Hometown Role Model: Author, Wade Rouse!
A Role Model is a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. Each month, we ask the Network Family to recommend role models and mentors. We profile each leader by asking them questions about their own inspirations, pivotal moments in their development of their identities, and advice for future leaders. If you have recommendations for a role model or mentor to profile, please send them to Larry DeShane.
What role model taught you that your own identity was unique and important? How did they teach you to value your identity?
My mother had the largest impact on teaching me that I was special and important. I grew up in a very rural town in the Missouri Ozarks, not the best place for a gay kid. I remember one time when, as a young boy, I made the horrific mistake of singing the old song “Delta Dawn” – while holding a faded rose, no less – in my middle school talent contest.
(To make that plight current for younger people, just insert any Taylor Swift song for “Delta Dawn” and then imagine a chubby, little boy singing it to a gym filled with a collection of country folk that made the fellas from Deliverance look like the Jonas Brothers).
I wasn’t just heckled, I was boo’ed offstage. I sprinted off the rickety plywood runway and directly toward the open arms of my waiting mother. She didn’t get a hug, however. She got berated.
“How could you let me humiliate myself like that?” I screamed.
My mother, a nurse – still wearing her hospital scrubs – said simply yet firmly, as if she were assisting a doctor in surgery, “You were only being true to yourself, and no one should ever stand in the way of such honesty and fearlessness. Only that can lead to true happiness.”
She then presented me with two gifts: a little, leather writing journal and a copy of American humorist Erma Bombeck’s book, At Wit’s End.
“You will need both – humor and writing – to make sense of this world,” she had already written – in her looping cursive – on the inside cover. “I love you.”
She then took me to get a twist cone to numb my pain even more.
Yes, my mother, it seemed, had not only known my performance would be a debacle but she had also come prepared for the disaster. But she wasn’t a fortune teller, as I initially believed.
She was simply a great mother.
That evening changed my life, no matter how much the memory stung, because I realized that my mom didn’t stand in the way of who I truly was or my dreams. She encouraged me, knowing – as a nurse does – that healing often comes with a little pain, while knowing – as a mother does – that discovering yourself often comes with fits of failure.
Was there a defining moment or struggle in your life that really defined who you are (or want to be) today?
A number of defining moments. (And I think they never stop in one's life.) I attempted suicide when I was in my 20s and too afraid to come out; I didn't speak to my father for a year after I told him I was gay; and I was too scared to write about my life, so attempted to do so as fiction before coming to the realization that I had to tell my truth, that it was mydestiny to tell my truth. My father eventually embraced me and my husband Gary (we have now been together 20 years), and by being true to myself and my voice, my first memoir, America's Boy (about growing up gay in the Ozarks) was published by Penguin, which launched my writing and literary career (six books total, including my first novel, which will publish in 2016 from St. Martin's Press). What I have realized is that you must be strong and you must be true to yourself. You must also continue to fight for the life and the love that you deserve. Once you come through such struggles, happiness unfolds and a world you never dreamed possible becomes reality.
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What would you say to an LGBTQ youth who was facing a real identity crisis? How would you convince them that the struggles they are facing today may ultimately define who they are and one day strengthen them?
Love yourself and believe in yourself. Know it will get better. It will! Know there are people around -- even those you may never imagine -- who will be there for you when you need them. Your life is unique, precious, important. We need you!
Everyone faces struggles in life, and they either stop us or they propel us into a life we never imagined could exist. Battle. Fight. Go toward that life. We are all blessed with a life that -- in reality -- is truly just a blink of an eye (you will know this when you reach my age!), and you must make the most of it. Only by fighting through those struggles and being honest to ourselves can we become the people we are meant to be and change others' lives as a result of that. Challenges make us stronger, better, more insightful. Those who come through the other side are leaders, teachers, guides.
The world needs you. I need you.
To learn more about our Hometown Role Model please visit his website. WADE ROUSE and don't forget to become a fan on Facebook.
The work of author and humorist Wade Rouse has been featured multiple times on NBC’s Today Show as well as on Chelsea Lately on E!, People, Salon.com, Forbes.com, Publisher’s Weekly and Writer’s Digest. USA Today calls Wade “a wise, witty and often wicked voice,” and the Chicago Tribune’s Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic states that Rouse’s memoirs are filled with “sparkling humor” and that everyone should “read Wade Rouse, especially if you value laughter and wisdom.” Writer’s Digest recently named Rouse the #2 Writer, Dead or Alive, “We'd Love to Have Drinks With” (Wade was just behind Ernest Hemingway, and just ahead of Hunter S. Thompson).
Larry DeShane is the Volunteer Coordinator for The Network
