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

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foreword Monica McGoldrick M dren in the coming-out process. It is a moving exploration of-ichael lasala has written a landmark study ofthe experiences and relationships of parents and their chil families working through the disruption of finding out their children are homosexual. Parents, as LaSala describes, “agonize that their children will be unsafe as they launch them into a world where gay and lesbian youth are discriminated against, assaulted, even murdered.” The important news is that parents can buffer the effects of these harsh realities, so LaSala’s book is essential reading for all clinicians working to facilitate family development and connectedness. LaSala’s narrative challenges many of the myths about family relation- ships before, during, and after the coming-out process, such as the myth that families cannot be close before they are open about their child’s homo- sexuality. He conveys with touching descriptions that even though there is avoidance about the homosexuality, parents and children may be very caring and connected on many levels. What impressed and humbled him in doing the study, he says, is the way the parents and children held on to each other and even grew closer despite their fears and shattered expectations. Children must try to figure out their own identities while working to stay connected 01_lasala14382_fm.indd 9 3/10/10 12:50:43 PM

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