Busy Philipps is doing her best to stay woke after her child Birdie (above, inset) came out as gay and genderqueer!
The Freaks and Geeks alum got candid about the 12-year-old’s identity revelations in a special episode of her podcast, Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best, on Thursday, admitting that she still struggles with using the correct pronouns after Birdie explained they’d like their pronouns to be they/them.
The 41-year-old actress dished:
“I said, ‘You know, Bird, I’ve been doing a bad job with the pronouns.’ Because Birdie said that they would like their pronouns to be they/them, and I haven’t been doing it, and I said because I have this public persona and I want Birdie to be in control of their own narrative and not have to answer to anybody outside of our friends and family if they don’t want to.”
Busy went on to explain that while she thought she was protecting Birdie by keeping their pronoun preferences out of the public eye, the pre-teen wasn’t scared at all about what others might say.
The star revealed:
“Bird was like, ‘I don’t give a f**k. You can talk about how I’m gay and out; you can talk about my pronouns. That would be cool with me. That’s great.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I can talk about it on the podcast.’ … So yeah it’s been wild. So Birdie, my out kid, prefers they/them. I f**k up sometimes, but I’m trying my best at that, too.”
Hey, the important thing is: she’s trying!
Busy’s co-host Shantira Jackson, a queer writer and comedian, applauded the mother-of-two for being so willing to change her thinking when, sadly, many parents still struggle to accept their children who come out as transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, and the like.
Shantira explained:
“I mean there’s a lot of kids out here who, their parents aren’t trying at all. If anything they’re doing the opposite of trying. Also… it is an adjustment… Literally, you gave birth to Birdie, and when Birdie came out you used a specific pronoun, and now you’re doing your best and you will get great at it and it will become second nature, but it’s just like any other muscle, any other new language… you are rewiring your brain.”
What a great thing for parents to hear! It’s OK to f**k up — as long as you care enough to try!
In the meantime, Busy’s made it clear to the pre-teen that they can live their life however they want to. Recalling an “intense” moment she had with Birdie recently, the Illinois native shared:
“I heard Harry Styles’ Fine Line playing loudly on repeat. And if you guys don’t know that song, it is a bit of a sad banger…. I went in and the lights were all out and Bird was just lying on the floor in the dark, listening to Fine Line on repeat… so I laid down on the floor as well, and I was like, ‘Are you alright? Do you want to talk about anything?’ And Birdie said, ‘It’s just I feel like I’m alive, but I’m not really living, you know? And I just want the living part to start.’”
OMG, such a *teen*!
Having starred in a teen drama series herself, Busy knew exactly what to say to her child. She shared:
“ ‘This is living, you can’t wait for it to start… You can’t think, if only I can get to X, I can start living.’ ”
Busy went on to drop a second pearl of wisdom, telling her kid:
“I said to , “The other thing I want to tell you that I wish I had known is: you get to build your life however the f**k you want to, and it doesn’t have to look like anything you’ve ever seen, or anything that’s ever been modeled for you, because maybe it doesn’t exist. You get to choose what will make you feel fulfilled and happy. It doesn’t have to be any of these constructs that we’ve all been fed our whole lives. This is a different world that you get to f**king build.”
Such great advice!
Even if Busy is still making the occasional pronoun mistake, we’d say she’s being the perfect mom to Birdie when the pre-teen needs it most.
What do U think about this, Perezcious readers? Click here to listen to the full episode.
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