Choices

Chapter 5

If nothing else what Elaine Rogers said to me did give me strength. One thing that kept coming back to me was that she never blamed anyone; she wasn’t bitter, or angry at God the way some are when their lives do not turn out as they had planned. I marveled at how she saw good in her child where others saw sin and how she turned to God, not away from him. What hit me the most was that she didn’t really look to God, God the Controller, for answers or to cure her son. She embraced God for strength, and loved her son. In that simple way she inspired me.

My immediate task was to find a time when I could talk to Jack alone, where I could find out more, preferably away from home, the place where he was acting out whatever it was. With a husband and two other children that would be difficult and I was probably dreading it.

October 1, 1955 – Saturday. Brenda came home from school for the weekend. She is so grown up and becoming such a young lady. It hasn’t been easy but I feel all of the battles with her are paying off.

I have been watching Jack and Tim. They are so different but I don’t see anything about Jack that concerns me, at least in his daily routine. But I’m so worried. I need to find a time to really talk to him but with Brenda home and Tim having a game today I don’t know when it will be. Maybe I don’t really want to. How do I answer his question and what does it mean? “Why was he born a boy?” It seems so fundamental; we are born the way we are and we make the most of it. What do I tell him? I just don’t know.

Then about a week after I caught Jack in bed with his sister’s slip on, I had the perfect opportunity to talk with him alone; a quiet block of time with just the two of us.

October 4, 1955 – Tuesday – Haven’t talked to Jack since last Wednesday. Really busy over the weekend. Took Jack to the dentist in Wheeling and had a long talk. God did we talk.

So we talked today and I have no words to describe it. He told me things I found almost bizarre. This ‘girl’ thing is more than I think I can handle and I will need all my faith to get through it. I have a much bigger problem on my hands.

On the drive to the dentist in Wheeling Jack was very quiet at first and didn’t look at me. He played with the radio dial. He definitely was avoiding the subject. Finally, I just started to talk.

“Jack, I promised you I would get an answer for you.” I finally began. “You asked why you were born a boy. An easy answer is that is just the way it is, or that is what God intended. Jack, everybody is different and we have to respect that. We need to be happy about the life we are blessed with and make the most of it. That’s what is important. You’re a boy because that is what happened when you were made, when you were in my tummy. It’s a blessing. Jack, a lot of boys and girls question things when they start to get older.”

I thought I handled that pretty well.

“Does that help?” I continued when he said nothing. “Believe me, girls question a lot about what they have to go through when they are your age or older?”

He still didn’t say anything.

“O.K.?” I asked trying to force an answer.

“Mom, maybe I was supposed to be a girl, not a boy.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Jack.” I reasoned after carefully considering what to say. “You are what you were supposed to be.” I thought I nipped that in the bud but when he did not answer I stupidly continued.

“Is that what is going on? You think you should have been a girl? Why would you think that?

“I don’t know. It’s just something I sometimes think about.”

I didn’t like the way this was going.

“Well, you need to stop thinking about that. It’s not important. The important thing is that you are my sweet young boy and I love you.”

“Would you love me if I was a girl?”

“Of course.” I quickly answered, maybe too quickly. “But Jack, you’re not a girl.” I added trying to recover. “I know you have been putting on my and your sister’s things so I guess that is why you asked the question. Boys don’t do that and you have to stop it. It’s not normal and I’m worried about you. Jack, I have to know more about what’s happening and you have to trust me.”

There was a long pause. Finally he spoke in a soft, muffled voice.

“I don’t like to talk about it. I know I’m not normal, mom and I hate myself. I just don’t like being a boy sometimes. That’s bad, isn’t it?”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt I had made a huge mistake saying it wasn’t normal. I was stunned that my son actually didn’t like being a boy. Briefly I commiserated with him; there were things I detested about being female but I never considered for a moment not being who I was, a woman. Whatever Jack was feeling obviously made him feel guilty. I felt bad that I knew that I needed to stay away from painting his behavior as not ‘normal’. But it wasn’t normal; it wasn’t right. I had to keep his trust and make him feel better before I lost him. I had to keep him talking so I could find a way to fix this. I had to walk a very thin line.

“No, it’s not bad. I mean you’re not bad. We all don’t like everything about ourselves at times. That is normal. But here is why what you are doing is not good for you or the family. Boys don’t do what you are doing and people wouldn’t understand. I don’t even understand.” There was another pause. He didn’t respond. So I continued: “You know you would loose your friends if they found out or worse. You could get hurt. Other boys, even your friends would beat you up if they knew.”

“I’m sorry Mom.”

“Jack, did something happen that makes you not want to be a boy? Did someone hurt you? Did another boy hit you or something?” I offered hoping to find what brought this on.

“No”

“Are you sure, Think hard. You can trust me.” I pleaded certain there must have been an event that triggered this in him.

“Mom, nothing happened. I’ve felt like this as long as I can remember.” He confessed.

I should have slowed down, let what he told me sink in but I just instinctively asked, “What do you mean felt like this?”

“Like I should have been a girl.” He said looking over at me to see my reaction.

Now I was even more confused. I had been thinking this was some kind of silly play thing that maybe some boys go through, but a boy thinking he should have been a girl and saying he always felt that. I didn’t know what to say. I tried not to show what I was feeling.

“I don’t understand, Jack. You have been thinking you should have been born a girl? When did this start and why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I did tell you. A long time ago but you just laughed and gave me a hug. You didn’t say anything.” He claimed. I certainly didn’t remember that.

“You did, I don’t remember.” If he did tell me something like this I must have just dismissed it. How could I not have picked up on this? But now I had to divert Jack and make him realize that he’s not a little kid who can imagine anything and make it come true. He was growing up.

“Jack, everybody wishes they were different in some way. I wanted to be a reporter, for a news paper, but decided to have a family instead.” I ventured with a totally inadequate analogy. “But you can’t be a girl. You were born a boy and you will grow up to be a man. Boys and girls have different parts, you know. You have to try to adjust to that. If you are feeling something now it will probably change soon, especially when you start to mature. There are lots of great things ahead for you, as a boy.”

Jack squirmed in his seat. He literally looked miserable almost like he was in pain. I had not seen this behavior in him before.

“What’s wrong, Jack? Do you hurt somewhere?” I considered pulling the car over and see what was wrong.

‘Mom, you said you were on my side and would help me. I don’t want to be a man. I don’t like the parts I have. I want to look like Joanie and Brenda.”

I have no idea what I expected Jack to say; I just wanted him to open up to me. But I wasn’t ready for this. I was regretting having this talk; I should have just let him alone. It might have just worked itself out. Now was he really telling me he didn’t like his boy parts? I regretted bringing physiology into a discussion with my 10 year old boy. I had no idea how I should answer that and I wondered how he knew what his older sister and his friend Joanie looked like. I didn’t want to find that out and decided to try to ignore any discussion of girl parts. I did pull over to the curb suffering the horn from the car behind us. I took his hand, held it tight and looked into his sweet eyes

“I am on your side sweetie. I love you dearly but I have to tell you what the reality is. You know what reality is, don’t you?” I paused knowing full well how reality and fantasy blend with children, well with some adults too.

“Yep. Reality is not like TV or what’s in books, except research books.” He quickly answered with the pride of a ten year old.

“Close enough. The reality is you’re a boy and will become a man. If you were meant to be a girl it didn’t happen and I can’t change it.” I repeated again and added. “That’s reality.”

“But what if I can’t change how I feel? How I feel is reality too, isn’t it mom?”

I was definitely overmatched in this debate. I drove on; we only had a few minutes before our appointment. I felt like I wasn’t making progress and that was another question I didn’t want to answer.

I used the few minutes finding a parking spot to consider how I wanted to end our talk. Finally, as we were about to get out of the car I gave it my best, “Jack, maybe you can’t change the way you feel and maybe the way you feel could be a good thing but you certainly are going to have to adjust to how you were born. And you can’t pretend you are a girl. We’ll finish this talk on the way home.”

I took his hand and we walked up the street and into the dentist office.