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I am generalizing greatly here, but I think a parent who suspects their child is gay is perhaps going to be reluctant to to label them prior to the child figuring it out for themselves. Now whether or not this is the right thing to do is very hard to say.
I agree. This is something I would not broach with my child until my child was ready to talk to me about it. What if you talk to them and they're not gay? I have a brother I thought was gay. He's not. He's just a nerd who took a long time to meet Mrs. Right and saw no purpose in dating a string of women he wasn't interested in settling down with.
At 26, I finally told my mom I'm a lesbian. Her response, "I always knew."
All the anxiety, crying, depression, suicidal thoughts, and mental anguish that has plagued me for YEARS because I thought she wouldn't accept me, only to find out she always knew?
Would it have been so difficult to, during my extremely traumatic childhood, to just sit me down and say something to the effect of, "honey, I'll always love you no matter your sexual orientation, you have nothing to fear".
Those simple words would have alleviated a lot of suffering on my part. And yet, when I talk to other LGBT gay people, I hear this as a recurring theme. That mom and/or dad suspected but never said anything.
Why do parents do this to their children? Given how homophobic society is, if you can obviously tell your kid is gay, why would you make it that much harder on them by having them doubt your love?
If I had a child who was depressed and suicidal I would want to know the reason for that, however, I am not a mind reader. If my child would not tell me the reason there is no way for me to know.
There are my "personal sexual thoughts", "common sexual things", and the "kid's sexual thoughts".
I keep my personal sexual thoughts to myself and I don't feel I should intrude into a kid's personal sexual thoughts.
But of course with "common" things - sex education in general, then talk about that.
People (and kids) are different. I have some friends who tell me every little detail of their sex lives. Sometimes more than I care to hear about. With other people, they would not THINK of mentioning anything of their sex lives. They keep it totally to themselves.
Either is fine with me. I just leave it to them to bring it up. That protects those who are embarrassed by such discussions!
Note I am totally accepting of anyone's preferred sexual orientation. Does not matter to me. As I say, a friend is someone who knows all about you and still likes you!
parents are aware that their children go through "stages" of different likes and behaviors. They seldom try to discuss every little thing with the child unless the child brings it up. I think that most would tend to think that this might be just another stage.
What parents do that cause the most problems with the Gay/Lesbian thing as they insist on trying to arrange Boy-Girls things like dances, sleep overs, etc. This can make the child more uncomrfortable.
A lot of parents, especially mothers, seem to talk too much about "when you get married." I am not a lesbian in any way, but I heard "when you get married and have children," sooooooo much that I really hated the thought of males for a while.
My husband is my life. He's my best friend too. Had I not happened to have met him, I might still have been single because of this push to "get married."
Good point. It seems only gay children have a need to discuss their sexuality with their parents.
Sexual topics aren't all that discussed by many parents and adult children.
Being gay isn't just a sexual topic. It will determine who your child has relationships with, and where possible, who they could ultimately marry and make a member of your family.
Not to mention the issue of your grandchildren and how they'll come into being.
Not to mention, people do not become social pariahs or outcasts in certain circles for being straight.
It really has nothing at all to do with what they are doing in the privacy of their bedrooms.
I agree that parents usually wait until a kid brings a subject up before discussing it, mostly because kids are somewhat shy about such things and parents don't want to embarrass or distress their kids unnecessarily
However I don't think it should be all that difficult for parents to let their kids know that they are fine with different dating situations, interracial, homosexual, whatever. I simply told my kids that as long as their relationships were loving and respectful I didn't really care who they dated.
I think we as parents have this notion of how we want our kids to turn out. When that image is shattered - whether it's becoming a doctor, lawyer, pro-athlete, or sexual orientation - handling the reality of it can be difficult.
I'm a new parent, my daughter is only a toddler. I support the gay community but honestly I have no idea how I would react if my daughter came out to me one day. I would never disown her but it may take a while to adjust to this new reality. I love her unconditionally.
If I had a hunch she was gay, I would think I'd have enough courage to confront her but then I'd be afraid of the consequences of she wasn't gay. Did I confuse her? Upset her? Is she in self-doubt? Does she know she's gay? Is she mad that other people think she's gay but she's not? Or, she really is but hasn't come to that realization yet?
When I was a sophomore in college, I had these two guy friends, one of which I had a crush on. We hung out a lot - my roommate and guy a (the crush) and guy b (who I assumed was gay). Well, they were really close and ALWAYS hung out. I confronted guy b one day on ICQ (like an online chat for those of you who don't know what it is) asking him if guy a and b were dating. He VEHEMENTLY denied he was gay and that they were dating.
Fast forward to senior year, Guy A is totally straight but Guy B finally came out. We never talked about that convo and I don't know if he was in the closet when I confronted him that time but I'm glad he was true to himself. My point is, there's lots of reasons why I think some people don't want to approach someone, a parent included. The "mistake" can be too traumatizing - for both parties.
I doubt she wanted to bring that topic to the table until you did it first.
A lot of people say "I knew" when they mean "I thought", "I suspected", etc. If all the people who knew things actually KNEW them, they'd have addressed the knowledge, instead of just waiting for the suspicion to possibly be validated at a later time. Don't take it too literally. She suspected, but unless it came from your mouth, she was doing the right thing by not assuming.
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