You just found out your son/daughter is gay...

Parent Cafe
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<p>I would do what I did when my son did first tell me he was gay: make sure he understood right away that I loved him then and forever, that I was completely accepting, and that this made absolutely no difference whatsoever to me. </p>

<p>I think he already knew that, or he wouldn’t have told me, but I thought it was important to make it very clear, immediately. Others have pointed out how much parental support and acceptance (or the absence of it) can mean to LGBT kids. </p>

<p>I can’t even imagine how different my own life would have been if I’d had the courage to come out to my own parents when I was young. As opposed to waiting until I was 48 years old to come out to my father, almost 30 years after my mother died. I still wonder sometimes what she would think of me, and if she would have been able to accept me, and still love me. I hope so, and if she felt about me anything like how I feel about my own son, I have to believe that she would have. </p>

<p>Anyway, it’s a very different and better world now than the one I grew up in. </p>

<p>My son was only 12 when he came out to me, but I can’t imagine that my reaction would be any different if he’d waited until college. Of course, I can’t really imagine him waiting that long!</p>

<p>To any parent receiving such news, I would strongly suggest avoiding any kind of “how do you know you’re gay” response.</p>

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<p>Sometimes the siblings have a good perspective to add. A cousin of mine came out around 40 years ago to his parents. It was the dark ages, pre-AIDS even, and they were paralyzed with confusion. </p>

<p>The mom researched and quickly joined P-Flag, which basically saved her relationship with her son. The dad took a year to recover but ultimately came around. My cousin moved clear across the country, worked for the Harvey Milk Campaign, made a great professional life, found a lifelong partner. </p>

<p>In those early years after he came out, his own brother was his best advocate. He had watched his own brother struggle, as a good and decent person who became very tangled up as a teen until he came out. According to the brother, coming out to the parents, while difficult and not initially well-received, freed him. On the West Coast, he began working in public for various community political causes, some gay-related/political, some for health, and others just to improve his neighborhood.</p>

<p>It released his energy and he returned from being a tortured, scowling adolescent to someone the brother had been missing: the kind, generous, relaxed brother from childhood days. This was exactly how my cousin described it to me.</p>

<p>Sometimes siblings understand things so much better than the parents.</p>

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<p>I’m a little surprised to think a modern parent wouldn’t have figured this out well before college age. Somewhere around age 12/13 there starts to be hints. We did have one friend who did some across the board experimenting before concluding he was hetero. Fortunately it made no difference to his family or friends (although some of the sweethearts were . . . confused and miserable). </p>

<p>Times have changed. Thank God (or The Goddess, your choice). Years ago my mother took me to a Daughters of the Confederacy luncheon. A proud woman with an unswept hairdo regally informed me that she was a descendant of the Huguenots. I had heard of the TV program “Roots” and I was a fan of Jane Goodall, so I eagerly asked if she would be going to Africa to find her ancestors. I had mixed “Huguenots” with “Hottentots” in my brain. My mother, bless her, instantly knew how my brain was working and could not stop laughing. She never invited me to another DOC luncheon but she never said a word about the incident (the updo lady went off in an uproar). I was her kid. She loved me. She was beginning to think that the DOC crowd was a bit stuck in the past (Ya think???). She turned her interest in geneology down some other paths. </p>

<p>She changed with the times. She was a great mom.</p>

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<p>“Somewhere around age 12/13 there starts to be hints.”</p>

<p>Haha yes and no, though…</p>

<p>It depends on the kid for sure. Many will try to go along with friends and have celebrity crushes/try to date the same sex/etc. And sometimes behavior that might be interpreted as very gay (no interest in dating, or an alternative way of dressing, or even blatant involvement in the school’s gay straight alliance or gay rights) could very well come from a straight kid. </p>

<p>I think in many situations it’s hard to know unless you’re told…</p>

<p>Then again, I’ve never been a parent!</p>

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<p>The closest we’ve come so far is that both S & D independently have had a good friend “come out of the closet” in the past year or so. Both were accepting and supportive but say that the males are not ready to share the info with their parents. We told them we’re fine with it and would support their friends or them in their choices. They mainly seemed concerned about the stress their friends are currently experience and expect to face when the tell their folks.</p>

<p>Hubby seemed more taken aback than me, probably because he hasn’t known as many gay people very well as I have.</p>

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<p>Olymom LOLOLOLOL I wish there was a picture of her face!</p>

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<p>“I’m a little surprised to think a modern parent wouldn’t have figured this out well before college age. Somewhere around age 12/13 there starts to be hints.”</p>

<p>Not necessarily. Some people – males and females – are very late bloomers. They don’t date or have any sexual interest until they are in their twenties. One of my young friends, who is gay, said she didn’t have sexual feelings for anyone until she fell in love with a woman two years ago when she herself was 23. </p>

<p>Others may have date people of the opposite sex and even have sex with them. I have gay friends-- male and female – who were married or had kids before they realized they themselves were gay.</p>

<p>Not everyone is aware of their sexual orientation from an early age.</p>

48

<p>"Now if she registers as a Republican… "</p>

<p>Older S is a very conservative Republican who now and then feels inspired to share with me his view of the current state of the U.S. H, younger S and I are liberal Democrats.</p>

<p>I find older S’s political preference much harder to come to terms with than I think I would cope with learning that either son were gay.</p>

49

<p>NSM: It was a joke. My D was actually a Ron Paul fan during the presidential primaries. We parents were Obama sheep.</p>

50

<p>This is exactly what happened to us: our D came out freshman year in college. (She’s a sophomore now.) I had already figured it out-- it was clear to me, although not quite to my husband, that her best friend was more than that. But NSM is right, you can’t always tell at age 12, and she says she couldn’t tell. She is a very traditional girl by nature, and she says she didn’t know it in high school. </p>

<p>Of course we did what everyone here said: Told her we love her and are proud of her. The stress for her was not us but extended family, and we helped the process of telling them. We welcomed her then-girlfriend as part of our family, and we look forward to the day when she marries. The grandparents may have a hard time at that wedding (someone’s got to make a funny movie about that subject), but they’ll live.</p>

<p>And to whoever worries about grandchildren-- that doesn’t change a thing! We know plenty of gay parents, male and female couples alike. Our daughter is absolutely going to have children. She may be gay, but she’s still a very traditional girl who wants stability, marriage, family, the whole shebang.</p>

51

<p>“NSM: It was a joke. My D was actually a Ron Paul fan during the presidential primaries. We parents were Obama sheep.”</p>

<p>I know you were joking. But I wasn’t joking about my older S, who became a Republican at age 5 and now is a libertarian because the Republicans aren’t conservative enough for him. He says the rest of the family is following the “Messiah” (Obama). Perhaps he and your D would be a good pair… They could have kids who might rebel by being liberal Democrats. :)</p>

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<p>I don’t think it’s always obvious, but when it is, I think it’s fine, or even a good idea, to say, “Yeah, I figured as much.” I read something in the newspaper recently wherein someone mentioned that when he came out to friends and family members, he found it reassuring to discover they already knew. Because that meant that his coming out to them changed nothing–if they already knew and loved him anyway, that was very comforting.</p>

<p>Adam Lambert, in some of his post-American-Idol interviews, said something along the same lines–that when his parents told him they’d known all along, he said he wished they’d let him know that they knew, because it would have spared him the worry of hiding it and wondering what they’d say or do. I’m not sure there really is anything a parent can do in that situation, but it was interesting to hear his view point.</p>

<p>In my family, my parents grew more and more irritated with my sister for NOT coming out to them, because they thought it insulted their intelligence. Basically, “How dumb does she think we are, that we haven’t figured it out?” That probably caused more strife than anything else.</p>

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<p>My sister did bring home a Republican – much to my very liberal father’s disgust. She married him anyways and my father did accept him. Twenty-five years later he was just elected a judge in a very Republican state – as an Obama supporting Democrat. My sister says you’ve gotta marry 'em to convert 'em.</p>

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<p>My daughter came out to her classmates in high school, I didn’t figure it out until a bit later. I just thought I was lucky cause she wasn’t as boy crazy as I was in school- she and her friends had horses to be excited about- I didnt know they had each other too.</p>

<p>But really it didnt change anything.
I did go to a few PFLAG meetings though</p>

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Actually, I would MUCH rather that my daughter be gay than trying to emulate Catherine the Great. ;)</p>

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<p>[My</a> 300 Foster Grandchildren - Grandparents.com](<a href=“Home - Hella+”>Home - Hella+)</p>

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<p>umcp11, thank you very much for your post. I am both grateful for your sharing of your experience, and also sorry that it has been that way for you within your own family.</p>

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<p>I want to add this poem here. NOT BECAUSE I THINK HOMOSEXUALITY IS A DISABILITY. The correlation is that when your child is different in any way THAN YOU EXPECTED you have to change your picture of reality. Your S/D is still the S/D that you love and cherish, despite their sexuality, their eye color, their aptitudes. Maybe this will help those parents who are having a hard time with their child’s sexuality (most of whom I believe will not post on this thread).</p>

<p>“Welcome to Holland”
By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. </p>

<p>I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this… </p>

<p>When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting. </p>

<p>After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.” </p>

<p>“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.” </p>

<p>But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. </p>

<p>The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place. </p>

<p>So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. </p>

<p>It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around… and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills…and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. </p>

<p>But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.” </p>

<p>And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland. </p>

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<p>I hope you all take from this what I intended. (Nothing at all negative about people having a different sexuality.)</p>

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<p>There is a wonderful – but somewhat dated – book about this very topic, called “Consenting Adult” by Laura Z. Hobson. It takes place in the 1950s, which was a bit in the dark ages. While at boarding school, the son comes out to his mother in a letter. She’s horrified and promises him that they’ll send him to a psychiatrist to be “cured.” Doesn’t work, of course, but it’s a wonderful story about the mother and father’s struggles with this issue.</p>

<p>Cross-posted with LINYMOM: That is a wonderful analogy!!</p>

59

<p>thinking of the above post, a [rominent woman in our town, georgeous, etc… found her D in bed with a girl. kicked her out. then sent her to be deprogrammed, and now she goes to a
christian college and is cured. I felt so sorry for that kid and her parents shallow morals. I also dont believe you can be deprogrammed or should be. I think its important to live an authentic life.</p>

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<p>I dont know its not such a big deal in our family. My D has lots of gay friends. the thing about the prom astounded me as we have had lesbian couples at our prom with no issues. last year a friend of my D’'s wore a white tuxish prom outfit and brought her girlfriend it was no big deal. I havent seen any males yet.</p>