'I'm a mother who became a lesbian'

Clare talks about coming out as a lesbian aged 50 and her teenage son's reaction.

Duration 02:34


CLARE: Of course, I came to being as lesbian very late on in my life, I was 50. So, so that’s why a lot of this, and a lot of experiences being a lesbian mother, doesn’t really apply to me because I’m a mother who became a lesbian, rather than a lesbian who became a mother.


CLARE: You see [laughs] and it is quite different in terms of experiences, and with experience with the children because my lad was 15 or so when I split up with his dad and then, when I had my first relationship with a woman, he was about 17. So he was not a little kid, you know, but he was still at school and he still had friends who were probably… so he was probably quite sensitive about it. But it wasn’t the issue for him, or for the pair of us, that it would have been if he was a toddler or going to school, going to primary school or something like that, so, yes.

INTERVIEWER: So tell us a little but about your son then.

CLARE: Well he’s nearly 30 now. So… [laughs] well, you mean how he reacted, or…?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah.

CLARE: Well actually he was remarkably grown-up about it actually [laughs]. He was upset about the split with his dad. He never expressed any discomfort with it, and he really liked the first woman that I saw; they got on really well. I don’t suppose he shouted about it to his friends [laughs]. But he had his friends in the house and it didn’t seem to put him off having mates around and things, you know, it didn’t seem to bother him. And when I did ask him directly about it sometime later he said he was just glad I’d found someone, and I think it was probably a real relief to him that I had, in the sense that he stopped feeling responsible for me, I think! [Laughs]. I think, because there was a point, you know, that he did feel bad a little that he was the man of the house, who knows? And all that stuff. So, yeah, so I think on many levels it was a relief actually. I don’t think it’s given him huge – he might say different – but I don’t think it’s given him huge problems really. I don’t think it has.