Coming out to a child

[Corvid1692]

I've reached the point where I've started coming out to people who are close to me, and have told my wife, my parents (Who said I'd always be there child, whether I was a son or a daughter, and also that they had kind of suspected), my boss, and my church. I have not told my seven year old son, and my wife doesn't want me to yet. The reason why is that children are naturally talkative, and it puts him in an unfair situation where he has to keep a secret he might not fully understand yet. This is a problem because of my wife's parents, who are very very likely to disown us and refuse to have anything to do with us when we find out. She's on board with me getting therapy and HRT, just wants me to stay in a male persona for the time being, and explain any obvious physical changes as being the result of a medication used to treat my depression, which even her parents know about and have urged me to get treated.

But ultimately, I think it's unfair to my son, and to me, to hide this, but her concerns are valid. How do I navigate this? She's absolutely terrified of loosing her parents.

[LordKAT]

It won't take real long for your son to figure out something is going on. Why have him ask the wrong grandparents instead of simply telling him so that he is more likely to accept it as normal.

[Umiko]

i hate to say it, but maybe your wife is right. a 7 year old is just beginning to become aware of everything. i dont have a child so i may not get the situation as well or understand as much so please forgive me, but from working with children, they are in fact talkative unless they are fearful. they are naturally curious about things and will tend to ask multiple questions to many different people, especially strangers. i would suggest coming up with a solid plan with your wife so as you ease further into the treatment and signs becoming much more noticeable, your able to explain terms a 7 year old would understand but not give them to much information that would prove detrimental so to speak. as he gets older, use more age appropriate terms until he reaches an age where is becomes necessary to tell exactly what you meant by the terms. in a sense, dont lie but dont exactly tell the full truth

[LizMarie]

My adult sons have denied me access to some of my grandchildren (14, 5 and 5 months) because they don't want me to "influence" their kids. In reality, they have other goals, mainly to punish me and feeding their own transphobia.

But fortunately, I've been allowed to be involved, as I've transitioned, with the 5 year old of a very close pair of friends. Their little boy is very aware that Liz is sometimes David and is sometimes Liz. And it doesn't bother him in the least. Why? Because they accept it as a non-issue and he took his cues from them.

If your wife is fine with you as yourself, I'd urge you to consider going ahead and being yourself in front of your child as well. But this is honestly a recommendation from afar. Only you can adequately evaluate the pros and cons of coming out to your child. All that we can do is be supportive and perhaps provide personal anecdotal examples of how it worked out for each of us, one way or the other.

[Jessica Merriman]

Kids are amazingly resilient because they have not pre formed opinions. 

It's usually adults who have issue's.

[FilaFord]

My therapist told me that I don't really need to tell my son anything but the truth which coincides nicely to how I have always parented.  Granted, my son is only 4, but I have never lied to him and I don't intend to start now.    My wife, however, thinks that we need to sit him down and have a talk.  She also thinks that I have "->-bleeped-<--cooties" that will be spread to him because he will grow up wanting to become a woman "just like daddy".  Seriously, why could I never see why I repressed this so much?!

I think that since he is prepubescent that it would be in his best interests to just live life.  Daddy is becoming a girl, but I don't need to explain it to him at such an early age.  He can ask anything he wants and I will give him an honest age-appropriate answer.  He doesn't need to understand it yet, but he will get an honest answer to anything he asks. 

[Felix]

In my experience, children have way fewer problems with our identities than adults do. Kids usually take who you say you are at face value. They are more likely than adults to cluelessly ask questions that might hurt feelings, but they do it out of a genuine curiosity and they believe the answers. They accept it and move on pretty quickly. It's grownups who are dysfunctional about this stuff.

It would be all rainbows and kumbaya if the actual question was how your transition will affect your child. Any "confusion" or other troubles your kid faces regarding your transition are going to mostly involve other family members and their opinions. I don't know what I would do in your situation. Courts deny custody and visitation over this all the time. I know your family is intact, but it's an indicator of where we are culturally right now and what kind of mindset you might face.

I agree that you can't ask your child to keep secrets. That's almost rule number one with any kid. You have to figure out a way to navigate the fact that almost nobody is going to keep secrets. Even adults are really bad at it. Gossip gets around fast.

With my kid, I just try to be ready for anything. Sometimes she tells people and sometimes she doesn't, but I don't want her to pick up on any feelings of shame if it does become an issue. I try to (as simply as possible) give her a framework for who I am that is easy to understand. I explain that my situation overlaps with more common things like being gay or having a minor medical problem. It's usually easiest to talk about it in terms of civil rights. To a child, public reaction to trans identities looks a lot like any other kind of segregation or bullying.

Being disowned is a disturbingly normal part of transition. I don't know what to say about that. Maybe you could go on pubmed or get some PFLAG materials to explain how serious this is? I think some of the lukewarm support from those who do stick around is because they don't understand that this is a real condition that is well-documented and that treatment for it is standardized and evidence based.

[Bombadil]

wow. you have a hard situation. Children really do accept this stuff very well. If your wife parents weren't an issue I would say tell him, but telling and asking him to keep it a secret is very difficult and painful for a child.

I will say this, that if you don't tell he will come up with his own explanations for your changes. And kid logic is a magical and bizarre thing. So if you aren't going to tell him, you have to find some way to make it really open and possible for him to ask questions.

[Corvid1692]

I have introduced my son to the concept of ->-bleeped-<- by having him watch the Ryland Whittington video, since he's about the same age, and it might be more interesting or relateable to him hearing it about kids. We're putting off telling him specifically, since you can't undo that. I don't like it, because he could handle it and deserves to know, but we have to be very very careful about how we approach it with the inlaws so as to have the smallest possibility of burning bridges.