Previous Page Next Page 
(c)  2025 Columbia University Press. All Rights reserved.

Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child resources

Extracted Text (may have errors)

Foreword  xi were the ones with whom sons or daughters had an easier time dealing with the issues of coming out and, in general, staying connected. LaSala says: “Fathers tend to live on the outside edge of the emotional lives of their families.” Only seventeen fathers agreed to talk with him com- pared to sixty-two mothers; thirteen of the children had little or no relation- ship with their fathers. Sometimes, as has been shown in other research, fathers remembered their relationships with their children more positively than children did. Many families found themselves in the common triangle where the father’s only communication with the children is through what the mother relays to him or is left out of the loop altogether. Many of the children in LaSala’s study reported that their fathers knew of their sexuality, but only twenty-six had told them directly; in the other families, mothers informed fathers. LaSala also discusses the socialization of fathers, which teaches all men that homosexuality is incompatible with real masculinity or full manhood. Fathers have been raised not only to look down upon homo- sexuality but generally to fear it in themselves. LaSala wonders whether fathers choose to be peripheral in the lives of their children and then families organize around them or whether families keep fathers distant. This is an important clinical dilemma, because, as family therapists, we need to work hard to change this pattern. Generally lesbian and gay youth do not disclose their sexual orientation until they have become somewhat comfortable with themselves. LaSala rec- ommends having great respect for the distance that parents and children seem to need for a period of time, until the youth are comfortable discussing their identity. LaSala’s careful descriptions of parent-child relationships conveys the important point that parents and children sometimes feel close and con- nected even though the child has not discussed his or her sexual orientation. For one thing, because in our culture parents and children are expected to avoid discussing their sexuality with each other, families can share many other things though they keep silence about that one thing. It is important not to undermine the connections between parents and children even as they are in a phase of development where they are not yet ready to deal with all the issues between them. Indeed, this is probably true for most families at certain points of development. LaSala’s respect for the complexity of family relationships, and the timing of opening up extremely difficult issues that challenge what family members mean to each other, is a critical insight in many situations. LaSala conveys that in this developmental phase parent- child closeness may require more nuanced understanding. Mothers and sons 01_lasala14382_fm.indd 11 3/10/10 12:50:44 PM

Help

loading