What Goes On in This House Stays in This House

By Cynthia L Schiefer and Michael P Schiefer

This book speaks to parents who suspect or know their child is LGBTQ+ and who are struggling with acceptance. Despite their fierce love for their child, or perhaps because of it, they suffer from fear, anxiety, confusion, shame, or simply not knowing what to do. In What Goes On in This House Stays in This

• Language: English
• Publisher: Share Your Truth With Me, LLC
• Release date: Sep 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087914695

Book preview

Dedications

To Hayden

I am so proud of the woman that you are! Your courage to be authentically you has taught me what true self-love is. I love you so much, Nutch!

To Garett

Thanks for all your unconditional love and support. You stood beside me through the happy times and were my rock through the difficult times. I could not love you more.

To all parents who are struggling

Whether your children are gender conforming or not, let them know that you love them fiercely for all that they are!

For clarity purposes, in this book I use a male name and male pronouns for Hayden prior to Hayden’s high school graduation, and I use female pronouns after Hayden leaves home for college. The contents of this book were approved by Hayden prior to publication.

Preface

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

–C.S. Lewis

There are so many sayings in regard to raising children. They don’t come with an owner’s manual is one that is an absolute understatement. If they did, the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) child would need an entire series of manuals. This book about my experience raising a transgender daughter in no way comes close to being a how-to manual or covering every LGBTQ+ topic, but if you are struggling with acceptance as I was, my wish is that you will find hope and strength from my journey.

My father had several sayings he repeated to my brother and me many times as we were growing up. Dad’s mottos made a huge impact on me. On my life: Show me who your friends are, and I will show you who you are. On business: I don’t care how good you think you are, or how good they think you are. EVERYONE is replaceable. On family: What goes on in this house stays in this house. That last one had the deepest impact. It was like living in Vegas. Now, do not misunderstand, there was nothing particularly secret-worthy about our family. Perhaps he said this simply because it was something his parents instilled in him when he was growing up. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, he was probably referring to income levels, family arguments, and trivial gossip. For example, if we children asked him how much he made for a living, he would smile and say, A dollar three eighty. That’s some higher math I have yet to figure out!

Whatever my dad meant, I internalized what goes on in this house stays in this house as keep ALL your business to yourself. Case in point: At the time of this writing, no one other than my husband Garett and my dear friend Pat knows that I am serious about working on this book. Old habits die hard, right?

The way I internalized my dad’s saying resulted in a tendency to keep my life private. Because I didn’t intend to share much about myself with people, I became intent on listening; on searching other people’s hearts through their words to confirm that they had it harder than I did. A dismissive I’m fine was my standard answer to all How are you? questions, and then I’d swiftly spin the focus back to the other person with a cheery, What’s going on with you? I learned quickly this was the key to unlatching people’s locks. Their stories would begin to flow, washing away any attention from me. I turned myself into the person whom others came to with their life problems. In fact, total strangers have told me their entire life stories within minutes of meeting me. You know the type—open books. The opposite of me.

I am a self-proclaimed empath. Empaths are hypersensitive people who experience a high level of compassion, consideration, and understanding toward others. This intense empathy creates a tuning fork effect, wherein the empath actually feels the emotions of the people around them. Perhaps because I’ve had so much practice listening to others, I can mentally put myself in someone else’s place and spend way too much time dwelling on how the situation must feel, consequently draining my own energy. Many days I have felt that empathy is a curse, especially when my life began to develop its own set of soul-sucking emotions. I would have never considered saying, I’m sorry, but I cannot handle your problem right now because I have my own to deal with. Yet, I have come to realize that empathy is my God-given gift.¹ Empathy is why I have decided to write this book.

Pushing through my ingrained habit of keeping everything to myself will not be easy. With every sentence I type, I stop and think, Who even cares what I have to say? I am constantly fighting negative self-talk. I am no expert. I am not an author. There are so many other resources on this topic. Opening my soul for others to see is frightening. And on and on and on. Sometimes Garett asks, Are you working on your book? Every time, the words your book trigger the feeling of imposter syndrome. But as I was writing this, feeling uncertain and insecure, I was snapped out of my negativity with an unexpected lightning bolt. As I distractedly scrolled through my apps on my Apple Watch—an effective procrastination technique!—quite by mistake I pressed the Bible App button and the verse of the day came up:

Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

To me this was a sign from above that my words need to be shared! I wholeheartedly believe that other parents and family members of transgender children who share my experience are out there struggling in silence as I did. I will write this book for them. I want this book to be a guiding light that proves they are not alone. That YOU are not alone.

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¹Many authors use words like spirit, source power, higher power, higher being, angels, and the like interchangeably for God. I do not, but feel free to mentally substitute my references to God with any of those terms as you read.

It’s A Boy!


For all the things my hands have held, the best by far is you.

–Unknown

My childhood expectations of how my life would unfold were all falling into place. Young love, starting our new life in Florida, a new home…and now I was pregnant. I had dreamed of these things from a young age. Life-like baby dolls, tiny cribs, bottles, and avocado-green-painted metal kitchen appliances with real running water all set the stage. With my little apartment in the basement of our New Jersey home, I pretended to be the perfect wife and mother. Apron and all! I