March 7 - 20, 2012
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Helping kids ‘come out’ about their gay families BY MAJA T. CASTILLO A few months ago, I took Marcella to the dentist. We hadn’t seen this particular dentist in the practice before. When Marcella stood up at the end of the visit, the dentist said to Marcella, “You’re so tall! Is your daddy tall?” I, of course, jumped in with that upbeat, nonchalant tone I have developed for just these situations: “Oh, Marcella has two mommies!” There was that awkward beat and then the dentist recovered and continued on with her praise of Marcella’s nice teeth. Situation resolved. At four years old, one of us is generally still around to help Marcella with her answers and model ways to act when the topic comes up. However, more and more, Marcella will find herself in situations where she will have to learn how to speak for herself — and though living in New York City definitely skews the odds in her favor that the “gay family” thing will be received positively, she will still surely have both positive and negative experiences that will help her learn to “come out” in her own way. Most of us feel that if we are open and honest with our children about how their families are unique, surround ourselves with like-minded individuals and even live in the “right” neighborhood (like Chelsea), our children will grow up well-adjusted and proud of their gay families. We forget that at some point we lose the ability to control all of our children’s experiences. Eventually teachers, peers, the media and even strangers on the street will begin to shape the way they see themselves and their gay family. These experiences may begin sooner than we think and may even be happening without our children sharing them with us. Abigail Garner’s book “Families Like Mine” collects the stories of many children
If they feel that there is a threat to their parents’ safety, be it real or even just perceived, children will learn to act in ways to protect themselves. raised by gay parents. She describes how children make up stories, avoid situations and even ask only one parent to come to school or sports functions so that others do not know about their gay families. She tells the story of gay fathers who felt their children would always have “pride” about their family only to find out that one of them had invented a tale at summer camp about who his “dads” were. Instead of being hurt or angry, the fathers realized that he needed to do that to feel safe in that situation. The author goes on to say that gay parents should understand that children do not respond in these ways because they are ashamed of their parents, but because they need to develop their own age appropriate responses to
Photo by Clarissa Macaya, courtesy of the NYC LGBT Center (gaycenter.org)
homophobia. From early childhood, children identify with their parents and know that their safety and well-being is directly tied to the safety and well-being of their parents. If they feel that there is a threat to their parents’ safety, be it real or even just perceived, children will learn to act in ways to protect themselves. As part of her own experience, Abigail describes how her early exposure to media coverage of Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign caused her to be careful of who she told. “As a five-year-old…I feared someone was going to find out my dad was gay and come to take me away to ‘save me.’ ” Hopefully, today’s children will never experience any media so directly homophobic as in the “Save the Children” era — but I can see how media coverage of debates over gay marriage rights, gay adoption and other current topics could leave children confused about the stability and acceptance of their families in our society. Indirect homophobia can also influence children of gay parents. One young adult talks about how indirect gay slurs by classmates was what led her to stop being open about her family: “My perspective changed when I finally figured out that the ‘gay’ used in schoolyard slurs was actually referring to my dad. The understanding that the rest of the world was not necessarily accepting of my dad and my family came as a surprise. This did not cause me any shame, but a great deal of loneliness and sadness as I felt I couldn’t be ‘out’ about my family as a child.” This is not to say challenges like these are unique to the children of gay parents. I can vividly recall tenth grade, when a schoolmate who I was very friendly with said, “I hate those spicks” (not knowing that my father was Puerto Rican). My heart raced
and I felt myself turn red — but I didn’t say anything. Internally, I decided that she and I wouldn’t be very close. Today, as a mature, self-assured adult, I would have handled the
situation differently. But that is kind of the point. It is through these types of experiences that over time we hopefully learn mature coping strategies and confidence about who we are in the world. Most gay adults have had years to “work on” coming out. We have had a multitude of experiences that have taught us when, how and to whom we will come out. Some of us may have taken our time, others may have been open from day one. Some of us may have found that it only takes one or two negative reactions to make us gun shy, for a while at least. For all of us, we have done it our way and it is an ongoing process that we have adapted to. Now, our children must learn these skills as well. We may aspire to imbue our children with all the knowledge we have learned along the way and thus prevent them from going through the difficult or painful parts of the journey. However, the hardest part of parenting is knowing that life’s best lessons are learned on one’s own. We can do our best to anticipate issues and prepare our children for them, but in the end we can only give them our love and our support even when they don’t necessarily handle situations in the ways we would wish, and know they will find their own way to the truth. Maja T. Castillo, MD is a physician with Tribeca Pediatrics and an Assistant Attending Pediatrician at ColumbiaPresbyterian Hospitals.