Hey, heads up. This episode contains mentions of gun violence and suicide. So please take care while listening.

The first time I came out, I was saying, I'm your exact same son and I'm gay.

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 and Money. The show from WNYC about the 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.

The way I got myself sort of psyched up to do it is that, you know, I had a, I figured out my

scholarships for school. So I knew school was paid for and 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, you know, if this goes poorly,

I'm going to be okay. Like I'm going to know where I'm going to be tomorrow.

So Jack nervously sat his parents down and told them. My mom said, tell me something I don't know

and my dad was shocked. Your mom really said that? Yeah. Well, I mean, she, she's not,

not in so few words, but yeah, I mean, she looked at me like, yeah.

But I suppose she and dad had not talked about it because my dad just stared at me for a solid

30 seconds kind of flat jaw. And 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, and I was like, yeah,

but there's, there's no other way. You know, this is just, this is the truth.

And he said, okay. And that, you know, we never really had any friction 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 into us back in the spring around the time that my book, let's talk about hard things

came out. We asked you all to tell us about the most difficult conversations you've ever had

...