Janna Barkin had the good luck to knew she had a transgender child because that child made it so clear to her from the time he was little. She knew he was always her son despite what presented at his birth. But transgender can be confusion-filled and family members left sometimes fearful from lack of understanding.
Janna has been a beacon of experienced and compassionate light in this area of transgender children. She is now reaching out to a new generation: grandparents of transgender children. Is this extra bewildering for people raised in a generation that has never experienced a lot of what is current now?
Children need unconditional love, they need to be loved for just them. We all know that. Grandparents play a special role and children do even better in life when they have the love of those grandparents. You have only to see the light in the eyes of a grandparent to know the giddy heights of this love.
But here are some questions with answers that might surprise you. Do grandparents feel less than that intense love for a trans grand? How do they know how to have a conversation with that grandchild – should they discuss transgender issues? Do grandchildren even want that? What is it that the trans (and all) grandchildren do want ? And, what is the hardest thing to get used to for grandparents? What is the importance of pronouns and why honor them?
Janna delves into all of this and more in her new book A Grand Love: Stories for Grandparents of Transgender Grandchildren. Heartwarming to say the least, this book seeks to bring grandparents comfortably and joyfully into what may be a very unfamiliar world. To see the light, love and intelligence in her eyes as she talks about this is so worth a click.
Not just for grandparents but for anyone who may be interested in this topic. What a relief for candor to outshine fear and confusion! The people in these stories, grandparents and grandchildren, are talking to someone. Maybe they are talking to you.
Janna’s love letter? It will be, like so much of what she does openhearted and original. Might you want to write the same kind?