Your child says I'm gay. What do you do?

Parents do regularly reject children that are gay. What is wrong with the premise. My mom doesn't like the idea that I am lesbian but she understands now that it is not a choice. It is who I am. It doesn't make her like it any better.
My dad just has difficulty all the way around with my being gay. He never stated a reason. Yes i see him and he still loves me as his daughter but the relationship he and I had seriously altered when he knew i was gay.
What is not to understand.
You said in a post that you disagreed with the casual relationship of your son.
That is a response.
How would you react of your child was having a relationship with a member of the same sex? How hard is that to answer. Would you say fine i am with you. Would you say I don't like it but let me meet him or her.
Would you say Don't bring him or her home.
Would you say get out of my house?
It's really a simple question.

 

Love them, support them, accept them, and continue to welcome them into my home, like any good parent would.

If you disown your child for something as petty as their being homosexual, you do not deserve to be a parent.

 

I seriously don't think the problem with your parental relationship lies with your parents.

Most children have to deal with dividing with their parents on issues. Being gay is simply just one of many. Yet, you make your situation with your parents "special"...expecting them to approve... and it keeps you from dealing with it like any other child deals with differences.

The premise is wrong...because I don't reject children for the choices they make. I reject the choices.

I don't think you were made "gay". I will always see your gay lifestyle as your decision. If you were my child, you have to deal with my attitude on that. Its just life.

But most parents know that they can't and shouldn't try to hound or control their grown children. It doesn't sound like that is happening to you.

Like most other parents...meeting the partner would not be a problem unless young children where in the household and the two were flaunting. I will respect my children's decisions but expect respect in return.

 

Nothing different, other than let them no it doesn't change anything about your relation.

 

You are making this about me. That was not the question. I have a decent enough relationship with my parents. Not what it had been by at least we still speak. This happened many years ago and since I am married. So you are focused on all the wrong issues. I didn't have any expectations for my parents as to their response. It would be what it would be.
Why would there be a problem if there were children in the house? If your child walked in with his or her same sex partner or spouse how is that flaunting anything. If the kissed would you object? Would you consider that flaunting? If they were holding hands would you consider that flaunting? Would it be flaunting if a heterosexual couple kissed or held hands?

 

I agree but some parents by way of belief would struggle with that fact. i am not sure it would make them bad parents. If a parent pitches a fit and throws the child out that would be another matter.

 

I think that is the mature way to deal with it.

 

Science has a better answer for that than YOU do. And your inaccurate understanding of what homosexuality is (in a person), is surely part of the reason you do not understand the "premise" which 'smiley' presented here.

Being gay is NOT a choice (perhaps there are very rare exceptions). Science challenges your notion, and readily defeats it. Sorry, you don't get to make up stuff about homosexuality; this isn't 1911, it is 2011.

And that is simply speaking as a misinformed or intransigent person; gay/homosexual (orientation) is not a "lifestyle", not by any means. Scientists KNOW that already.

And thus, that is exactly why the very questions in the OP are relevant. People who THINK the way you do, also have children.

Sure as my screen uses 'electricity', it is.

 

A well thought out post thanks for your sharing.

 

I was just wondering what the "gay lifestyle" includes?

 

I found it!!

 

You give him/her a hug and tell them that they are still your child and you love them no matter what.

 

I'd be sick in the knees and would want to know who lead her/him down this path.

 

Would you like my totally honest answer, as far as I am capable? It is this - I have not yet left school, so I find it hard to imagine being married, let alone having a grown up child, but I think I would like to be decent enough not to let my child see any disappointment I might feel at the news. I use the word 'disappointment' only because, in all honesty, I think most parents would expect their son or daughter to grow up and marry, and give them grandchildren. But if I truly love my children, then I must love everything they are - and I think that would naturally be the case.

I cannot claim to understand homosexuality, but I do not view it as anything to be concerned about. If my son or daughter has grown up to be a decent, honest, and caring person, why would his/her sexual orientation be of any real consequence, or have any effect upon how I feel about him/her? It would be less important than his/her food preferences.

I know it is not the same thing, but I have a good friend at school who says he is gay. He doesn't conform to any stereotypical 'gay' behaviour (I doubt many gays do,) and I spend no time thinking about his sexuality. I just know him as an awesome friend.

I do not think it is important for parents to 'understand' homosexuality (what heterosexual person really understands it?) but I think it is important for a parent to make sure that his/her child does not feel unloved, or regarded as a lesser being, over something that is not within his/her power to control. That would be totally unfair.

 

Far better to blame yourself, gay genes probably.

 

Relating to people in such a way that their bright sides are empowered and their dark sides are disempowered, if they're OK with that. Emotionalized love achieves the opposite.

Assuming you're talking about the effeminate young man, I'm only taking you at your word. I'm not in a position to tolerate or not tolerate him, and I don't see myself as any more judgmental than Reagan was when he called the Soviet Union an evil empire. There is no way in the world a woman can respect an effeminate man, so the marriage will be an abomination at least until such time as he starts to look at how he got that way.

If there is any bright line between the mentally ill and compulsive and self-destructive behavior, I don't know where it is.

 

What to do? A gentle smother with a pillow, if I really love them. Tied in a sack with rocks attached and tossed in the river if I don't.

Or, call Michelle Bachman's boy toy hubby and find out what reeducation would cost me. If it's too much, back to first principles.

 

Whether it was my boy or girls the message would be the same. How you have sex doesn't change the person you are, nor does it entitle you to anything more. I would encourage them to not view how they have sex as being what defines them and it's nobody's business because they are after all, either a man or a woman, no more, no less.

 

Nice....Very good options....Well said.

 

I dispute your assertion that the overlap is "huge" when we're talking about masculinity/femininity. Most men will have more masculine traits than feminine, and most women will have more feminine traits than men.

Men and women have measurable differences in their brain structure that influence their behavior. Culture may teach them how to express those traits, but it doesn't determine those traits.

Is it your assertion that a through neuroplasticity men can become female-brained and women can become male-brained?

I'm not persuaded that neuroplasticity is unlimited, or that it can explain same-sex orientation.

I don't presume that it's based on "the safety of like and fear of different". I'm not persuaded that we really know the mechanism, merely the result.

If it were merely attraction to the person and not aspects of gender, then everyone would be bisexual. Moreover, this theory cannot explain why a person would be attracted to the same sex continuously when they haven't yet engaged in sexual activity with another person, and live in isolation from other people who share their attraction to the same sex. Your theory assumes that orientation arises through a reinforcement by grouping with people who have experienced marginalization. In doing so, you fail to appreciate the diversity of gay people, many of whom do not cluster together in 'gay ghettoes'. Suppose a person didn't experience marginalization for their attraction to a person of the same sex. You would have us believe that they could also be attracted to a person of the opposite sex if they don't experience marginalization for the initial attraction to the same sex. I think that's a lot of rot.

You're relying on an exaggeration of the overlap that makes men and women little different from each other, which is a lot of hogwash.

Which ought to tell you something: It has to arise from something other than cultural/environmental influences.

No one said a child would have the maturity to understand it, which doesn't preclude them from experiencing it.

And if they did, they might find differences in the brain from what is typical for most males already in place for males who have a same-sex orientation.
Bottom line: The research is lacking.

Ridiculous. No one goes around coaching kids to become same-sex oriented. Quite the opposite, in fact - it's very strongly discouraged.

Or it might not. Those differences in brain structure might already be in place from factors affecting brain development in utero.

Science doesn't tell you that orientation is shaped by behavior and belief.

If neuroplasticity were the culprit, then I'd expect children raised in an environment that discourages homosexuality to have brains wired against same-sex orientation. Yet we know that a person raised in that environment may still turn out to be same-sex oriented. So I'm inclined to be skeptical of this theory. What's more, my personal experience informs me that orientation doesn't arise from "marginalized people grouping together" or from children being coached to become gay. Mine was there regardless of efforts to rid me of it, and it existed well before I became sexually active or had ever met another gay person.

 

I'm not persuaded that you do, and definitely not that you're some kind of expert on gay people.

 

Why would you think they were led? Why not think it had been part of them since you held them at birth.
No one is able to lead someone down the path to being gay.
Do you really think that someone is capable of leading a heterosexual into becoming gay? Do you think that someone could lead you down that path?

That is a ridiculous notion to be honest.
Sick to the knees at your own child. I can understand worry, and concern over what they will experience as a gay but sick. That's a hard one.

 

Considering that you are young you did a good job at describing the way a parent should act. The child isn't telling the parent to hurt them they are trying to find love and support and acceptance no matter who or what they are.
Good post Leo

 

Real openness toward your child. maybe that's why so many gay kids are homeless or commit suicide. Must be all the love from the family and support.

 

You are so right. It does not entitle them to anything more or less for that matter. Gays are humans like everyone else. So often though the level of acceptance goes away. Some people get the idea that it changes the child completely. It does not. You seem to understand that. Thanks