Busy Philipps has shared her firstborn child, Birdie Silverstein, is gay.
During the most recent episode of her Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best podcast, released on Dec. 30, the star and mom of two told listeners the 12 year old came out to her and her husband Marc Silverstein two years earlier. "For those of you who are my friends listening at home, this is the first you're hearing that Birdie is gay and out," Philipps said. "Birdie told us at 10 years old and we immediately...I mean obviously, I knew that Birdie knew."
The Girls5Eva actress also shared that Birdie's pronouns are they/them. "I said, 'You know, Bird, I've been doing a bad job with the pronouns,'" Philipps shared. "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."
However, Birdie gave their mom permission to speak publicly about their gender identity and sexual orientation. "Bird was like, 'I don't give a f--k. You can talk about that I'm gay and out. You can talk about my pronouns. That would be cool with me. That's great,'" Philipps recalled. "So I said, 'Ok, I can talk about it on the podcast.'"
"So, Birdie, my out kid, prefers they/them," she continued. "I f--k up sometimes, but I'm trying my best at that, too."
Philipps welcomed Birdie with Silverstein in 2008. Five years later, the couple expanded their family with the arrival of daughter Cricket, 7.
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the devoted mom also imparted some wisdom on Birdie after finding them lying on the floor of their room listening to Harry Styles' music in the dark.
"I was like, 'Are you alright? Do you want to talk about anything?'" Philipps described. "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.'"
The actress could relate to how Birdie was feeling. "I got really emotional because I said, well, first off, welcome to being my daughter," she said. "But, I want to say this to you because I wish somebody would have said this to me: This is living. You can't wait for it to start…You can't think, like, if only I can get to X, like then I'm gonna start living.'" The star reflected on how she had previously lived her life waiting for the future and "fantasizing" about a certain thing that would make her feel differently, but has since learned how to "sit still" and "sit in it."
Philipps also empowered her child to live a life they want—however that looks. "I said to [Birdie], 'The other thing I want to tell you that I wish I had known is that 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,'" she encouraged. "'You get to choose what will make you feel fulfilled and happy, you know? 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."
Ahead of Christmas, Philipps gushed about being a mom to Birdie after gifting them a powder blue suit. "Birdie opened one of my gifts tonight. It was this blue suit, which was excitedly and immediately put on and it felt like I won Christmas two days early," the Dawson's Creek alum described. "And then I managed to get this picture and now I feel like I won all of it because OH MY GOD I get to know this person and THAT is the magic of being a parent."