This guy’s mum and dad both came out in the same week and we need the Hollywood adaptation immediately
James Lubbock’s parents both came out as gay to him just days apart from one another (Stock photo via Elements Envato)
James Lubbock had a normal childhood. Filled with sun-splashed holidays, watching his parents play Trivial Pursuit and attending school.
But his stock photo-grade life was rattled when his father coming out as gay… and then his mother just days after.
Lubbock, the author of Breaking Dad, penned an op-ed for Huffington Post about his experience of having both parents come out and if Netflix don’t pick it up as a series we would sue, to be honest.
Both this guy’s parents came out to him over dinner within days of one another.
He idolised both his parents growing up, with his mother raising him at home and his father a “successful businessman”.
“As I grew up, I slowly realised not everything was perfect about their relationship – it was their arguments that began to break that illusion,” he said.
Lubbock, overtime, noticed his parents fragmenting. Arguments grew more frequent, and he feared it would obliterate their relationship.
“I expected that leaving for uni would remove unnecessary friction, and that their marriage may well flourish into a new golden era,” he said.
“How wrong I was.
Within my first year, they had separated, after one of the worst arguments I had ever witnessed when I was back for Christmas.
“Suddenly, that was it – my parents were now living separate lives.”
A few years down the line and Lubbock got a call from his father asking him to dinner as “there was something he had to tell me.”
“He played with his soup, and looked decidedly nervous through our starters, which was very strange for me to see – Dad was usually so confident and certainly never awkward with me.
“Losing patience, I asked him to reveal all.
“He looked up but avoided eye contact, and began by telling me that at school he sometimes had feelings for boys… he was gay.”
Lubbock was shocked. He left the restaurant “feeling as if my life had complete changed, but in a strangely positive way.”
Coming out: ‘Both my parents had been living a lie for their entire lives.’
Then, in a surreal scene seemingly mirroring her former spouse, Lubbock’s mother invited him out for dinner.
“We were having a general catch-up when Mum mentioned she had recently moved in with a lady called Susan.
“Before I even wondered where this was going, another bombshell. Mum was gay too, and Susan was her partner.
He continued: “The gravity of what was unfolding slowly dawned on me.
Both my parents had been living a lie for their entire lives and keeping a key part of who they are to themselves and from each other.
Lubbock’s mother and Susan were seeing each-other up until her “untimely death from ovarian cancer eight years later, which shook me to my core.
“I’m still very close to Susan and we see each other regularly.”
While for his father, Lubbock jokingly snapped photographs of him for his Gaydar profile and began transparently discussing his new drug usage.
“So in some ways his life became more alien to mine, but in others there were new things he was discovering that I could strongly relate to.”
Both his parents coming out made Lubbock more aware of LGBT+ rights across the globe as well as realising the complexity of human existence.
