a concern as well. And then the other thing I was concerned about was losing the future for the two of us together that I imagined. It's kind of like when you would come home from college and every week you were going to be something different. You had one idea and then there was something else. One about the frog man. That was really got me. Yeah. Okay. I hope our audience understands there never was a frog man. But actually that continued on that is just how I am wired. And even when I was married, I had to tell my now ex-wife at one point, okay, just humor me when I get these ideas because this is just how I am. I enjoy thinking about what could be and what might be. And so every two

5:13weeks, I would say, let's move to Thailand or let's move to India or let's move to Russia or I would always get some crazy idea. And I had to tell her just let it pass. And in a day, I will have forgotten all about it. And it always did. And that is very true of most people about the time they are 18 or 19. And they're coming up with all these ideas. I think this is actually a healthy thing because you get all these things and you think this is what you're going to do. And I'm going to start a bakery or whatever it happens to be. And something always. I've had that for myself even in the past year that I thought I was going to do this. I was going to start a new thing. And then I looked at it and realized, this is not going to work out. And so I think we all do that. People do that. I think that's part of being human. But when you're a parent, I as somebody that is both your child, but then

6:18also as a parent of my own children, see this all the time about things that I'm worried about. And if the kids are going the wrong way and if they're doing the wrong thing, and I want to tell you a story because I remember this so vividly when I was a youth pastor, really, I was the youth person. I wasn't ordained yet at that point. But I was the youth minister in our church. And we had one family that I remember in particular that I was very close with. I knew the son really well. I knew his mom really well. And then I knew his stepdad really well. They were remarried. And his stepdad was quite harsh with his son, his stepson. And he was doing it out of love. But it was always something of you've got to do things this way or do things that way. And it was always coming down. And I remember looking at this kid and thinking how difficult this was for him. And yet the whole time his dad had no idea. And I think a lot of parents

7:24are in that situation. Particularly if you are a stepparent and you're trying to figure out, what do I do? I legitimately want the best. Or if you're a parent or you're in a parenting relationship where you're sharing the child and you've got shared custody or I mean so many different things about the way that our modern world works. And it's so tempting to think the way that I'm going to get through this is by being more controlling because I know better. And the reality is you do know better. But that doesn't mean that the right answer is to be controlling. And I thought I knew better when you first came out because you hadn't transitioned yet at all. But I was just looking out for you and I was concerned. And so what did I do? I wanted to tighten control for one thing. That makes complete sense. Well, I want to make sure you're not going to do this or that. And I'm going to even though you were 40 years old, you were married with seven

8:28children. Still, I felt I needed to control more of this because you were going to get yourself in trouble. So there was that type of thing. What else could I do? Some parents will maybe they'll use scripture. They'll quote scripture to say why this is wrong and why you shouldn't do something like this. I don't think I did do that. Although I certainly could have never. And sometimes I thought I know some parents will just shut down conversations. Not bring it up, not say anything about it. Don't want to talk about it. And yet they would continue to control. Again, that's not something I did. But I know some parents do. And it's just one thing I wanted to point out. It's another way of making certain that if we don't bring it up, maybe it'll go away. That type of thing. Now, I do want to talk about though because it's easy when we get into

9:32talking about being controlling to think, well, then we shouldn't try to influence anything. We shouldn't try to exert any level of influence. And that's not the right thing either because one of the things that you did do for me, dad, that was exceptionally helpful is when I was at my lowest point. And I felt like transitioning was not an option for me, but yet living the way that I was living was not an option. I felt like I was out of options. And you were the one that said, Raya, I wasn't even being called Raya yet. And you said, you need to do whatever it takes to be there for your kids. And at that point, I was so distraught that I didn't think I could continue on at all. And you recognize that. And what I'm talking about is that I was on the verge of being suicidal. And that was very, very hard. And that was embarrassing for me. I needed

10:38you. I remember that conversation that we had where you told me that. And I needed you to be there for me. That was a point where that was not controlling. That was the right kind of influence. To basically say, I am here for you. I want to make sure that you know that I'm here to support you as you make the right decision for you. Because I knew what the right decision was, but I really needed some support. And you were there for me with that support. Well, I'm sure that isn't true of every parent. But maybe it should be, I shouldn't say maybe, it should be. It should be the fact that you got to support your child. If you don't support your child, you'll lose them. And I think that really is the case. The other thing is, don't try to fix it. I did a little of that too. Well, maybe you could just do this at home. Don't leave

11:39the house. We did say that, you know, we're going to go winter downtown. And why don't you go stay at our house for a couple of months and just do that at home there, all by yourself. What did you think of that idea? So I tried that and that did help for that amount of time. And I got to the end and I thought, this is a cost that's too big. I cannot pay this because I knew I was going to lose my marriage. And I knew it was going to break up our family. And I thought I cannot afford to pay this cost. That was a really helpful way for me to step out and realize, yes, this is really who I am. It felt like my first taste of actual freedom. But yeah, also, it felt like, but I can't, I don't know how I can possibly go this route. I don't, this is not a possibility. And so that was kind of the breaking of the dam until we got to the point a few months later. And it was really my exit that point that she said, I think very wisely, there is no compromise

12:44that's going to be enough for you. I know you well enough to know if there was a compromise that would have worked, you would have done it already. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a good point. But that's for me. And every situation is different. But what I felt is I felt at that point, in the beginning, I thought, what I should be, I should be the director. I should be directing your life. But what I decided to do instead of being the director is being the supporter. Yes. That's a huge difference. The director always loses. And the difference is that the director is coming from a place of their own anxiety. But the guide or the mentor is privileging your child's anxiety and saying, let me be here as a

13:48resource for you to help you. If it's rooted in your own anxiety, that is always going to end up poorly. But if you're there as a resource and as a guide, as a mentor for your child to help them as they're working through, what is inevitably one of the most difficult things that they've ever worked through, that is exactly where you need to be. And if you can cut through the distinction between those two that way, anytime you find yourself working out of your own fears or your own concerns about what might happen, be very, very careful because you're probably getting into that controlling territory. And that controlling can take so many different variations. You want to do the right thing and you're thinking you're helping, but not necessarily so. Instead, when you go to becoming the supporter, you make and keep the connection. So when you're connecting,

14:51instead of saying something like this is wrong, you can say, help me understand. That goes a long way. Let that person explain to you where they're at. Why do parents get so wrapped up in one into control? We're going to talk about what that control actually does right after this. I am Mark Zimmer, a listener and supporter of Trandt is send it. I've been Lutheran pastor for 45 years. And oh, what a journey that was for me to understand the LGBTQIA community and what that meant. I was so not understanding and hurtful. So this podcast is incredibly important to really educate and understand and to hold relationships to gather. Sorry, urge you to consider listening, of course, but also supporting. You can go to

15:57trendescending.com and click on the heart with a support button. You can give us with us three dollars a month and you can cancel at any time. Important for all of us on this journey of understanding, keeping relationships together, truly being people of love. There's really four things that we see. When a parent is controlling, four things that it's doing that is breaking down the relationship. Number one, it is teaching a hiding. It doesn't encourage the child to come out and be themselves and be open and honest. It encourages them to retreat to go back into the closet if we're talking about LGBTQ plus issues or any other kinds of things. It encourages them not to be open and honest with you, but to figure out ways around you. Exactly. Number two, it erodes trust. They stop sharing anything

17:01vulnerable. Number three, it delays authenticity. It means that they might feel like they are required to act straight for years after that. And then they leave entirely and you lost your relationship with them. In number four, and this is the worst, it fractures relationships particularly with your children when they become adults. When they are children, they are required to be in relationship with you, but that's just an on ramp to them becoming an adult. And once they're an adult, what you have done as a parent is going to determine the nature of the relationship as they go forward. Many strange adult LGBTQ children say, you know what? It wasn't mom or dad's theology that pushed me away. It was their control. That's why it's often helpful to connect with somebody else who's gone through something like that.

18:04And you might learn from another parent that what they did and some of the things that can guide you. You might also consider joining an organization like P flag. There's P flag groups all over. And you just go to those meetings and you'll find that in most of those meetings, there are LGBTQ people there. But there's also a lot of ally and people who are there wanting some guidance and some understanding and some help. I feel and find that people like has been very valuable to me in the meetings that I've been to. And Ryan, I've gone together. Those happen. We sure have. And in fact, you helped to get our local chapter started here. Yes, a buddy. There we go. Just a year and a half ago. And I think it's been very successful. We're very pleased with the way it's going. And it certainly looks like it has a bright future. And it is a wonderful support group.

19:05There's no cost to it. You can come. You don't have to be a member. But if you join, it certainly is going to help the rest of the group as well. Because there are there are costs and things. But you're always welcome at a peak. Let's talk a little bit about control. Some of the things that you can control and some of the things that you cannot control. You can feel like you've got control. But that can be an illusion in particular and reference to four different areas. What are those areas, Dad? Sexual orientation. You're not going to be able to control that. It's there. It is automatic. And it's not something that even the person themselves can control. Gender identity. It's part of the person. That's not something you can do. The internal experience, what they think and what they do, you can't control that. They can't control that themselves many times. It's something yet you have to take a look at.

20:07And you can't control the future relationships that they will develop with other people. That is their life. And to control that means you're not allowing them to be the person that they want to be authentically. And that makes it really difficult as well. And you see this whether or not the child is LGBTQ. There's the classic trope of the drolling mother-in-law that is never accepting of. It could be of the son's wife or could be never accepting of the daughter's husband. And then if you throw LGBTQ issues in there where you've got somebody who's non-binary or you've got somebody that is the same sex partner. If the parent is not accepting, if they're always making it clear that they don't approve of that relationship, how do you think that that is going to go for that relationship?

21:10Is that ever going to be helpful? But we see it all the time. You see it in TV shows, sitcoms and dramas and movies all the time. Yeah, they might even say something so dramatic like, well, you're always welcome in this house, but don't bring him along. Right, right. But there are some things that you can control as a parent. You can control whether your child feels safe with you. You can control whether they are invited into your adult life. You can control the tone of the home. And it means so much. It really means everything. It means whether or not you're going to develop that strong relationship that you had before. And in fact, if you can, it might end up better, which it certainly does with Australia. You might win an Arctic argument, but you'll lose the relationship.

22:12Keep that in mind. That is so true. It's just common sense. And for me, as a former pastor, I remember that I had to face up. I remember the moment when I did I was driving in to go lead worship practice for our worship team that would be leading worship on Sunday morning. And as I was driving in, I asked myself, what matters more being right or being close? And I was thinking in terms of some of my LGBTQ plus friends, I wasn't even thinking for myself yet that wasn't even on the table. But I realized at that moment, I asked myself, is my faith making me a better person, more loving, more caring, or have I become more judgmental? And I pulled over on the side of the road and I just started weeping because I realized

23:17I had become everything that I tried so hard not to be. I was so concerned about being right that I had completely forgotten about love. You may be new to this relationship situation. And if you are, there are a lot of things that you could do to keep the relationship together while you're starting to understand all of this. There are things like, instead of saying, for example, oh, this is really wrong. You go back to that, help me understand what this has been like for you. Like, give them the chance to speak. And when you say something like that, they feel as though you really are looking to understand, you want to hear what they have to say without debate. And that makes a big difference. And if you feel concerned and angry or upset or in a panic mode, just don't speak yet. Just

24:29take your time and separate your thinking or your belief from your behavior. Just take the time. It's all about preserving the relationship. And it's always okay to apologize. I'm sorry that I handled this poorly. You know what? I was scared in that moment. We can sometimes feel like apologizing is going to make us weaker. It's going to hurt the relationship. It's going to put us in a place where they can no longer trust us because they feel like, well, you know, if you screwed up there and you realized you screwed up and you weren't right there, how can I trust you going forward? The reality is it's always the opposite. When you have the humility to admit that you are wrong, that is contributing to the relationship. That's helping to make your relationship stronger, not to make it weaker.

25:31And then, Raya, one of the things we've talked about before is using a therapist. They are professionally trained to help you to navigate difficult situations in your life. Imagine that you've got somebody that has done all of their schooling and done all kinds of reading and looked at case studies and looked at things that actually work, looked at the data of what actually helps people to navigate new situations. And this is all that they do. And you're saying, I don't know how to do this. So you meet with somebody and say, can you help me work through this? And they'll point out spots where you think that you've got it, but you didn't realize you've actually got a spot of ignorance. You've figured you've got it all together and then they point out, do you actually know your assumption that you're making right there? Well, no, I guess I don't. Well, I feel like I'm supposed to be this way. And they say, what would you mean you're supposed to be this way? Who told you you're supposed to be that way? Well, I don't know,

26:32I've just always felt like I'm supposed to. And they'll challenge those assumptions and they will help you to find strategies and ways that are going to work to strengthen the relationship. You don't have to go to therapy just for yourself so that you're feeling better. A lot of people will do that specifically to help with their relationships, especially their most challenging relationships. Keep in mind, your child is not your theology test. They are your child. Keep in mind that you don't have to understand everything today. Believe me, I did not. And I still don't understand everything. And I don't know if I ever could because I am not you. But if you know that you don't have to understand everything today, you have to decide for yourself whether you're going to react with fear or anger or love.

27:40And love will lead. Anger and fear and hate are things that will continue to divide you and your child. Make certain you keep in mind love conquers all. That is exactly right that your child is not your theology test. It was hard enough for me to come to terms with myself. And this was a decade in coming before I was able to deal with what was going on inside of me. And I knew what was going on inside of me. And then it took another five years after I transitioned to figure out how to even manage this all together with my beliefs and my faith and all of that. So for you as a parent that is just having this sprung upon you, I would not expect you to get this right away. But you just want to make sure that you are putting love to the forefront. If you can start with that, that's always going to be biblical. It's always going to line up with your faith. It's

28:42always going to be what Jesus is leading you towards. And it's always going to be right for the relationship. And if you're still struggling with, I don't know about all this stuff. I don't know where I believe. I don't know what I think about all this. You are in a good place. And we're happy to have you here. We don't ever want you to feel like you don't belong here because you maybe don't agree. Now I've done some of my working through and we've got some episodes where we've dealt with passages in the Bible. Some of the more difficult ones. I think that would be a great place to start. But even if you don't agree with my interpretation or with the arguments that we're making, we're grateful they have you here. And we want you here because the more that you stop and think about what can I do to preserve the relationship, the more it's going to matter in the end. And you can always write us at prairie descended at gmail.com. If you've got questions, if you've got thoughts, if there's something you'd like to ask us, connect with us. We read every one of these and we

29:47talk about every one of these when we get one and so we're looking forward to hearing from you if we can help in any way. That's why we're here. Now if you've heard this and you are not a parent, but you have a parent who you think could be helped by this, we'd like to suggest that you ask them to listen to this. There's no risk. Listen to this. If we can help you, we certainly will. We told you we would give you four closing questions that you can think about that are going to help you understand whether what you're doing is control or not. We'll give you those four questions. Now number one, ask yourself, what am I really afraid of? Number two, ask yourself, what would happen if I loosened my grip? Number three, ask yourself, do I want obedience? Or do I really want relationship? And number four, ask yourself, what will matter when I'm 80,

30:55when I'm as old as Joe? And if you can remember those four things, that's going to help keep your relationship in line. And the other thing that will help your relationship is if you can remember to come back again here Monday, because we're going to have another great podcast for you right here. And if you miss it, it's okay. It is there permanently. So you can always go back and listen to it. And with that, we'll see you Monday. Can you say that phrase one more to anger and fear and hate? That's all I need. Anger and fear and hate. That's all I need. That's not what I meant.