OutCasting; Hopes and expectations, altered (Part 1 of 2)

set before you have children you may have some expectations about what you expect in how you want to be as a parent and then you realize that once you have children and things are one never going to be quite true like you expect the predominant feeling in our holy was the desire for them to have sort of self actualize the people that they wanted to be given that freedom to grow as as people tend to experience the world and they're a unique ways this is al kasim public radio's lgbt youth program we don't have to be queer to be here how casting is a production of media for the public that the listener supported independent producer based in new york online apple casting media dot org hi i'm lucas a lot of parents assume that the children are heterosexual and sister and many making you'd be quite awful if he were from the moon a child is born many parents make all kinds of assumptions about what the

child's life will look like many of these assumptions are basing our expectations and stereotypes the faulty assumption that the child will be heterosexual is his gender parents might envision their daughter walking down the aisle and a wedding dress marrying a man from the distant future tense meeting about how proud to be in that moment and how they'll know they've been successful in raising their child but when a child is gay lesbian bisexual transgender or gender non conforming or otherwise a member of a sexual or gender minorities those assumptions may be challenged and a lot of people might feel that if their child doesn't fit those expectations speaks negatively about their parenting abilities ultimately it's rooted in the idea that being lgbt q or having lgbt q children is a bad thing or at least not as good as having straight says gender children this can be very damaging memo was an outcast in youth bridges and during their high school years they spoke on an edition of outcasts in overtime about how after coming out their mother went through all the stages of grief except except it's called a

psychiatrist told emma it's just a phase and functionally for senate back into the closet shutting down a big part of them as identity and they can get worse than that some parents actually disown their children when they funded the lgbt q the implications of family rejection for lgbt q u for alarm according to the human rights campaign to be good to you for more than twice as likely to be homeless is heterosexual says stronger youth the trevor project reports that lesbian gay and bisexual youth are almost five times as likely as heterosexual used to have attempted suicide family rejection makes a lesbian gay or bisexual percent more than the times as likely to attempt suicide the suicide rate is even higher for transgender people with forty percent of transgender adults reporting having attempted suicide the vast majority when they were under twenty five but it doesn't have to be that way how much better world we could have his parents did what all parents should do just love their children whether those children are straight consist gender

or lgbt q on this edition of out casting we begin a conversation with jimmy and jerry goodin of new york both of them now grown children jesse and sarah per day for them has been wonderful this is the first part of the series i mean jerry dement thank you for drinks it's a pleasure and happy to be here so tell us wonder about ourselves i was a social worker in the clocks and school system for twenty five to thirty years i've always loved working with children and one my favorite things about my job is that i got to work with children of all ages and particularly children in the gay straight alliance because i was the co adviser to the gay straight alliance both jerry and i have always been interested in social causes than where involved in a lot of activists causes that's always been the case more now more so than ever i taught in the south bronx for thirty six years

and i really really enjoyed that work at the end of my career i've got to be the school counselor at the harvey milk high school for student opened which was in some ways the pinnacle of my career or getting a chance to work in the only public high school for the lgbt community in the entire country today we're here to talk about your children who are both gay and had interesting coming out experiences so many people consider having a child as one of the most important moments in their life how did he feel when you and you have your first child although i love children and my entire career has been working with children i think when i found out i was having my first child why didn't know was going to be jesse i think when my first motions was being a little bit scared which is interesting because i was working with children at the time and as i said you always loved them but i never babysat as a young person growing up so many girls you know who babysat some of my friends had younger siblings or

younger cousins that they took care of i was never in that a group of people never die pretty baby never took care of a baby at the time i don't think any of the week jared island to manhattan none of our friends had children those kind of interesting lee a strange world for me and when i tried to look back because remember were going back many years and i have to tap into feelings about it i think the predominant motion was to be a little scared so there i was taking the graduate record exam nyu knowing the enemy was at the planned parenthood taking the test to see if she was pregnant i probably would you could have done a little bit better on the exam cause i was like i just want to finish so that i could make a phone call back in those days there were no cell phones so i found a phone booth at nyu and called home to find out that germany's pregnant i remember by the dominant emotion being excited also

sort of sprinkled with third a good amount of fear and they have to say that the thought of having a child in some ways as it was exhilarating and exciting also was so my company to the last person whom i had good enough person to take on this responsibility as a parent never really thinking what if the child listeners why is the sky blue and i don't have an answer for it i need to start doing more research so both you mentioned that you had that fear and that worry about being enough and not be able to teach a child the gripping as these are jerry what kind of things are you afraid of what his emotions not be able to adequately teach them and help them grow up but like what other kind of things it was not like a feeling like i wouldn't be able to do this or that it was more like a general feeling of well i'd be

up for the test i was excited and that the predominant feeling that was a positive one but he was also you know realizing that this is a very big bear responsibility so i know a lot of parents when they find out that they're going to have a child's they start to play in their children's lives in their head or they'll still make investments or though by certain things do you remember any specifics of the things you thought that you checked your children may be i grew up in a household that was i'm going to say very rich and culture and i always said i didn't grow up in a household with a lot of money but i never felt like i was deprived and i think i grew up in the european household mostly a pack that flavor of my mother was from hungary my father from poland my grandmother lived with us and they spoke on gary into each other so i grew up in a very very bad feeling of european household and culture is very very important in that world and i grew up in a household in a

very big readers and very big art lovers and very big lovers of the theater and so when i think about why what i wanted for my children i think i wanted them to have a world that was rich in culture and books always meant an enormous amount to my family so we have a lot of books for children the other thing is i always read poetry to my children as a matter fact i just had a flash of a memory of my father holding jesse and walking around with him and in our house there were paintings all over the wall of fir from the sistine chapel and from italy and five and he would walk around when he was a baby showing him the pictures and telling him where they were from that this is a michelangelo this is so that's my predominant feeling that so much of oh you're going to be a doctor i wanted to be a lawyer more i wanted a culture because i know very specific stories of parents kind of even before having their children prepping make specific fields into going too far in even as with the young

children like putting them for college and it seems very much you personally to not be like that i don't think that was part of our feelings or a life at all having that kind of professional expectation that it definitely was not a part of it and the thing that stands out is a rich life is a life of somebody who is a reader is a lover of poetry is a lover of the arts i think that's what was the predominant feeling so you question a lot of like i think he said like intellectual expeditions johnny make social expectations for children child at the time that's a very good question or not only social but like who they'd gut feelings of who they would be cause your jobs not all you'd be your agent i have to say before you have children you know he may have

some expectations about what do you expect in hell you want to be as a parent and then you realize that once you have children things are never going to be quite true what you expect so i think very early on we begin to realize that you know neither one of us really we were going to drive our children to be lawyers or doctors or athletes if they didn't want to be athletes but i think that the predominant feeling in our side from the cultural piece that we just spoke about was the desire for them to sort of say self actualize into people that they wanted to be to give them that freedom to grow as as people and to experience the world in their own unique ways and it turned out that they were both have rather

unique so i wanted some things a memory just came to me over the kids are very strong personalities and that something parents don't know what their child is going to be like and what the temperament is monday i don't think that we could have made either one of our children do anything that day didn't want to do and i have a memory of jesse when he was three years old we were sitting in the car and he said to me very passionately i wish i were a grown up and i said really why do you feel that way and then he said because then i could do exactly what i want to do and nobody could tell me what to do and i have to say in our family as the story goes it's been that if they ever since since he was four years older and sorcery or trial he was not always isn't he he was in some ways a demanding child and there was a time that he was a college ian didn't sleep much so we didn't sleep much so that was matt so using but he was always and

amazingly interesting characters have so we were never born and he is someone and you can actually sorry grew into himself he said he wanted to be a grown up he became the most fabulous grownup we couldn't have written a better sun them are dangerous back then before you had children what we're views of the lgbt q community because i know is a different time and you two are both strong advocates and strong activists but back then and i know it's it was a different time but do you remember anything about your payments will you know i was giving some thought and i have to say i feel it to my shame maybe i don't think i thought about the lgbt community i think one of the reasons was that that shows i think how deeply people in the closet it wasn't something that was in it in the back of my mind or the forefront of my mind really have to say amen if i would be you know being completely honest i don't think i

thought about it and i think that's really strange considering i once they do that at the time jerry and i had best friends they were a lesbian couple and they were best friends and we never find anything about the struggles that they were going through they didn't speak about anything but it's as if their life existed kind of in a vacuum i don't think we've narrowed life existed in any way connected to social issues or anything going on in the world and i just want to add to that that my mother was a teacher at the time and there were a number of gay man working in the school that she worked and she was very friendly with and she was very close to them and once again it was almost as if this was all separate from anything real going on and i think that when i think about that and really it kind of amazes me so that were negative views from affecting we were accepting but there weren't any views and in a

real way of saying what does this community have to deal with so we moved to riverdale this last year in the bronx and this is where we lived when we were first together we lived on the upper west side and then when i was pregnant with jesse we moved to riverdale during this time we have disproportionately said they were bored closest couple friends and to about two years ago i looked to one of them up still have the address in riverdale and i called and left a message on her phone was almost like a feeling of wanting to re connect but also in a way making amends as we knew when we were in our twenties we have now been lgbt activists and i mean you know not just the local but on the state level for over twenty years and i want to

apologize for not understanding which you must have been going through he didn't we didn't get a response but we wouldn't have to if we have to this is outcasts in public radio's lgbt q youth program produced by media for the public good in new york online outcast media dot org on this edition how casting youth bridges and how it's starting with many and jerry goodman of new york both of many and jerry's grown children are day when you have jesse was it a difficult transition to go from not having a child to suddenly having a child i would say it was a new runways and we have not been married all that long to know a year and a half before a dangerously and we need to be needed to figure out roles that day we didn't need to figure out before jesse was born i mean for

example many he needed at that time or sleep than i did so would just he was collared union would get up so i was doing and who would do that and dual roles you know in terms of changing diapers and these different things that the museum toward me how to be a feminist i think that's the way to put it and then she basically guided me in a direction that helped me a lot and mark singer was perfect in terms of sharing the responsibilities and bring up a child together i think it was a very big transition and one of things i mentioned previously was napping in a world of people had children and being in a world of people have children already that's a very big support so i felt like it was a little bit isolated because i wasn't in a world of mothers and

babies but when i look back i do sometimes wonder because just was a child who cried aloud was very i think what we get to the age of going to one into already were very much wanting to be a grownup so he never wanted to miss out on anything which meant he did not like to go to sleep you did not like a bad time because you might be missing out on something really exciting that that grown up world is doing this isn't just an interesting thing i want to throw out there that i don't have this an answer to a danger and i've talked about it which is i always wondered because i think children know at a very very early age right there different in some way i think that even two and three year olds can have maybe an unspoken tension when they working at night in a conscious way that you're not part of the straight world and i always wondered and again this is a lot of dissonance and i always wondered if that figured into it and i know this inborn

temperament but also having sort of attention of maybe not being exactly like the other little boys and i think there always resisted manifest cuts are something i've always wondered about because it felt like he was a very there was a tension about him and when i did finally meet the mothers who have children and he wasn't quite like their babies in their little children before bedtime and if we're just silly game would never end one of the games we play don't know if you're familiar with the hungry hungry hippo yes yes so we would play the hungry hungry hippo game and we replayed over and over and over again and as he said one more time one more time so we developed the hungry chabot song march to bed which was hungry hungry hippo hungry hungry hippo and i would lead many and jesse and

we would head up to the better when he got a little older and started developing his own personality and acidity it didn't have a personality but starting becoming himself what kind of kid was he how did that manifest in ways other than not when to sleep and when to be a journey i think that he was a much happier as he got older because i think then he could expand some of that energy that a tremendous energy you know as you get older and you can make more decisions about life the older you get you get more freedom you make more decisions you reach an age where you can now we're getting jumping to the teenage years i realize but when you reach the teenage years very often you have a car or your friends have a car you have mobility i would say that and the more freedom he got because i was always a very very big driving forces you know reading it with him i think that he became happier and you'll find this interesting because when he got a little bit older he became in high school became very

interested in interviewing people as you're doing and he actually called up some very famous people out of the blue and i actually got interviews with some people who are fairly well known because in that energy which is so wonderful about and this fantastic energy he just doesn't give up and now i think he's one of his predominant treats is feeling like that he is equal to everybody and everyone is equal to him and one of the things we say in our household is that he could have dinner with the queen of england then he would feel in a very nice way that she's lucky to have dinner with him and he's lucky to have dinner with her and it's a i don't know we get that from an awning jerry i feel this like ferguson incredible trade isn't it because it's even about equality because it's not that he feels he's above anyone we never worried about it being so bold and confident but what did you think you would grow up to be like

he's seen as a little person as individuals earning one and gold really has moved from early childhood to fifteen years but i would quickly can go back and just leave bit to give you an idea of how things changed when we moved from riverdale to greenberg in westchester to any condominium development which is he had more freedom and with that freedom even at each five he was already becoming an easier person to be with because he had more freedom and one one story and it had a cousin who it was a vice president of keyboard clicking company and he came to visit and for jesse a gift and a tertiary carries like a

business a tertiary care is filled with copies of an awesome jessica disappeared he came back an hour later with that cash in case there was empty and about fifteen dollars he had gone door to door selling cookies so that sounds like he might be an entrepreneur but i never thought that he would go into business and go into the business field i don't think we were sure where it which direction he would go and i think we knew it would be filled with energy and throw themselves into whatever direction he went into seven years later exactly seven years after his for an exact same day you had your daughter sarah what was it like to have a household with a little girl after seven years of raising a very bold very little boy we were very very thoroughly and

she probably on the surface was as opposite personality on the surface as jesse could be because she very interesting right and again this goes to her children show they are at a very very early age she almost never cried and the reason baby's cries to bring the adult to them for their needs so there was something almost very bizarre for us we would not use that she hardly ever cried and sometimes you wouldn't hear from her for hours and we would start going sneaking into the room and creed not to wake and she would be a weight on her back and she would be looking at her hands in the air as a baby and interesting ways she is an artist and i think hillary really showed something because what she was looking at was sort of pattern sand and shapes in the way her hand was moving so in many ways her energy level she's a very rich inner life and jesse had a very rich outer life so we're talking about a loss and damage at opposite it was a much more peaceful and

calm with her family in the early years sometimes he's talking about her looking at her hands but she was very flexible and sometimes she was actually looking at your toes at how did this change the household i think you said there are diametrically opposed in personality and in like energy to day you argue went when she grew up a little more than they get along well and jesse but willa me backtrack again summon all my friends said to me oh don't have that baby and jesse's birth they don't do that as if i had control since he's been the lone the master of the house for seven years and we said of course i'm not going to have this baby on your birthday but i did it because you can't control that it was not with a thought he was thrilled about any heat he was really excited and he has always been very extremely protective of her very loving and

very extraordinarily proud of her i think maybe she just i don't really touches something in him he's very very very good to her as i would not say on his part that was typical sibling rivalry i think probably jury would agree if rivalry came from somewhere which was a surprise hit moore came from sarah is a hard act to follow but you know what she is she is her own act a different way he worries some ways seven years of poor brother in a second there's got to be good for this has been such a great conversation that will continue next to libya jankovic thank you so much and thank you very much enjoyed meeting you and having this interview you've done a wonderful job of the word thank you for a much that's it for this edition about casting public radio's lgbt q youth

program where you don't have to be queer to be here this program has been produced by the atrocity including you've purchased guns alex and drew dante truth probably lucas our executive producer is much of this podcast is a production of media for the public to listener supported independent producer based in new york more information about podcasting is available live broadcast media dot org you'll find information about the show the ceilings for all out casting episodes of the podcast world of casting is also on social media connect with us on facebook twitter instagram tumblr youtube how cas media if you're having trouble whether its at home or at the school or just with yourself called the trevor project hotline at eight six six forty seven three six visit them on life of the trevor project on the trevor project is an organization dedicated to lgbt youth suicide prevention call them if you have the problem seriously don't even have

an online chat being different isn't a reason to hate for her so again the numbers eight six six forty eight seven three eight cents you can also find a link on our site of kesten you get dot org an outcast lgbt q resources i'm lucas thanks for listening