Parent of Gay Teens

astrophysicsmom
Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:28:40 +0000

I agree with citygirlsmom…a note or email (and especially if he knows you go onto facebook and myspace, you can mention you’ve seen his online entries about it)…I’ve always told my 2 D’s that although I won’t go through their personal stuff, etc., but anything that has their name attached to it online is “fair game” in terms of privacy. If you can find it, so can others.

Regarding the initial conversation NOT being a face-to-face discussion, which is probably more than he can imagine handling… Most teen boys probably would rather do anything than to discuss their sex life, or any sexual thoughts, with their mothers. Compound this with the sensitivity to the potential issues that it may cause in the family (maybe w/ H??), and it’s probably too much to expect from him. It may be easier for him to not break it(or want to discuss) in person with you…At two different times, two very close friends came out to us…via email and IM…even though one was someone my husband saw every day.

One was a friend from college whom I was quite certain was gay…my question to him was, “Why did it take so long to tell me?” He said that for his closest friends (whom he no longer lived near), it was the hardest to tell them(us)…even though he knew we would be very accepting. It was just easier to make it kind of impersonal, and go from there. He told me in what turned out to be a very long night of IM’ing between IL and NJ!

The second was someone who worked closely (actually, for) my husband, but was someone that he had been friends with from a previous job. He sent an email, and H had me read it, without any preface. When I started reading it, my heart sank…I’ve wanted to tell you this in person, but it’s just easier to do in writing… I thought he was resigning and moving away!!! (LOL, H had the same initial feeling)… it was such a total relief to know that he was “just” coming out!!! We did not make light of it at the time, but now we laugh about how relieved we were to find out he was “just” gay.

You can tell him what you said in the last paragraph of your post #17. Best wishes…