Parenting a Gay Son When You Thought You Were Prepared: An Honest Conversation With Author Anna McArthur

Have you ever thought you were fully prepared for your child to come out, only to realize in the moment that fear took over? That's where today's conversation begins. My guest Anna McArthur and I discovered that we share not just similar parenting journeys, but also surprising parallels in how we navigated shock, love, and learning. In this episode, you'll hear the real unpolished stories of parenting through the unexpected, why environment and community matter from rural towns to affirming cities, and how vulnerability and reaching out can transform isolation into connection. So let's get into it. Welcome to More Human, More Kind, the podcast helping parents of LGBTQ+ kids move from fear to fierce allyship and feel less alone and more informed so you can protect what matters, raise brave kids, and spark collective change. I'm Heather Hester.

Let's get started. It's very exciting. Welcome back to More Human, More Kind. I am delighted that you are joining us today. I have just the most wonderful guest today, and I'm really, really excited to have this conversation with her. With you and to share some of the things that we have in common that we've just realized that I think are so, so much fun. And actually a couple of these are reasons that you reached out to me. So I wanna welcome, first of all, welcome Anna McArthur to the show. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.

So Anna and I have a couple of really, really cool connections, and the first is that we both have sons who came out in ways that either were shocking or blindsided us or we weren't prepared for or we didn't see. And so we are having some bonding moments over that, and we will be talking about that today. And I'm so excited. The second, which might be the most exciting, is that we both have kids who went to Michigan, which is pretty darn cool for all Michigan fans out there. First of all, go blue. Oh my gosh. I literally, my heart was like, I'm so excited.

Yes. Yes.

We are so excited.

Yes.

And then the third is that your first book was just published recently as well, and it is a very similar topic to mine. So I think we have some parts that are parallel and parts that cross over. So I'm really looking forward to talking about that with you as well today. So why don't we just start out with talking about your journey as a mom having a son come out to you as gay in rural Georgia.

Right. So my second child, Caleb, came out, he was 15. And it wasn't so much a coming out as it wasn't a smooth rollout. It was more just a very bumpy road with no point person. It is not the coming out he would have wanted. It's not what I would have wanted for him, um, our phones clouded and I accidentally started seeing stuff on my phone that at first I could justify, um, and be like, well, maybe that's just how 15-year-old boys talk to each other. I don't know. And then eventually I had to kind of face what was right in front of me. And so that part made it really tricky because it wasn't well thought out on any side. Um, I say that I would have done a better job if he had been 25 instead of 15. I don't know if that's true, but we were already a little fraught because he was 15 and that's when you push for independence. He was a theater kid. He still is. He's out working now as a theater kid. And so in some ways it wasn't totally shocking, but I think the way I found out and the way it unrolled. Was. And I, I write about this in the book and I've, you know, shared some of this with you too. I come from a progressive Christian background. And so I would have thought that I would have handled it better because I have been advocating for gay ordination, for same-sex marriage. But when it was my kid, I was really afraid. I let fear be the boss of me. Is what happened.

Well, it's easy to do that.

Yes.

Because all of it becomes very, very personal. And I think we aren't prepared for the flood of what-ifs that come in when it's your kid. Right. So with that, kind of on that line of thinking, not that you have had like another experience in another geographic region, but do you think being specifically in a rural area, in a rural area in the South, had any effect on his coming out, on just kind of generally the way that you were worried or that you were viewing him being gay?

At the time, I didn't think so. We're pretty near a college town, and I thought we were in about as good a spot as we could hope for. But once he went to college, I saw him become more authentic. And I saw the hypervigilance lessen. So when he went to Ann Arbor and I went to visit for the first time, as we were walking around, you know, there were rainbow flags in front of all of the churches, including the Baptist church. And I just remember having this sense of, oh, he doesn't have to wonder every room that he goes into how he's going to be accepted, whether it's safe as a town. Ann Arbor is known for being safe in that way and has a long history. And it— I was so happy for him, but I also was mildly devastated that he needed to leave us in order to find that. And it was us regionally. And also just, he found his people so quickly, which is what you want for your kids, right? But it wasn't Eros. It wasn't Eros.

Yeah. And that is equal parts heartbreaking.

Yes.

And it also takes your anxiety down about 10 notches when you see that, maybe more. I remember thinking the same thing when Connor, very similarly, did not— he was 16 when he came out, did not find his people, people, until he got to college in New York City, which traditionally one might be worried about sending their child off to New York City, I actually was like, okay, this is like, at least if nothing else, nobody's going to look at him and think, oh, he's different. Right. Because nobody looks at each other.

Right.

I mean, and there's just like this general acceptance for all. And so I totally get that. And I think too, to your point of when you realize the hypervigilance, when you realize what they've been doing. And I think that was one of the harder things too for me at the beginning because when Connor came out, you know, soon after we knew that he had known since he was in 7th grade. So there were all these years where he was not saying a word about it, but really kind of watching his surroundings. And beginning to wrap my head around that, oh my gosh, like, like you said, every room he walked into, he was watching for body language. He was watching for any sign of either danger or acceptance. And I think that is such a difficult thing as a parent. And even parents who are, like you said, always progressive and accepting and advocating for others, You know, even though for us it was a huge shock in a lot of ways, it was right away we were like, okay, let's go. But then there's so much you have to learn that you don't realize that you don't know.

Right. Right. Yeah. And I, I, I knew that as a family we were already going to be very interesting because we adopted African-American twin girls as infants. And so already we kind of were, were building a family that was really interesting. And then we added in this with Caleb and. I did have this sense of, oh my gosh, like we, I'm going to need to learn new things for every kid. And gosh, are we going to, are we going to find our people as a family or are we too much? Are we just too much? And we have, we have, we're not for everyone. We're not, we're not for everyone, but that's okay.

That is okay. I think that that is, neither are we. I mean, right. And that's how we find each other. You find your people, and it maybe is a little bit more challenging, but I would— I mean, 1,000 times. Right. Right?

Right. Because then you have real relationships and connections.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. And I think those moments— and I'd love to hear more about it because I think for you, it definitely— you weren't just trying to navigate how having a gay son, understanding the LGBTQ community, but you were also watching always, probably from the time you adopted your daughters, race, right? Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Yes, I think, I think there's a similar process of scanning a room for not just what might be safe, but also who is fully accepted and affirmed as opposed to just tolerated. So I noticed that especially with the twins, like it matters to me not only if there's other African American people in, in the room in a gathering, but also who, who has the microphone, who is speaking, who is leading. And I noticed that also with, with Caleb, I, I pay attention a little bit more to, um, there's a difference between just being tolerated and being affirmed. And I, I look for the affirmation less now because he's out on his own and he has found it. But when, when he was younger and then still with the twins, cause they're still at home, I have a pretty keen eye, I think, for, for the environments that we're in.

You've, you've been doing it a while, right? Right. So you've, you've really learned and it's become kind of second nature. I'm sure something that you don't even realize. Right, that you're doing until maybe something like strikes you as, ooh, I need to keep an eye on that, or maybe ask some more questions over here.

And I think with both situations, and probably just parenting in general, it's really helpful to go into a room and say, I don't know what I'm doing. I need some help. I mean, that, that works for me.

Yes.

It has helped me with the twins trying to get their hair done in a way that makes them presentable because I was messing it up. And it has helped when Caleb came out. I reached out to people I hadn't talked to since high school probably and just said, hey, this is what's going on in my family. Any suggestions? I am really open to— and I called some people out of the blue, um, and found them on Facebook and everybody was so gracious and wanted to help. Because, you know, I'm 52. And so the folks that I knew that were gay in high school or even through college, that wasn't just a part of their identity. That at that time, it, it was time to call a press conference almost. It was, that was it.

Yeah.

I noticed with my son, he did not want that to be. When you talked in your book, I have your book, about, about your synthesis. I had to follow his lead on that. I thought it was his identity. I thought we needed to lead with that. And, and it's a part of who he is, may not even be the most interesting part to him. And it, it was something he had integrated before I did.

Yeah.

Yes.

I think that's very interesting. I, like you, when I learned about that, I think learning about the coming out process as a process. Was probably way more helpful for me than it was for Connor, but it helped me really understand where he had been because so much of it was before we even knew and before really any parent knows. There's so much of that that already happens. Excuse me. And, but then understanding like, oh, this is where we are and, and this is where we're going and this is kind of what we are, what we want. And I think too, just understanding like, oh gosh, yeah, of course we don't want that to be his entire identity. Right. That's just one beautiful part of, of who he is. Just like me being straight, right?

Right.

That's not my whole identity. Right.

Right.

And that's, I think, the easiest way to explain it to people who may not understand, right? Like, you didn't choose to be straight, right?

Right.

And being straight isn't who you are.

Right.

It's just a part of it. So I think that kind of helps put things into perspective a little bit and takes away some of that scariness, takes away that fear.

Right. And probably helps parents, at least for me, figure out what is appropriate to share and to navigate publicly and what I need to work through with a therapist. I mean, if I'm not going to call a press conference to talk about my straight child's sexual identity, then why, why would I think that we've got to get the word out? You know, we didn't have to get the word out. It's something I'm still trying to kind of figure out how I could have done that better.

Wow. We could probably write entire books on the things that we did not do well and would like to have done better still daily. Um, I think about that so often.

I can tell you one thing that I had to like—

please do, because something you said struck me and I was like, yes, go ahead.

So I had to kind of, I mean, this is so silly, but I had to practice saying my son's boyfriend. I would practice it so that I would say when I went, they were going to homecoming and I need to order 2 boutonnieres and I knew it was going to be a thing. And I would say it's for my son and my son's boyfriend, or just in conversation with extended family. Caleb's boyfriend is now, I don't even think about it. I get super attached to everyone he's dating and then they're gone.

And I'm like, right?

Where's my friend? You'd be like, they aren't really your friend, mama. Yeah. But I mean, that's, I just tend to get attached to these awesome guys and then they're young, so they're not here forever.

They aren't. I know, but I, I too, um, I empathize with you because Connor's first, like, really serious boyfriend in New York, they dated for a couple of years. And when they broke up, I cried. I was devastated.

I was like, I think it was probably worse for me than it was for the two of them. But I was like, But no, but I love him. And he's like, oh my gosh, right?

You need to get a grip, woman. Um, that is so funny.

Okay.

I would love to talk about your book and I'm so excited, um, because it really is more, a little more broad in talking about, um, just any, all moms, right? This is a book for moms who have hit a speed bump or have been thrown a curveball. And so I'd love for you to talk about Hopes for Moms, why you wrote it and what you really want moms to take away from it.

I, I wrote it mostly because I've been blogging for about 7 years and I felt like there were things I wanted to talk about that could not be covered in a blog post without being this interpreted or not given a full, fair appraisal, especially about race and about LGBTQ youth and about learning disabilities that we've also dealt with. So I think my, my main reason for writing the book was I just have a heart for moms, especially who feel alone, and I wanted to let moms know that they are not alone. And they don't have— they won't have the same things that I have, different things with their kids, but anything that makes a mom look around and feel like everybody else has got this figured out. Um, I think just in the age of social media and most of us living away from families, I just think moms are really isolated. And instead of reaching out, sometimes we just kind of fold in and try to figure out what's, what's wrong with our family, or we feel really protective. And so we don't want to just blast their news out there, which is fair. It's not all our story, but I wanted to write to moms who were feeling overwhelmed, who loved their kids and wanted to figure out how to be a little tougher. I mean, that's my subtitle. It's Hope for Moms. It's Tough Out There, But So Are You, because I haven't always felt tough enough for the things that have come our way, but I've grown into it. I've had to, right? I mean, we, these are not the things that people talk about at baby showers because what would we do about it then? You know, I mean, we, we don't need this information then, but when we need it, I have found that it's other moms that have guided me and carried me.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness. One hand. I think that this will be such a beautiful and valuable tool for moms because it does allow space for seeing yourself. In it and thinking, okay, I can do this. I'm not alone, right? Here are some steps over here. I can do this. And that is for any mom who has not had the, you know, I don't know any mom who has had a super easy time, right? I mean, I think that's like a thing that doesn't exist. It's a unicorn. Right. But for, for all the moms who are like, I just, I either feel alone, I feel frustrated, I feel like I don't know what to do next.

Mm-hmm.

This is a beautiful, beautiful guidebook for them. So thank you. Thank you so much for writing it.

Yes.

I, I know that writing a book is a journey in and of itself.

Yes. Yes.

And one of the pieces too that I think came up from this and then from some other things that you've said is the importance of and learning to be vulnerable. So kind of to your point of reaching out to other moms, right, and asking or reaching out to your high school friends and saying, hey, my kid's gay, I need help, right? And being able to use that language, right, having the language available to you to be able to just say it. And I think you spoke so much truth into saying that phrase, my son's boyfriend.

That's—

that is hard, right? It didn't just roll off 100 times.

No. So I had to practice it. And I started the book with not accepting help when, when one of my kids was falling apart in a preschool parking lot, and I, I wouldn't let this other mom help me. And by the end of the book, I'm talking about how we reach out to others and help one another because my experience has been eventually we're going to need help. We're going to need to bring other people in. It just saves everybody a lot of time and grief if we just go ahead and just show our, show our hand and be like, this is what I've been dealt.

Um, right.

Right.

I could not agree with you more. And I, I know that one of the things that I've seen, and I don't think this is specific to where I am. I think that all moms everywhere come across the idea that moms need to be perfect, or perhaps, um, you know, I think there are going to be, you know, levels of judgment, right, anywhere you go, right? And so how do you navigate that and, um, And really kind of work through that and find like, okay, here are my people over here. These are the moms that are just, I can go to, they can come to me and this is good. And I think that is one of those pieces too. I don't know if you found this, but I certainly found that when Connor came out, that was a huge, I don't wanna say dividing line, but it was a time where I realized really who my people were. And who they weren't.

Right. And I, I, I write about this in the book too. I, people talk about having a whole big, you know, tribe to help a village, a tribe to help you raise your, your kids. And my group has gotten smaller. And I think that it feels counterintuitive, but it has to do with who do I fully trust to know everything that's going on in my family? And who do I know loves my kids? You know, so, because I think sometimes information can be exchanged and bartered and shared and with not as much care as we would like it to be when it's our own children. And so my group has gotten smaller, but fiercer. And I'll, I'll take that any day. I'll take it any day. And I think when you said, how do we navigate not being perfect and vulnerability. And I know for me, one thing that's really become important as my kids have gotten older, because I have two out in the working world and two that are 17, is I have a tendency to disappear into my kids. And sometimes that's appropriate because they really, sometimes they really do need you and you have to dive. You're the one who else is going to go to IEP meetings, but you, right? Um, I mean, my husband goes too, but we leave and he's like, wait, who was that? And I'm like, oh yeah.

Um, it's a whole, it's a different, so it's a thing and it's real.

It's real. And so the times that I've noticed that I've disappeared into my kids, if people ask me how I am and I can only answer how my kids are, that's not good for them. It's not good for me. And part of the reason that I know I have to tend to my own stuff and develop my own joys and identities is because that's a gift also to my kids that I'm not really relying only on them for my identity and my joy. It has to— that's my job. That's my job. Yeah.

I am so glad you said that because that is something that I have thought of often, um, in the past 5, 6, 7 years since I shifted into doing what I'm doing now. And I'm very aware of that exact thing that for all of those years when they were really little, when they were, you know, middle school, even the beginning of high school, I was just in, like, it was my 4 kids and me.

Yep.

And I was doing that exact thing. You asked me how I was. I couldn't answer that.

Right.

I, I was however my most unhappy child was. That's exactly how I was. Right. I mean, it's so true. And so I thought, and now I've been very aware and very Uh, just, I've done this with great care and great thought to build something and do something that my kids are aware of what I'm doing, that they can even be part of. They can kind of flow in and out of, and that they can see gives, like you said, gives me such great joy to do, or has me learning new things. And this is so exciting and I can share how exciting it is to be learning and growing and doing and all this stuff. And so I think that is to your point. Such an important thing that how funny that you don't, you know, I don't know. I didn't really think about it until I was at that point where I was like, oh wow. Yeah, I have completely, I don't really exist right now.

Right. Right.

Right. So it's just a weird place to find yourself as a mom, as a human being.

Right.

So I, Wonder if we could quickly— I want to talk about, I'm very curious about your work in the Presbyterian Church as an ordained minister, as a female ordained minister. And I'm wondering how much of that, if that was a very conscious thought for you to be a woman in that, in that space, and then talk a little bit about kind of how that's helped you or how that's been a guiding force in, um, your belief systems?

I think I grew up with female pastors. So the Presbyterian Church has been ordaining women since the 1950s or so, so it wasn't brand new. I wasn't the first generation, you know, going into that. It was— I was deciding when I came out of college, I was deciding between social work and ministry, and most of my career was in campus ministry. So at Ole Miss and University of Georgia, I was campus minister, which I love working with that age group, but My first call was in Oxford, Mississippi, and I was the only ordained woman of any denomination in that area. And, um, I had my first child, so I was also walking around pregnant.

Oh my goodness.

I was 26 or something.

Yeah.

I mean, it was wild, but I, I found it to be, um, I guess really empowering. It made it okay to be a little bit different and interesting, and I think I can draw a pretty direct line from that to adopting the twins. Sure. This sense of this is something I feel a tug towards. And there have just been a couple of things in my life that I have felt a tug and things that I have asked other people, especially like with adoption, saying, do you feel like this pull towards this and think about it all the time? And people would say, no, not at all. And it kind of helped me realize. That's something worth paying attention to. And seminary for me was that time. So I went straight from college. I loved the time of learning. We're still part of the Presbyterian Church USA. I'm not serving a church right now, but that's our, our family's tie. And I met my husband at a Presbyterian conference center and camp. So it's pretty deeply woven into our lives.

I love that. That's wonderful. I love that. Yes, I was very curious. Um, not knowing the denominations very well. And I mean, I grew up Methodist, but I was raised more Church of God. So certainly a lot more conservative. And so I've never been super well-versed on the different denominations and kind of the beliefs behind them. So that's super helpful. And I think just helpful for people to know, but I also, that through line I find is such a lovely gift when you realize that you have, I think we get, you know, many in our life if we pay attention and can follow them and connect with them. And so I love that you said that and, you know, had that realization pretty early on that you were like, hmm, this is something that I can see has great meaning and I just need to stay connected. To this and keep kind of what's the next step, right?

So, wow.

Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I'm wondering if there's anything else that you would like to share, if there's anything that's on your mind. I'd love to hear it.

So one of the things I listened to your podcast last week, we were just talking about this and, you know, about safety and traveling and, um, with LGBTQ youth and young adults. And how similarly we do, we've been doing that with race. And, you know, I talked about the rainbow flags in Ann Arbor and not that everywhere is flagged, but one thing, you know, with traveling through the South, people still put up Confederate flags and that is the opposite of seeing a rainbow flag. But at the same time, I'm kind of like, well, now we know not stopping there. I'm not going here. And it's just an interesting thing to try to teach your kids to navigate because we, we know kids leave. They, they grow up, they move to other places. And it is something that I worry about a lot with the twins and, um, what spaces are blatantly racist and what places are still racist, but it's confusing.

Right.

Um, and it, it's something as they're driving that we are handing over to them and, you know, trying to be less involved in all of their decisions. But when safety's involved, I thought of that with listening to your podcast. It's, it's different. I'm not just trying to be nosy. There's a safety element.

Right.

Right. Well, there is, and I think that is really important. And I wonder if there, um, is there anything different that you have found as you are teaching this to your daughters for them, you know, trying to teach them to be aware and to be safe, right? To have that in their mind. What are things that, or, or is there anything, you know, really specific that you have shared with them? Like do this or don't do this, look for this. Don't, you know, or i.e., a Confederate flag. Pretty strong sign that you don't stop, right?

Yeah, you don't stop. We had— teaching them to drive was entirely different than teaching our white kids to drive because of the element of how do you make sure you're safe if you are in a car accident or you get pulled over by the police. And I had to learn that from Black friends who had already talked to their kids younger than mine. This is how you act. Your hands have to be You have to— your hands have just so many things that we did not have to go over with our white kids. And that's one reason I'm very, very grateful within the LGBTQ+ community and within the Black community of people showing me things I didn't know and would not have seen coming.

Right.

You wanna get ahead of 'em before it's too late. And I, I wouldn't have— how would I have known that?

Right.

Or even had that register.

Right.

Right. I mean, I think that that's something that you do have to learn from others. I think, yes, I, there are so many things that I would never have known had I not learned from a friend who was gay or a friend who was trans or, um, you know, a friend who had been in the community for a long time. So I think, yes, that is such a, that is powerful. And I And as white people, I think that is something very important for us to understand whether we have African American kids or, you know, Asian kids or adopted of a different race, right? Whatever it may be.

Right.

Um, and just people in our lives, like how do we protect the people in our lives and recognize that we have the ability to do so? So I think that that is another perhaps layer to that, to that information and that learning how to keep your loved ones safe.

Right. So, and can I tell you one more thing? You can always edit out anything that I've said. Of course. So I was at a book signing on Saturday and, um, this young guy in his 20s came up to me. He was working there and he said, I just read your book. And I said, really? That you're not my usual audience. I mean, it's got Big Hope for Moms across the front, you know, and he said, well, well, I'm one of— I'm a gay son too. And I said, oh, well, those are the best kind because I only have a gay son. And he was so— he like had yelled it across this bookstore. And I thought, yes, for gay sons. Yes. Yes, for claiming that and for then afterwards wanted to talk to me about some of the things that his mom's things and it was just such a moment of generosity from him. He was so generous and I was so grateful.

I love that. And I think those are some of the best moments, right? Because when somebody shares so vulnerably and, and you offer that space, right? By writing that and being you, you offer that space. And I think that is such a gift. Oh my goodness. Those really are some of the best moments. I think about the conversations that I've had with people on this podcast that I never would have been able to have. Right? People that I never would have crossed paths with or most likely wouldn't have. And, um, just the lovely, beautiful, helpful, brilliant, right? Right. And so, oh my goodness, just so, so lovely. So thank you for sharing that. I will not be editing that out because I think those are one of those are some of the best, best pieces. So I am so grateful that you were here today and shared so vulnerably. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Of course, it is my great pleasure.

Today, Anna reminded us that parenting, especially parenting LGBTQ+ kids, rarely goes as scripted. But in the messiness, we also find meaning. Remember that real stories remind us that we're not alone in the fears or the steps. Creating safe and affirming spaces matters for our kids and for us. And vulnerability isn't weakness. It's how we build connection and strength. You do not have to do this perfectly. You just have to show up with love, curiosity, and courage. That's where healing and belonging begin. Thank you so much for showing up here today. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday, and all future interview episodes will drop as bonus episodes. So make sure that you subscribe so you don't miss any of them. Until next time, embrace the beauty in the messiness, and remember, you are not alone.