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My son has a group of friends I absolutely adore. They’re funny, creative, loud in the best way, and they pile into my living room like they own it — which, honestly, they kind of do at this point. Some of them are gay. Some identify as non-binary. All of them are just… kids. His people. Our people.
I didn’t set out to raise an inclusive kid. I just tried to raise a good one. Turns out, those are the same thing.
But watching my son navigate friendship with kids who are figuring out who they are — and doing it with such easy, uncomplicated love — has taught me more than any parenting book ever could.
He never made it a thing. So they didn’t either.
The first time my son mentioned that his friend uses they/them pronouns, he said it the same way he’d tell me a friend was left-handed. Just a fact about a person he cares about. No drama, no confusion — just “this is my friend, this is who they are, keep up.”
I’ll be honest: I stumbled a little at first. I mixed up pronouns. I over-apologized. I made it awkward in exactly the way he wasn’t. And he looked at me with that particular teenage patience and said, “Mom. Just try. They know you’re trying.”
That was my lesson.
Creating a home where they all feel welcome.
Once I understood who was in my son’s circle, I got intentional about making sure our home felt safe for all of them. Not in a performative way — I didn’t hang a flag and call it done. I mean the quieter stuff.
Learning and actually using the right names and pronouns without making a production of it. Not asking intrusive questions that put kids in the position of having to educate me on the spot. Making sure the jokes in our house don’t punch at anyone. Keeping the conversation open so that if any of his friends ever needed a safe adult, I could be one.
It’s not complicated. It’s just paying attention to the people your kid loves.
The questions my son asked that stopped me cold.
Kids will humble you. My son asked me once, completely out of nowhere, “Mom, if I had told you I was gay, would you have reacted differently?”
I sat with that for a second before I answered. I wanted to give him the truth, not just the right answer.
“I hope not,” I said. “I would like to think I’d just be glad you told me. That you trusted me.”
He nodded. “That’s what I figured. But I wanted to hear you say it.”
I think about that conversation a lot. About how much our kids need to hear us say the quiet parts out loud — not just assume we feel them.
What I want his friends to know.
If you’re one of my son’s people reading this — and you know who you are — I want you to know that this house is yours. You don’t have to explain yourself here. You don’t have to perform a version of yourself that’s easier for the adults in the room. You can just be hungry and loud and ridiculous and exactly who you are.
And if you ever need someone in your corner, I’m here. Not as a project. Not as a cause. Just as someone who loves the people my kid loves.
What raising him has taught me.
My son didn’t learn inclusivity from a lesson I sat him down to teach. He learned it from just… living. From choosing friends based on who made him laugh and who had his back. From not needing anyone to be different than they are.
I’m trying to catch up to him, honestly.
Pride Month is a good reminder that celebration and safety aren’t the same thing for every family. Some of his friends go home to houses where they have to shrink themselves. Where they’re not fully seen. That breaks my heart in a way I don’t have words for.
So if I can be one more place where they don’t have to do that — one more mom who gets it right, or at least keeps trying to — that feels like the most important thing I can do this June.
And every other month, too.
