What do I wish I had known about raisg a gay child? It’s a pretty short list and, had I known, I may have stunted my own growth. Bee raisg a gay child has not been much different than raisg a child who is not gay. After all, she’s a child. Well, not any more. But, Pearl once was, and I would like to thk our fay navigated her g out such a manner that she is now a flouris
Contents:
- PARENTG A GAY CHILD
- 5 THGS I WISH I HAD KNOWN ABOUT RAISG A GAY CHILD
- 10 TIPS FOR PARENTS OF GAY KIDS
PARENTG A GAY CHILD
I grew up outsi of New York Cy, the meltg pot, attend llege and worked New York, yet when I found out my son, Jam, age 13, was gay, I reverted to "not my backyard. Although he didn't particularly like ntact sports, he didn't exhib the gay stereotypil image: lisp, rabow lors.
How would he know he's gay, if he never had sex wh a girl? Acrdg to -thor of When Your Child Is Gay, Jonathan L. D., nial is the most mon ial reactn of parents to the joltg news that their child is gay.
When I terviewed straight parents for When Your Child Is Gay, they ed words such as fear, shock, helplsns, strs, and extreme sadns to scribe their experienc wh nial. Why do parents who are normally acceptg of their children go to the nial zone upon learng that their child is gay, bisexual, even transgenr?
5 THGS I WISH I HAD KNOWN ABOUT RAISG A GAY CHILD
Beg gay was not part of that plan and this fact was hard to rencile. Tobk, who is private practice Manhattan, do not expect their child to be gay. However, be sure you pick a gay-iendly one om an anizatn such as the Amerin Associatn of Psychiatrists that has a divisn of gay therapists om which to choose.
They will be empathetic and unrstandg and turn will ntribute to your unrstandg of what means to be the parent of a gay child. At PFLAG, you will fd parents who have siar feelgs, thoughts, and reactns to havg a gay child. I uldn't be around people who judged me, thought beg gay was a "liftyle" that uld be changed or thought that homosexualy was wrong.
10 TIPS FOR PARENTS OF GAY KIDS
This book tak a parent through a day the life of a gay child. As a parent wh no role mols for havg a gay child, I didn't expect to know how to parent a gay child. You may say that parentg is parentg, but the straight parent of a gay child has to al wh addnal issu such as bullyg, possible low self-teem of their child, discrimatn, to name a few.
The gay child has most likely gone through the same issu that you are now experiencg: nial, fear, guilt, shame, anger, loss, to arrive at acceptance. In future blogs, we will tackle those subjects, jt as When Your Child Is Gay (Sterlg, 2016) do. ”Numero studi have documented that LGBTQ youth report signifintly higher rat of havg serly nsired, ma a plan or attempted suici, pared wh young people who are heterosexual and cisgenr, meang their genr inty match the sex on their birth certifite, acrdg to the Trevor Project, an anizatn dited to suici preventn efforts for LGBTQ and qutng mographers don’t have fully accurate statistics when to LGBTQ youth, a 2015 Pew rearch study reported that 2 percent of teens ag 13 to 17 intified as gay, lbian or bisexual, and 3 percent said they were unsure of their sexual orientatn.
As an example, he told me about one teen his practice whose father didn’t know that he was gay, yet the young man pafully remembered the slur his dad had once ed offhandly wh him. (“All the faggots go to dance at that gay bar. When I was a teen and still closeted, my parents often ved an openly gay uple to our fay dners along wh heterosexual iends.