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

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xiv  Preface worry they will lose the love of the most important people in their lives, their parents. Parents matter. Ann Muller, a mother of a gay child who wrote a book with this title reminded us of this simple truth in1987, but she didn’t need to, especially those of us who were gay or lesbian and thinking of coming out to our fathers and mothers. Not long ago it was believed that lesbians and gays distanced from their families to avoid facing their disapproval and rejec- tion, creating families of their own out of friendship networks (Kurdek and Schmitt1987; Weston1991). However, currently, more and more are coming out during adolescence and young adulthood—before they are old enough to find the community necessary to form these networks. The good news is that accepting parents can buffer the effects of a harsh, stigmatizing world on a gay or lesbian young person (D’Augelli2002). The not so good news is that despite recent signs of (slowly) growing societal accep- tance, parents still struggle with their children’s gay sexual orientation, and too many lesbian and gay youth are still ejected from their homes by parents who will not or cannot accept them (Wilber, Ryan, and Marksamer2006). Thus it is no wonder that the biggest fear of many children who have yet to come out is that they will be rejected by their parents and lose the one resource that has the potential to offer safety in a harsh world—their families. In addition to Muller (1987), several others have given us important, insightful glimpses into the family lives and relationships of lesbian and gay children. Everyone who is in the business of helping lesbian and gay young people and their families, or who lives in such a family, owes these research- ers, clinicians, and parents an enormous debt of gratitude. However, these descriptions, studies, and models of coming out tend to be individually focused and rely almost exclusively on either the perception of the youth (Cass 1979; Savin-Williams 2001a; Troiden 1989) or parents (Borhek 1993; Griffin, Wirth, and Wirth1997; Herdt and Koff2000; Robinson, Walters, and Skeen1989). What would parents and children from the same family say about the coming out experience? What do parents think helps their adjust- ment? What do children think is beneficial? How are parent and child impres- sions similar and different and why? The traditional thinking about parental adjustment goes something like this:1. parents get upset or angry when they learn their kid is gay,2. their frightened, helpless children who are seeking love and acceptance are victims of their parents’ disapproval, 3. parents get educated about homosexuality, 4. they feel better and their attitudes toward their children improve,5. the 01_lasala14382_fm.indd 14 3/10/10 12:50:44 PM

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