[SPEAKER_00]: The queer family about guests Love is love is love on the queer family about guests Love is love is love from the queer family about guests Love is love is love on the queer family about guests Love is love is love on the queer family about guests Love is love
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were together, you know, my dad passed, he would be 96 now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 1930 was born and Kenneth's 88, but they were together over 50 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, which is pretty amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they did get married later, they moved to Palm Springs.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were 50%, you know, half the year in Palm Springs, which was awesome for them, and it was very gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: They got married, I think my dad was 88, finally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, yeah, yeah, they had the gay marriage, and it was beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome, y'all, to the queer family podcast, the show all about family, but with gay.
[SPEAKER_02]: This show that has been highlighting, celebrating, uplifting and normalizing LGBTQIA plus families.
[SPEAKER_02]: For 23 seasons and counting, y'all, yeah, you heard that right.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the first episode of our 23rd season, 23.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a lot of episodes of queer family goodness.
[SPEAKER_02]: And y'all, I cannot think of a better way to kick off this new season than with today's guest.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had the privilege of sitting down with Melissa Poss Blake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Melissa grew up with two dads in the 70s and 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: Long before it was a thing that was ever even talked about.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really interesting conversation and her story is beautiful and her story is truly, truly, truly, a testament to the fact that
[SPEAKER_02]: Our children don't need quote-unquote perfect families, nuclear families, what they really need is families where they feel deeply loved.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's exactly the kind of family that I think most of us are building.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think you're going to love this conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was some really wonderful insights in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very excited to roll that tape.
[SPEAKER_02]: But before I do, I do want to let you know
[SPEAKER_02]: I did cut a pretty good portion of this conversation towards the end because we got into what Melissa does for a living which is hipnotherapy and we got into healing and we got into parenting through hard seasons of life and everything that goes with the work she does which was a really riveting conversation but it didn't really fit you know the main theme of the episode which was queer family life, queer family goodness and being a child of gay dads.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I cut that out, but I'm keeping it for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm putting it up for free on my Patreon at the queer family podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if you're interested in hearing about just healing and guidance on parenting a little bit, head to my Patreon, it's there for free.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can watch it or listen to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you get to hear that part of the conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll get something out of it, I promise, but I just wanted to make this episode flow nicely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, that's to be said.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've all been having a great summer here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you all have to.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're headed into a really amazing season.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have some great episodes lined up for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I cannot wait to share them all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been having fun on social media at the queer family podcast on all the channels.
[SPEAKER_02]: all summer long.
[SPEAKER_02]: I pissed off a bunch of misogynistic men in one of my posts, just because I said that girls soccer or football is could possibly be more entertaining than men.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I've been pissing off some men and I love men.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't like misogynistic patriarchy men.
[SPEAKER_02]: let's break that cycle.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I hope you've been following me on social media and has made much of a bigger presence in social media lately.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you get to see family shenanigans over there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So don't forget to keep following there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will always keep you posted on what's going on in the Kelwoods family plan and sometimes it's wild and sometimes it's pretty mundane with a lot of yeddy cups thrown about here and there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always very lesbian.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, and Birkenstocks.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, let's roll the tape.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a great conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're going to love this and happy season 23 y'all.
[SPEAKER_02]: What had no idea this would run this long had no idea and yet here we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning in y'all couldn't have done it without you
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, tell some friends about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's get some more audience members, shall we?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's roll the tape, Helen Bula.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need you to start working again, darling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, I need you to put that cigarette, put the cigarettes down.
[SPEAKER_02]: The whiskey will be there for you when you come back from just pressing the button.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just roll the tape for me, Widha.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, all right, they're not really interested in working yet because they're mad that I'm making them come back to work in the middle of summer.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we got episodes to put out y'all.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's roll the tape.
[SPEAKER_02]: Helen and Bula are not real.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have nobody in this house with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clear family but good, still love is love.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi Melissa.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's lovely to have you here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm excited for what we're going to dive into today.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be a good chat, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm super excited as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, so without further ado, let's get right into what I just warned you about your 30 second elevator pitch.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK. All right, ready, set, go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi I'm Melissa and I have a different story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm coming here to you guys with a different perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I am 60 and my mother died when I was 6 years old and my dad came out when I got engaged.
[SPEAKER_01]: So same partner 50 something years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I grew up in a gay household back in the 60 70s and 80s and 90s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just coming to you for fun with a different perspective of being in a gay household from the child.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it, boom, amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You and slightly over, but we covered a lot of ground there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you, and I'm really excited because I do get very excited when children of clear parents reach out to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there is always just this little part in me that maybe sometimes worries, oh God, am I going to screw my kids up because of this whole gay thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so, but it's always nice to hear.
[SPEAKER_02]: the perspective of children who grew up with gay parents and hear their take on their their lives with their clear parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: With my business, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can, it's all about perspective and choice, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So looking back at even like these, you know, immigrants, I wanted my mom, I wanted my dad,
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted my mom, I wanted my dad and I got Ken, but now looking back, I'm so grateful.
[SPEAKER_02]: So grateful that you had, yeah, three loving parents, you had Ken.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could have had a step monster.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you could have, but you got a really special one, which is really awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got an amazing man, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: you just alluded to your line of work just to let everybody know you're a hypnotherapist which we're going to kind of get into a little bit later too and healing from trauma and things because I think a lot of us at home could use some healing and figure out ways to heal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so let's go into it because your mother died when you were really young and you said your dad came out when you got engaged.
[SPEAKER_02]: but you lived in a gay household.
[SPEAKER_02]: So can we go into that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's start there and dig in from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when you're six, you're just a kid and you're immature and you don't know anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I personally did not know any different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously my mom died, you know, it was a long battle she got sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: when I was a baby with cancer and she, you know, this was she passed in 1972.
[SPEAKER_01]: So really long time ago, and cancer has changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, my sister has beat it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had the brachagina and my family and my niece has beat it and everything's different.
[SPEAKER_01]: But children don't understand death or cancer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then as my life evolved, I think I did have a time where
[SPEAKER_01]: when when I was really little that I thought my life was a dream and I was going to wake up and my mom was going to be there and that is not something I talk about often, but I think my dad needed a change and to just
[SPEAKER_01]: picked up and moved the whole family.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have an older brother and I have an older sister and they're six and eight years older than I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they had a different life than I did because they got much more of my mother and my mother was sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: So bumping along, you know, my dad was busy, he was busy, you know, worrying about my sister and brother as they move to being teenagers and Ken,
[SPEAKER_01]: is my dad's partner and I call him my other dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is my parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love him dearly.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's almost 88 now.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just moved kind of close to me to assisted living.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a whole another story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see him almost every day and it makes me want to cry.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ken read me my stories and got me my snack and gave me my
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my showers and my baths.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had this family unit that was amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, my, my dad was very colorful.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the director of the Illinois Arts Council, then the Florida Arts Council.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were artsy party and we do also have to find things we went to.
[SPEAKER_01]: or season in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have very cultured.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, we did have sit down dinners every night, that was a big thing, and part of our family, and you know, I did play sports.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my dad didn't really know what he was doing, because he was that wasn't his world.
[SPEAKER_01]: But
[SPEAKER_01]: He bears for the very loving the 70s, we move to Florida from Chicago, right, different worlds, barely.
[SPEAKER_01]: even, you know, Christian, and they were not, they did not come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they pretended and they dated and stayed in the closet.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it sounds like Ken was always in your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, was Ken in your life even when your mom was around?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, so Ken, we were in Chicago and my mother introduced Ken to my dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so your mother knew,
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we, I've asked best friends before, you know, in the last 10 years or 15 years, did she know, one friend, one best friend said yes, one best friend said no of hers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I, you know, I stayed in
[SPEAKER_01]: But she had to have known or or she just assumed he was bisexual, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he from what I heard, he was a great husband, he was a great lover, you know, this is, and I found some funny things that maybe a little girl shouldn't have found.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, um, that I'm not going to get into right now, just unless she pushed me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, gay wasn't a thing when you were a little girl in the 70s in Florida, and then we moved to Indiana, by the way, which is in whole nother animal, but I think we moved to IU, which was Indiana University, which had a very large gay population.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that then, but, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's just what you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know and it felt normal and loving.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were really well taken care of.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it sounds like you had a really wholesome childhood and most of our kids do because we're just, you know, our families are just like the other family.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm curious to know if
[SPEAKER_02]: So after your mom passed away and you're with dad and can is around the whole time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you, when you don't know, you don't know, I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when did you realize that can was more than, I don't know, what did you do?
[SPEAKER_02]: I like, what was, what was your reasoning for why can was always around?
[SPEAKER_01]: So back then, okay, this was the 70s and 80s, as I said, you know, what you don't know, you don't know, we didn't talk about gay or gay and lesbian or anything, so back then my dad, because my mom died, can was my legal guardian.
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe not my sister and brother because they were older and they were on their way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Ken was my legal guardian.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of twists and turns there because- I can't point it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: As life went on, I think Ken adopted me and then, you know, there was some twists and maybe he adopted.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was like the my dad, my dad is my dad, but he's also my brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you mean Ken, you know, the whole, I'm joking.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there was always twists and turns with-
[SPEAKER_01]: with the guardianship, because my dad and, you know, my grandmothers were both involved in my grandmother, my dad's side, my grandmother, my nana on my mom's side, and they, I think my nana, especially, was like what is going on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's part of why I think they moved,
[SPEAKER_01]: in the third grade.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I moved from second grade from Chicago and went to a little private school in Chicago and then to a Catholic school.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't know my prayers, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because how would I?
[SPEAKER_01]: And my grandmother's were like, well, is she going to do this and do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: getting back to Ken legally adopted me because my dad, if something ever happened to him, my grandmothers would just take me and put me with my ant lollie or put me with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my own Greg or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you were one of the first, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: arguments for why we need second parent adoption exactly that like that's like this is why I mean we all have to do second parent adoption just to just to protect our kids in case something happens to one of us because you never know what the in laws are going to do you never know a family members are right so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I didn't know that that was a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, I was second period adopted.
[SPEAKER_02]: You were before it was a thing, but it's a really great argument for why we have to do it because they were doing it to make sure that you got to stay in your family unit and not be taken by grandmothers who wanted you to be raised Catholic or whatever, you know, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Second period adoption, it's a big thing for our community.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's an annoying thing that we have to do about what we do it to protect our families.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they were living, but they were together, just nobody knew, nobody really.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your siblings didn't know it either.
[SPEAKER_01]: My siblings knew before I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they in Florida, can't have my dad had like the Jack and Jill bathroom.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they had separate rooms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Always, always separate rooms, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and they were protective.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, that's God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's had to have been so hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it had to be so hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Jack and Jill, I can actually picture it, you know, I'm very visual.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had one memory and I'll tell the audience about what I do, but I did some healing around
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what I was healing, but I had a really bad of infection when I was little and swimmers here and I was crying in the night and I don't know where my dad was, but I went to Ken and I cried the whole night and he took care of me and that was so much love there and looking back at that moving to different houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got when I was a little girl in in Bloomington, Indiana.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got my own bedroom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had like the master bedroom because I had my own bathroom and they had rooms and shared.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm still like a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure parents, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that there were parents who were like, you know, in the small towns in Indiana and Florida were like, what's going on with that family?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what's going on and you know, where the kids allowed to come over to my house and play, I never had a problem with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that's, that's good to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my dad would fuss, he would make, you know, creeps who's at, and he would, he would, because he was, he did throw a great party.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he was gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we had 14 set to China.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of course he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was all about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ken was in the arts as well, so they were very artsy, I mean, the kids loved coming to my house because my dad would make that, yeah, would go the extra effort.
[SPEAKER_01]: and with more like with the cooking or something pretty or but yeah the I never in my whole life when I was a kid ever walked in on anything in appropriate or then being close there was nothing that I was like oh they're gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did think in the story in my mind, which I was started to tell when I was a little girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: My dad was engaged before my mother and that woman died.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like she before they got married.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like she had some terrible like crazy thing and she died and then my mother died.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in my mind, I'm like, oh, he just doesn't ever want to be with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just the little story in the little girl's mind with another woman because love hurts to
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that makes a perfect sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's story-wise.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what nobody told me that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made that story up.
[SPEAKER_01]: They definitely did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had some, especially in Bloomington, but in tell-hassy, you know, there were dance parties and they were fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but you don't think they were actually out to anyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like maybe they had
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they had a community of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: They definitely had a community in Bloomington, Indiana, where there was a large gay population, because they were the ladies who came over.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was an opera singer in her partner, Jean, and they, for sure, you know, and we'd go on the boat with Jean and her partner, and they were for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And their friends, I mean, I can pick
[SPEAKER_01]: Barney and Jay and the had a differenti department and and even from and while we we I'm assuming was a gay man and he was the chancellor of the university
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they they found a community.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just couldn't be out to your school, your outer family, you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder if, you know, as time was going on, I wonder if they just kind of assumed that you children just kind of got it without having to do the whole coming out of thing with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think that, I mean, looking back and seeing what I see with my business, so I'm a hypnotherapist.
[SPEAKER_01]: My brother is eight years older and I do think some of his coping strategies and the way he is, the way he is, is because he's like proving I'm a man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh because he loves sports so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he loves women so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like his but he's in the he's in the leather business.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has two daughters and that Michelle's initials are MPP and he has a daughter named Michelle and Jordan might be born.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, so he went like in the opposite direction.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think about that a lot with my son, because we're two moms.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think my son is he's eight, so he's still young, but I think he is trying to discover what it means to be a boy or a male.
[SPEAKER_02]: in this world that he lives in with two moms.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do feel like he goes harder in the other direction.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's he's picking up that that masculinity from the streets and kind of discovering what it means on his own.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're trying to guide him towards a softer version.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's he is definitely, and so I see what you're saying about your brother.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is definitely taking it.
[SPEAKER_02]: to a further degree than I think he might have if he'd had a father figure in his life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not to say he's hurt for it or he's the worst for this at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think that he's coming to his masculinity in an interesting
[SPEAKER_02]: way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and don't forget, we form beliefs and come to conclusions about ourselves and the world when we're young.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those first eight years are so impressionable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so impressionable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, six, seven eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the thing is also just
[SPEAKER_01]: people listening with kids, knowing what I know from my business, you can explain things really well, instead because the child does not understand and often it's a misunderstanding, but if you slow down and there's something that you really want to explain to them, slow down and really explain it to them so they do understand, because we create a misunderstanding in our mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so, um, so that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So your brother kind of developed his personality based on his childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, I'm not psychoanalyzing him.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I just see his, you know, he's proving.
[SPEAKER_01]: or has you know I mean he's 60 years old now okay and he's amazing and he's such a he's the best dad ever he's got this beautiful family and he's so loving but he also had to show his masculinity yes well sounds like he had two great dad's as models too so of course he should be would be a great dad because he had great models right yeah yeah he's a great
[SPEAKER_02]: very interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, and I know you can't speak to your siblings experience of it and when they realized it, but it sounds like you kind of were, you weren't in on the secret, but you were living this wonderful, very rich family life, but there was a part of who your family was that you were kind of not privy to.
[SPEAKER_02]: You were kind of in the closet yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just didn't
[SPEAKER_01]: not for it at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think I'm, you know, I'm very gay proud and I think I have a bigger perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean it's a better perspective but it's bigger, you know, I think it's better, a perspective of love and what, you know, love is love and raising a child in a toxic
[SPEAKER_01]: relationship where parents fighting can in my dad, I, there was Ken and Leonard and they called themselves Kennerd, which is an accused.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they had Kennerd farm later, they had a farm and they moved to Palm Springs in their later in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I had harmony in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they argued about directions.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't really,
[SPEAKER_01]: argue about other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I don't recall those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there were definitely some, you know, some, some crazy going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was not yelling in my house or
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, it's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: To having the family dinners, like looking now what you see, and you know, that was a old school, but we sit down to dinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had manners and on Sundays, sometimes we would get dressed up when they would wear tuxitos, or we would do Chinese, like a Chinese, and an Asian dress for Asian dinner, or we would put on the beret if we're having French food.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would make they've made a fund.
[SPEAKER_02]: They made a fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: We sit down to eat every night as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a big thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's a fun idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Sunday is special day and we dress up or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's I like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might steal that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll leave it to the gaze to find the fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So really interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you grew up in a gay family at a time like you said yourself when gay was in the thing, we didn't talk about gay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your dads were, sounds like they had a wonderful love, a wonderful relationship, and also had to keep it hidden, which is so, which is heartbreaking.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when, when did they, when you said they came out when you got engaged?
[SPEAKER_02]: So how did that go?
[SPEAKER_01]: there was a lot to it okay so they at this point there in Indiana and if they had a gentleman's farm in Indiana my sister brother were both married and I again the youngest and my dad was like oh you know what I got engaged it was 1993 or 92 and he's like let's have an engagement party
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Muddalos, let's have Pat's family to come to Indiana, come to the farm and celebrate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was when I think,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, a still early in the 90s and I was fine with them, but I think I was protecting protective of O, you know, can you guys sleep in different rooms?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they were sleeping in the same room.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were out to you by this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't out, but they weren't.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you never, we didn't, we just didn't talk about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But so, yes, I knew.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when did the realization, do you remember when the realization said it in for you when you were like, oh, oh, they're oh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you know something, you can't, I'm no way.
[SPEAKER_01]: When did I know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think when I was in high school, and I lived in common, I moved to town.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like.
[SPEAKER_01]: From Luminton to India.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, moved a lot of schools, and that was actually very hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Movie schools was hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I think they were away, they were on a trip and they would leave me alone, which was cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would have parties.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had this cagur at my house and everybody's drunk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the whole thing, and, you know, I'm also the youngest, so they were over it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They trust me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a latch.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a very good girl and I, you know, I had, I worked and I had been, you know, I babysat and I got good grades in the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a little younger than you, but I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I was on my own a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I had a really wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: family and childhood, but we had a lot more freedom.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I remember maybe I was having a party and people were sitting around the kitchen table and they asked me, you know, our year, you know, I, I think that's when it was the first discussion and maybe my best friends asked me, but nobody cared.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, but they just, they just asked.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is that when you were like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I guess they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, probably, but then I would also say to them that story in my mind, maybe, and much, and not, I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my dad also was engaged in the woman died before my mother died.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they date, kind of, and they are, you know, I have, I, and with love called them, the fruit and a club, you know, their fruity and nutty,
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think it was more of a, I knew, but we didn't talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I will jump into, when I was dating my husband, and there were other, you know, I only had one real boyfriend before my husband and my dad really liked him.
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband and my dad kind of, my heads.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, I
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, and I am so not a big drinker at all, but I remember if I had a cocktail, I was more likely to be able to share that my dad's gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that looking back at that, like, you know, I think I just had to take that innovation away.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, you know, it was just a different time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was in my 20s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was the 80s and 90s and 80s had just come out the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about 80s because 90s, yeah, you were right.
[SPEAKER_02]: 80s, 90s.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't want to go there yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still want to kind of stay in this moment for a second because I do find it interesting that you kind of had to take the inhibition away like with a drink or a cocktail to to actually kind of say it out loud or maybe admit it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that internalized homophobia, you know, was kind of
[SPEAKER_02]: a part of you as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it was a different time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was I was going to be judged.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right, because your gay dads, which is another argument for why podcasts like this are so important and for why visibility is so important so that families like ours can raise our children with
[SPEAKER_02]: pride in their families and and the tools with which to speak about their families.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you were kind of in a in a position you were not by anybody's fault like it was societies fault, but you were putting a position to have to out yourself and to deal with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: internalized shame which is terrible and so sad it is it is terrible and it is sad and I'm glad that it's changed or I hope that it's changed I truly hope that it's changed because I don't look at it now at all with any shame like I said I'm so proud and
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I love telling my, I love telling my little backstory.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very proud of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, and it's a really fascinating story, a beautiful story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you actually have, as a straight woman, have the experience of having had to come out.
[SPEAKER_02]: The fear of coming out, telling, you have that experience, telling the people you love, your truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: which is the fact that your dads were a couple.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you came out and our children, I talk about this sometimes too, our children have never looked at it that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and our children have to learn how to come out.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a tool that they have to learn, because
[SPEAKER_02]: inevitably as they go about the world, they're going to have to explain to people, no, no, no, I have two moms.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I have two dads.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, my dad is trans.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So our children have to develop the strength and the pride within themselves and in their families, to handle
[SPEAKER_02]: that kind of a diving board, moment, so to speak.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's not easy, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And you had to do it blind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you really had a coming out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like you really had a coming out experience, having to tell people about your truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's interesting and I love your diving work because I would say often I need to push in the pool and that looking back at that, I remember like thinking, okay, I had to, there's some resistance in telling someone and
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not, I'm not proud of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: None of us are, but, you know, first comes the admitting it to ourselves then comes the getting the strength up to tell others and then comes the healing and the loving and that and the realization that oh my God, it's actually beautiful.
[SPEAKER_02]: We gotta go through the steps, many of us, and some of the young people today have no issue coming out and it's not a thing, which yay hallelujah, it's working.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yay hallelujah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have a niece who came out, my sister's daughter, and when I told my kids, they were like, okay, like, yeah, okay, like that was, it was like,
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we like here at.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, they weren't like not how, you know, there was no, it was just no, it was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was good, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like she pierced her ears.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's for dinner?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we want.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want it to not be such a big thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is getting to where it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're getting there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then also we're going backwards in many ways too, because the world we're living in.
[SPEAKER_02]: To you, we are a couple and we're in love, like, or was it just kind of?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, there's I'm having this little memory.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he never.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I knew he was gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just knew it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was not a not a conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I remember I was having a big birthday party for my dad and maybe he was he was either 70 or 80.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, they had the farm in Indiana.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never lived on the farm as beautiful place, but they had shotguns there, by the way, because
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really near Martin'sville, which was the home of the Kukus clan.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were had a little bit of fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's the whole other thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh God.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was having this party for my dad's birthday, he did a toast, but it was like going back in time.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a word for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can't think of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was basically thinking Ken for all his love and support and this and that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was my dad's on his birthday.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gave us some gifts for his birthday.
[SPEAKER_01]: free bag or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to think of the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was basically thinking Ken, but it went back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was to everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like my son Jack's friend was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were like 13 or 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: So while I were long ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was with Ken, you know, before my mother died.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the timeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were together, you know, my dad passed.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would be 96 now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 1930 was born.
[SPEAKER_01]: And candidates 88, but they were together over 50 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, which is pretty amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they did get married later, they moved to Palm Springs.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were 50%, you know, half the year in Palm Springs, which was awesome for them, and it was very gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: They got married, I think my dad was 88.
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they had the game marriage and it was beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I have pictures on my Instagram of the, my sister did the wedding.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was at their farm outside and the whole family was there was very colorful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's, that's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's nice that they made it there that they got that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they got married.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: my dad was in the army so Ken actually you know that was a tough thing later after my dad passed that Ken got the VA insurance like it was it was a fight yeah oh well because they were married or the benefits yes yeah but my I know it's hard even just for us my mother because my dad passed away about six years ago and he was he was in the Navy as well so she had to really fight hard to get
[SPEAKER_02]: they tried to not give it to her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can only imagine how much harder it probably was for Ken.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he did not get in the insurance, but he's getting the benefit, the little bit of money, which is even better.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and it's wasn't easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, um, wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and they lived.
[SPEAKER_02]: They lived pretty long lives considering they were gay men coming up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, throughout through the AIDS epidemic.
[SPEAKER_02]: They made it through.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and they did get rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say, okay, looking back in our conversation now, they had rings made probably a long, long time ago, and I just didn't have my radar.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they had like an artist make rings for them and Ken's my dad had, you know, I don't know, Sapphire.
[SPEAKER_01]: My brother has my dad's ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will get Ken's ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: My Ken's ring has one diamond in three sapphires and it's very masculine, but it's my dad and the three kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's sweet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so they had those a long time ago, and I think that was a token of their love to each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't flamboyant about it or, you know, they were never flamboyant.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do remember when my husband met was thanks Thanksgiving.
[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't married, but they met my dad and can and my dad had a very deep voice.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would give you a strong handshake, but they also were bright colors.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: Pat new can when can would have a drink he would get a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_02]: a little looser, a little looser.
[SPEAKER_01]: A little looser.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my husband's like, oh, I could tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, no, you can't.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also lived in my whole life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just, you know, I just lived it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your dad's a your dad's, like, you don't see, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so beautiful and amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you had a great childhood.
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds like despite moving so much, which is it's own thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were the ups and downs and you know, everybody has stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody wears a mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: So was it being a kid wasn't easy, but looking back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm grateful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I, I think not having a mother just period the end is a hard thing for a little girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: One straight or gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not having a mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody ever changed the roles.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my dad was always my dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: He never changed his role.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ken was my dad's partner, but he was my other dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was never my mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was different.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then even knowing that as my husband died, I never changed rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm never going to be my kid's father.
[SPEAKER_01]: So having two mothers or having two fathers, as long as you love, that's all that matters.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think you need.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all you really need is one really great caretaker.
[SPEAKER_01]: If whether it's a grandmother, a mother, a father, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think it has to be anything anything with a title on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think it you need someone to love us love and you need kids need people need.
[SPEAKER_01]: to feel safe and secure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And significant, that's really important.
[SPEAKER_01]: To feel significant and to be seen and to be heard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really what's important.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not who's loving you is that someone is loving you, seeing you protecting you, keeping you safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Consistently.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, consistently.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love what you said about, you know, your dad didn't become your mom, Ken didn't become your mom.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just had two dads.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's that was what you needed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at the same time, you know, you're a little girl without a mom.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that didn't change that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still is what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you had a lot of love.
[SPEAKER_01]: be to be a little girl without a mom or to be, you know, a motherless daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yes, I had a mother until I was six years old, she was also sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: To, and now, those are more of my wounds than growing up in a gay household, not having, like having that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I have a band of men issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do, and I looked at them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, having had that take a taken away from you, right, which is something that's a little different for, like, for, say my kids, because they didn't have, there was nobody there to begin with.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was nothing was ever taken away.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was always these two parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what they don't know, they don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you know something like Santa Claus or that you're, you know, that your parents are different, then you, you have to untangle that whatever that is for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: our kids are going to be all right is what I'm hearing from your whole story and I want to talk a little bit about healing because you know a lot about healing and I think you have some insight that you could give to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, to me to the listeners at home and all the things because we have many things we can heal from despite the gay thing like obviously we're multi-faceted people, you know, we got a lot of layers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a clinical hipnotherapist and I'm also a heart healing practitioner.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also I wear many hats, you know, I'm a mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a lover.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a I help people with Parkinson's disease.
[SPEAKER_01]: I teach Parkinson's wellness recovery.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wear a lot of hats.
[SPEAKER_01]: side of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think people know people, you know, whatever, people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all have the same bones, by the way, that healing is available to us after my husband died.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did have a mini nervous breakdown.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I mean, it was hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three kids, two kids in college and one in high school, and it was
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, the money thing was going to be really hard and just all of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did reinvent myself, but along the way, I did some therapy, which did not work for me, and it just made me feel worse, by the way, because I was tagged.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're this, that, this, that, you know, I had ADHD, hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm quite fidgety.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've all the science for a woman with the ADHD, but
[SPEAKER_01]: I had some insomnia going on, I did have some depression, I had some things going on and I'm still on the other side of all of that, I have healed and I'm still healing, but when I found hypnotherapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, whoa, this is life changing and it was really, you know, I started with why am I sabotaging myself, meaning why am I people pleaser, why, you know, I couldn't even take a compliment, so I did my first session about, you know, why.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my sabotaging myself and it went back to something with my mother just being a mom and saying, you know, I was naughty by the way, this is really important for parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: How kids get attention is there's the achiever, the golden child, right, getting loved by being good.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the rebel negative attention is still attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the hurt one, the sick one.
[SPEAKER_01]: When a child is hurt or has a rash or a fever, mom and dad or mom and mom or dad and dad have to kind of drop everything they're doing for the sick child or if there's a child who has special needs or something, they get more attention so it takes away from the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the caretaker or the funny one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those roles are how we get attention from our parents or caregivers.
[SPEAKER_01]: and negative attention is still attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, when I was little, this is one of my memories, my big significant why am I sabotaging myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I pushed my little friend against the refrigerator.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is in my memory, my subconscious mind, I was five, and I don't know why I pushed her, but I pushed her.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't a mean girl, but I probably was hurting because I had a sick mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom sent my little friend home and said, scooting me on the butt, and it's 1971, and said, go to your room, shame on you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she died.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my imprint was a, I had toxic shame for 40 something years until I did the healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was a people of peace, or an adormat.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we have to look at healing that because she was just doing her mom job.
[SPEAKER_01]: She wasn't, I wasn't a bad child.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just being naughty, probably for attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I found all this and I've done a ton of healing and heart healing, I do want to tap into that a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I looked at my husband had a heart attack at 53.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if he could have done the inner healing, instead of going outward, you we have to go inward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I help people do with, uh, it's called rapid transformational therapy or heart healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do regression.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we look back at the significant imprints that hurt us, it's like part work or shadow work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in heart healing, which I think would be really beneficial for a lot of everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just everybody, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we all are paying emotional wounds instead of just looking at like why am I sabotaging?
[SPEAKER_01]: We look at love, trust, acceptance, and worthiness in the heart, that's the four chambers of the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: and why I don't feel enough, but it's someone, it's the relationship one who made us feel that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the heart, I mean, look at
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, also what happened to them, they made them that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if it's like from the 70s and people are not open to having a gay child or they're very religious or whatever it is, we have to look at them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because maybe it's not about us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we heal at a soul level.
[SPEAKER_01]: We think what would that person, one of us, from the soul, the unwinded version of them,
[SPEAKER_01]: And we venture on, we give the child the her the her child a voice we heal with love everything comes from love and as we venture on they actually you meet your future self in in the heart and there's advice and love and there's it's it's really amazing so there's the healing all comes from love.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I help people help themselves because sometimes we're stuck and we don't know why or sometimes we think we know why and there's something that the subconscious is keeping us that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever the self-savutaging behavior, that's the big umbrella.
[SPEAKER_01]: So procrastination, anxiety, addiction, you know, I can help us someone quit smoking like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you help some people drinking?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's my very favorite thing to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, with that's more than one session.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do have a signature program.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not, I have no agenda here, but I would tell like my son who's a mom, like my Instagram, like, oh, I am never selling, I'm serving.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay y'all.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is where I cut the episode like I talked about in the intro.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where we get into the hypnotherapy talk and the emotional healing and parenting through difficult seasons.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually a really interesting conversation, but it just didn't fit the theme of the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're interested in hearing more about Melissa's work with hypnotherapy, you can just head to my Patreon.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be free there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can watch it or listen there, Patreon at the Clear Family Podcast and go check that out.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's quick.
[SPEAKER_02]: little 15-minute combo, but I found it very insightful.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to hear it, go check it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clear family podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whoop!
[SPEAKER_02]: Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you did enjoy it, feel free to listen to another or watch another.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have so many episodes for your listening or viewing pleasure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just go pick one and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're really
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, if you really do like this show, please, I know I say it all the time, but please do consider supporting the show on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just gonna go to patreon.com, slash the queer family podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna pick a tear, you're gonna join, and you're gonna get that bonus content.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're also gonna get my love and adoration for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love you all, thanks for tuning in, keep on tuning in, and I'll see you next time.