As parents it is our job to love our children until the end of time, no matter what they identify as. Although, sadly, not all parents take that to heart, the ones who do are sure to have long lasting, loving relationships with their young ones.
That doesn't mean it can't get complicated, though. One mother says she recently learned her 11-year-old daughter identifies as bisexual, and although that doesn't bother her, the way her daughter is handling her newly cemented identity has created a few concerns.
"So I want to start this by saying I have no problems with any sexualities and how people or my children identify themselves," the mom begins.
"About a month ago, our 11 year old started identifying as a bi-sexual," the mom explained in her post on Reddit. "Not to us as such, but to her friends and was really making a bold statement about it telling everyone over their chat groups."
She went on to say that she wasn't bothered in the slightest that her daughter didn't come out directly to her, as she often told her daughter that she didn't have to make any outward statements to them abut who she is.
"One day she will bring home a girl or a boy and we will welcome them and sit down with them and have a chat irrelevant of gender."
Her sexual identity only became an "issue" when she realized she was interested in one of her closest friends and asked to be girlfriends.
Earlier in the year, that the two had gone through a "boyfriends" phase where everyone was "dating," the mom explained. She mentioned that again, regardless of gender, she though they were all too young to be stressing out about dating but didn't want to invalidate her daughter's feelings.
Regardless, the friend informed her daughter that she was straight and not interested, and this is where things got messy.
"This didn't go down well and my daughter started to some extent manipulating the situation," the mom wrote. "First telling the girl to consider and pushing her, and then asked her if they can try for a week (mind you we were in lockdown) and see how she feels. When this didn't work she asked another friend to talk to this girl and tell her how unfair she was being how she made my daughter sad."
At this point, the parents intervened and had a talk with her.
"We explained that while we have absolutely no problem with her identifying as whoever she wants, she cannot force people or manipulate them into being in a relationship with her irrelevant of gender," the mom wrote. "This she has understood and since then everything calmed down."
Three weeks later and with the slight easing of lockdown, however, this girl's mother invited her daughter over for a small pool party on the roof.
The mom explained that she has several concerns about this.
"I am very sure this girl's mother doesn't know about the situation above, and I don't want this to spill over while I won't be there and not sure how another parent would react. My second issue is if I believe my daughter's feelings are true and don't want to dismiss them, so the best solution is to not see this girl until she has put her feelings aside. On the other hand though telling her I don't want her to go might send the signal to my daughter that I'm only doing this because she said she is bi."
Now the mom isn't sure what to do to get her and her daughter out of this situation unscathed.
People were empathetic toward the mom's situation, but ultimately had one question:
"What does the girl think of your daughter now? She might be uncomfortable with your daughter after the manipulation & not want to spend time with your daughter," commented one concerned person. "Did she invite your daughter or did her parents? Personally I could care less what a persons sexual orientation is, but if a friend tried to pressure me into a relationship, I likely wouldn’t be friends with that person anymore."
The mom responded that this was also something she was worried about.
"Exactly my thoughts," she responded. "The girl I am aware they still speak on the chat but I can't be a judge of how comfortable this girl is around my daughter. As you said I know I wouldn't be. No the invitations came from her mother to myself. So I think it's the parents who invited her."
Others thought the mom might want to dig a little deeper with her own child.
"What you need to do is talk to her about having healthy relationships," advised one reader. "She needs to understand that being pushy isn't okay, you can't force someone to like or date you, and that a relationship is something both have to be comfortable with.
"Talk to your daughter about the fact that you think it only hurts her more if she continues hanging out with that friend right now, and help her come to terms with and get over the rejection," the person continued. "It's a difficult thing to come to terms with, even for some adults, and she needs emotional support from you. Be there for her, talk to her about it, show her empathy, let her cry if she has to, hug her, show her you care."
Couldn't have said it better ourselves.
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