Hey. Just a quick heads up, this episode contains mentions of gun violence and suicide. Please take care while listening. 

JACK: I think the first time I came out, I was saying, I'm your exact same son. And I'm gay. This is, this is a little bit more like saying I'm not the person you think I am. And that's, I think that's more likely to be hurtful.

This is Death, Sex & Money.

The show from WNYC about things we think about a lot...and need to talk about more.

I'm Anna Sale.

Jack came out to his parents when he was 19 years old. He was in his first semester of college and home for Thanksgiving break in West Virginia, where I'm also from.

J: The way I got myself psyched up to do it is that I figured out my scholarships for school, so I knew school was paid for. Then I got a part-time job on campus, so I knew I could pay for my room and board. And I was like, "Okay, if this goes poorly, I'm going to be okay. I'm going to know where I'm going to be tomorrow."

So, Jack nervously sat his parents down and told them.

J: My mom said, "Tell me something I don't know," and my dad was shocked.

ANNA SALE: Your mom really said that?

J: Yeah.

AS: [Laughs]

J: Not in so few words, but yeah. She looked at me like, "Yeah." [Laughs] But I suppose she and dad had not talked about it because my dad just stared at me for a solid 30 seconds slack-jawed. The thing that he said to me, I'll never forget this, he said to me, "You know that everything's going to be harder." And I was like, "Yeah, but there's no other way. [Laughs] This this is the truth." And he said, "Okay," and we never really had any friction about about my sexuality after that.

Jack is now 30, and that's not his real name. He wanted to protect his family's privacy. He wrote in to us back in the spring, around the time that my book called Let's Talk About Hard Things came out. We asked you all to tell us about the most difficult conversations you've ever had, and the ones you haven't had yet. Jack wrote in about a hard conversation with his dad, but not the one about his sexuality.

J: We were really close when I was younger. He was my hero when I was growing up. I thought my dad was the greatest person on the planet. I thought he should be president of the United States. But as I got older, he and I drifted apart because I think our world views really changed. We had fewer and fewer things in common that we could really talk about.

The last bit of common language that we have left is we can talk about guns. We retreat to that a lot, but over the last 10 years or so, I have just completely exited gun culture. It's not something that I spend any time with anymore. The thing I need to talk to him about is that I don't really want to own guns anymore and I don't really want to go shooting. I don't want that to be a big part of my life.

AS: When you say that the common language, that a lot has fallen away, but talking about guns is something you can still do, describe for me in your family, what was the conversation around guns? What do you talk about when you talk about guns?

J: I feel like my dad talks about guns like you think a lot of men talking about cars, the mechanics of it and the numbers and all of that sort of stuff. But also, there's definitely a lot of conversation around how important it is to have guns because they allow you to protect yourself and they have a freedom that's endemic to the country and how important it is to learn about them and use them in a way that's safe. That is something that he likes to talk about a lot and I do very much respect. Also, hunting is a major part of his life. There's many aspects.

AS: And now, when you talk about guns in your life now, what sorts of guns you talking about?

J: Especially as he's gotten older, my dad has really become a collector. He has a lot of guns and of different vintages and varieties. So a lot of it - I see my parents, I don't know, five or six times a year generally. Every time I arrive at their house, the very first thing that Dad wants to do is show me all of the new guns that he's gotten and talk about why he's gotten them and what their various merits are and why this one's really exciting and how this one has this special provenance and all of that sort of stuff. It's really become a collector's obsession for him.

AS: Does he have everything from handguns to semi-automatic weapons and hunting rifles? What kind of guns are they?

J: Yes, he has lots of handguns, he has vintage militaria, he has assault rifles, he's got everything. [Laughs]

AS: And describe the community that you grew up in that your parents still live in, what's it like?

J: I grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia, which is a - for West Virginia, it's a city.

AS: Yeah! It's a place I know well, yeah.

J: But for the rest of the country, it's a small town. It's a college town and most of what my family did, our primary recreation was getting outside. My family has a farm, so we would hang out on the farm and go shooting and do those sorts of things.

AS: Let me ask you, because I feel like your family having a farm can mean really different things in different parts of the world. In your part of West Virginia, what did it mean that you had a family farm? What was that land like?

J: It's not agricultural and that's common in West Virginia. It's not a wealthy state, but I think there are a lot of people who have some acreage to where they live.

AS: Was there a hunting camp there or what was there at the farm?

J: My dad and the rest of my family too would hunt on our farm, yeah. But also, it was a place that my family would gather to get together and catch up and see one another. It was a huge part of my childhood, of just hanging out on the farm, playing with the dogs, jumping in the river. There was a barnyard with some animals in it, there are some chickens and a horse and that sort of thing and the farm is the thing that really feels like home when I think of my childhood.

Jack says he started shooting with his family when he was seven years old. When he was 12, Jack went hunting for the first time with his dad. He shot a rabbit, but he didn't instantly kill it. And he says its suffering was pretty horrible for him to watch. After that, Jack says he didn't like to go hunting, but he did enjoy some aspects of shooting with his dad, like when they'd go out and shoot clay pigeons.

Jack: Some of my best memories with him are shooting clays. Just, you know, the orange discs. He would be so proud and so happy when I would - you can nest them together in the launchers and throw multiple at the same time, and when I would hit a triple, I'd hit three of them right in a row, he would just be like, "Yes!" He'd just be so happy. I do cherish those memories. That is the one gun thing that I can hold on to that I love.

AS: Yeah. Do you still go shooting with him?

J: Yeah, not as much as I used to because oftentimes I'll try to deflect or stay busy in another way. He always talks about how it's a sport and how a gun is just like a tennis racket and I'm like, "Dad, tennis rackets can't kill people."

AS: Do you say that?

J: No, I don't, but I want to. So I have, I have sort of mixed feelings about that because I do still enjoy shooting sporting clays with my dad. But part of me is like, "Well, if you're going to take this stance, you can't be wishy-washy about it," because I know that if I am, he'll drive a truck through me [chuckles] and be like, "Well, you're being hypocritical." [Sighs]

AS: I see. So the prospect of the conversation happening, it's intimidating not just because of how it might change your relationship, but it's also like, you feel like you've to stitch together your logic to not have it turn into a political debate?

J: Yes. Oh, very much so. Yeah. My father and I don't talk about politics, we haven't for many years. That's by mutual agreement and I'm okay with that. He can have different politics than me, that's not a problem. It's just that when we talk about politics, we go round and round and we don't hear each other. All he wants is for me to defer to him and tell him that I respect him as my father and all I want is for him to listen to what I'm saying and tell me that he sees me as an adult. Neither of us can get that in political conversation, so. [Laughs] So we just don't have them. I do worry that if I tell him, "Hey, I'm kind of done with guns," that he'll turn it into a political conversation or see it as one.

AS: And feel it as a rejection?

J: Oh, absolutely, and feel it as a rejection. That part of it really, really scares me not just because I don't want to hurt his feelings, but because my father's bipolar. He's subject sometimes to extreme mood swings and I worry that I could push him into a depression, then I don't want to do that.

AS: Can I just pause and ask about - have the number of firearms in the house ever been seen to be a risk because of his mental health?

J: Oh, yeah. I did not realize that on a conscious level as a kid. So in, this would have been 1999, I'd just turned 9, I guess? 10? Anyway, when Bush v. Gore, the presidential election, right at first, it seemed like Al Gore had won, just barely. And I came home from school and I found my dad in the gun room in our house sitting on the floor almost in the fetal position cradling one of his assault rifles crying. And I asked him what was wrong and he said that Al Gore was going to come take his guns. That was not the last time that he's had these episodes where he's terrified that someone's going to come take his guns away. It was really scary. I didn't know how to process that at that age.

There was another time when I was more of a teenager that my grandfather did have to come and we loaded all of my dad's guns into his car and he drove away. There were no guns in the house for a few months because my dad was really, really depressed. I think there was some concern that he would hurt himself. Once again, part of me thinks, "Oh, I'm not giving him enough benefit of the doubt." He's very well medicated these days. He's more even than he was when he was younger, but I still - I don't know, I worry.

AS: Yeah. And I wonder, as someone who is from West Virginia, I have heard so many times people say in a dismissive way of rural voters, "Oh my God, they think the government's going to come and take their guns away." Kind of like, "Look at these people who are so ignorant," is how I've heard that comment. I wonder, for you to tell that story and to see your dad, like - it wasn't made up. His experience of that moment was feeling really personally terrified.

J: Oh, yeah.

AS: How do you understand what he was feeling in that moment when he was cradling this weapon because of the election results?

J: In his world, which I think it sometimes intersects with the world that we actually live in and sometimes doesn't, in his worldview, that's what could happen. The likelihood of that went way up. His collection, the most important objects in his life—to him a thing that he uses to define himself—was going to be taken away. I think for anyone, if your defining trait, your most important way of seeing yourself, someone's trying to take that from you, I don't know how you react to it any other way than that.

Coming up, Jack talks about what prompted his shift in thinking when it came to guns. And why he's still not sure whether he can have that hard conversation about it with his dad.

J: I do need to talk to my mom about this. I need to ask her what she thinks because I don't live with my dad and she does. I always have to consider carefully what I do because if I send him into a funk, I'm not the one who has to deal with the fallout, she is.

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On the next episode…

 PATRICIA: After the accident, I just became stagnant. I didn't do - I couldn't do anything.

Unintended injuries are a leading cause of death in the U.S. Last year, nearly 200 thousand people died accidentally. But what happens...when you accidentally cause someone’s fatal injury...and you survive?

JOHN: When you’re watching that news article about a hit and run. Or reading or watching about the hit and run, about these and that. Nobody talks about that person on the other side.   Do they think we wake up in the morning and wanted this to happen?

—

This is Death, Sex & Money from WNYC. I'm Anna Sale.

Jack says he was in college when he noticed that the way he felt about guns and his childhood surrounded by them was starting to shift.

J: I started noticing gun violence in the news and that was scary. I also started thinking back more on my childhood and thinking about the times that we've already talked about with my dad, where people were worried that he was a danger to himself. And when I - before I came out, long before I came out, when I was in my early teens, I had a short period of a lot of suicidal ideation and depression. And I thought about, "Well, if I do decide to kill myself, at least it will be quick."

At the time, that was comforting, and saying it now it sounds horrible. The thought that it's so easy, oh, it bugs me. And I know that guns are incredibly important to people and I respect that. I really, really do. The hunting tradition is so important to a lot of people and I don't think that that should be taken away from anybody, but I don't understand why my dad needs a ton of high-capacity assault weapons and semi-automatic pistols and all these things that are just so dangerous, so, so dangerous.

When I was a little kid, we drilled safety all the time. Like, "You never point a gun at a person. This is where the safety catch is on this gun and this is how you make sure to clear every weapon the second it's handed to you," and all of these different things. That's a weird thing to be teaching a seven-year-old. Why? I just don't understand why we need that responsibility to be placed on someone so young. Now I suppose maybe I resent it being placed upon me.

AS: How many guns do you and your husband have in your house right now?

J: I sold most of them. My husband has a .22 target rifle and we still have his shotgun and my shotgun. I've disassembled them all. We have a safe because you have to have a safe. It's insane not to. I've also disassembled them. Our plan is to get a safety deposit box and take the bolt, which is an integral part of the gun to that safety deposit box and put it in there so that even if someone managed to break into our safe in our house, they would get a useless object.

AS: So if you have this conversation with your dad, where would it happen? How do you picture it?

J: I'd have to do it with him in person. I need him to see my face because I need him to know that I care. I'd probably do it with him at his house or at our farm, one of the two.

AS: Do you feel like you need to tell your father this because you want to not be around his guns?

J: I'd prefer not to be. [Laughs] Yeah. I suppose maybe it's not as complicated as that. It might be just as simple as I feel like my dad doesn't really understand me and I feel like this, in a way, would help. I'm just not sure it's something that he's going to be willing to hear.

AS: Because it's hard to say, "I don't want to be around guns because gun culture means these things to me now," when that's so important to him and for him not to hear it as judgment because it is judgment.

J: Yes, because it is. What I want to say to him is, "Dad, I love you and I respect you and this just isn't something that I want to be part of." I know he'll hear that as rejection because that's what it is, it's a rejection. The alternative is so easy because all I have to do is just smile and nod. I think he can tell that I'm more distant emotionally than I used to be, a little bit. I say less. I don't meet him in the middle in the conversation as much as I used to. I think he can see that and I think he doesn't know why and I think he doesn't know how to ask. So, I feel like I'm hurting him this way.

AS: Because you're withdrawing.

J: Yeah, but I know I'm going to hurt him the other way.

AS: Yeah. I want to go back to your mom. I'm curious what the conversation with your mother would be like because I don't know what her relationship is like with your dad, but when you're in a relationship with someone, where you worry about extremes, swings and emotions, I'm curious what her advice would be to you about how honest to be and how much management and pretending she'd advise.

J: It's an interesting question. I don't know. My mom just wants us all to get along. My dad and my younger brother have a more contentious relationship than my dad and I do. My dad and my younger brother have reached the point where they have zero things in common. They really just don't interact well. I know that that really bothers my mom. I have a feeling that she will say to me that that's not a good idea to try to push this conversation with him. She'll basically tell me to do the bare minimum when it comes to guns, but try to stay engaged with him because he deserves to have a good relationship with one of his sons and this is how he does it.

AS: If she says, "It's important for our family that he has a relationship with you and this is the way he knows how to have a relationship with you," does that sway you one way or the other?

J: It does. If that's what she says, I can't do that if my mom tells me that she - because what she would really be saying or the way that I would read that is she needs me to have this relationship with him. I couldn't do that to her. If you can't tell, my mom and I are a little bit closer that my dad and I are. I can't bear the thought of hurting my mother, I really, really can't.

AS: Do you think you know what you'll say? The words? Have you thought about that or is that something that you will get to when you decide whether you're going to do it?

J: Oh, I've had this conversation in my head a thousand times. I come at it from different angles. I don't know what the best one is, I think I'll have to be direct and just be like, "Dad, I want you to know that I've sold most of my guns and that I don't feel the same way that I used to about guns in general and that I don't really want to continue to do things like going to the range. I certainly don't want to go hunting or do anything like that because it's just not something that feels good to me anymore." I think I have to keep it short.

AS: Yeah. One thing when you were talking that really landed for me and I wonder what it would be like to hear as a parent is when you talked about the period of your youth when you were depressed and how you thought about guns. I wonder if you ever said that to him, how he would hear that?

J: [Sighs] I don't know. I think it would make him feel guilty, and I don't want him to feel guilty, it's not his fault. He didn't do anything wrong, I don't think, as a parent. He tried to share his passion with me and my passion's changed. That's not a commentary on him, it's just a reality.

Jack told me that if he did decide to have the conversation with his dad about guns, it would be during an upcoming trip home to West Virginia. 

But a few days after our conversation, and before going on that trip, Jack sent in an update. He’d written to his grandfather—his dad’s dad—asking for his advice. And his grandfather had written him an email back. 

J: I'm just going to read a little bit of it because I don't think I could put it better trying to paraphrase. So he said, "I do not think it's dishonest to play the middle. It's no betrayal of your principles nor is it lying. One can easily get over-principled here. Too much unneeded honesty can be bad stimulus. Do your best for gun control, applaud what you can in his ideas and you will have found the middle ground. To get all holy about it, even though you feel that way, it accomplishes nothing and leads to destructive places. Truth isn't black and white, and you certainly can't get there in one session. It has a practical side and it's no betrayal of conscience to find a way to preserve the vital relationship by not saying everything you feel."

And I think he's right. Because it's a vital relationship. The most important thing to me is to preserve my relationship with my dad. And I'm trying so hard to find a way to improve it, but reading - earlier in this email, my grandfather lays out how my dad's illness originated and his experience with it and his experience with talking to my dad about these things because he feels relatively similarly to how I do on guns. I think he's right that there's no way for me to have this conversation without really damaging this relationship, so I'm not going to.

But, you know, it does occur to me reading this, this is an email to someone from a parent about their child. My grandfather talking about my dad. And it's so clear to me that he spent 60 years trying to understand his son as best he can and work with him. He's doing the thing in this email that I always wished my dad tried to do with me. It's really galling to see it so plainly.

That’s a listener we’re calling Jack, who decided not to have that hard conversation with his dad, at least for now. But he did take that trip home. And, he told us, after thinking so much about his relationship with his dad… and what he could and couldn’t get from it… the trip went better than he expected. Thank you, Jack, for sharing your story with us. 

Death, Sex & Money is a listener-supported production of WNYC studios in New York. This episode was produced by Katie Bishop. The rest of our team includes Anabel Bacon, Afi Yellow-Duke, Emily Botein, and Andrew Dunn. Our intern is Sarah Dealy. The Reverend John Delore and Steve Lewis wrote our theme music. I'm on Instagram @annasalepics and the show is @deathsexmoney on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Thanks to Erica Streit-Kaplan in Newton, Massachusetts who is a sustaining member of Death, Sex & Money. Join Erica and support what we do here by going to deathsexmoney.org/donate or by texting DSM to 70101.

Also, if you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide or know someone who is, please ask for help. Call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1 (800) 273-8255. 

While he was home, Jack did shoot clays with his dad. And his dad also had a surprise for him. Jack is into cars almost as much as his dad is into guns… and his dad arranged for the two of them to tour a special collection of vintage automobiles.

J: My dad was really engaged with it and asking a lot of questions. I don't know, it's just I've never done something like that with him before, where it wasn't him trying to share his thing with me, it was him trying to give me an experience about something that I really care about. I don't know. I didn't know that that was something that would occur to him to do. Obviously, he is thinking about trying to improve our relationship in the same way that I am. And I think that's really what I needed.

I'm Anna Sale and this is Death, Sex & Money from WNYC.

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