840: How Are You Not Seeing This?
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbearped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From WBEZChicago, it's This American Life. I'm Tobin Lowe and for Ira Glass. You may have heard of comedian Tignitaro, but if you're a gay person like me, you have really heard of Tignitaro. She is what I would call gay famous. Which makes the story of what happened to her so surprising. She and her wife, Stephanie, have two kids, twin boys. And after seven years of living in the same house with Stephanie and Tig, having their two moms tend to every meal and butt wipe, seven years of the boys telling their teachers and random whoever's that they have two moms. They're all in the car on the way to first grade one morning. Stephanie and I were just in the front seat talking and they were in the back seat talking like we always do. And then Stephanie said something about us being gay. And our son Finn leans forward and pokes his head between us and he says, "You're gay." We were like obviously just as shocked as he was. We were like, "Yeah." and he said, "What's gay?" And that was a whole other level of stunned, oh my gosh. How is this information only just now coming out? Tig's been with her wife for over a decade and as far as they knew, they've been gay for the entirety of their children's lives. But apparently it was news to Max and Finn. And I started to feel insecure thinking, "Oh my gosh. Here he's lived over seven years not knowing he had gay parents. What if he's upset now? What if he doesn't like his life or his family or he's disappointed in some way?" What's the first thing you say back to him when he asked that question? I was saying, "Okay, so gay is when a boy likes a boy or a girl likes a girl and that would be specific to being gay." And they were just like, "Oh, okay." Before Tig can say more, they're pulling up in front of the school. The car ride is only a couple of minutes long. And then the kids are running out of the car and Tig and our wife are left to wonder how their sons had possibly not seen something right in front of their faces. And we drove away maybe going half a mile an hour. We were so stunned. Stephanie and I glanced at each other like, "What in the hell just happened?" Do you have a moment after this comes out where you're like, "Oh no. What kind of parent am I that this hasn't been discussed? Is there like a part of your brain doing that?" Oh, a million percent. I mean, when there's any sort of moment, I was going to say moment like this but I don't know how many moments like this I've had. I mean, I did have a similar one when they were five and I was reading them a story before bed and Finn interrupted me and said, "They call me Mayor," which is for mother, French. And Finn said, "Mayor, are you a boy or a girl?" And that was when he was five and I just stopped and I laughed and I said, "Well, what do you think I am?"
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