Good intented homophobia?

[petite]

The necessity of the It Gets Better Project to prevent suicides among gay teenagers is the reason why mothers worry about their sons and daughters being homosexual.

 

[L_Lynn]

I think it was a well made but relatively unrealized point that trying to be something you are not is as hard a life, if not harder, than being different or a minority.

I also think the OP's mother is not homophobic in being concerned for the welfare and happiness of her son as a gay man in today's society. If she doesn't come around to accepting it, if she persists in other behaviors such as dismissing it as a phase or wondering where she went wrong, then yeah, she may be struggling with some homophobia.

As a mother, I can relate to wanting only the best for your child, and of course you hope they will be tall, attractive, slim, intelligent, popular, etc and so forth. And then you look at the genes you are using to create this person. Okay, so maybe tall is unlikely. You accept that. Then they are born and you realize your ears and the other parents nose are maybe not the best combination and you sigh and pay attention to the amazing blue eyes and cupid mouth. They get into school and their reading level is off the chart but they still haven't gotten down that 2+2=4 by 3rd grade and you panic a little but you accept it- and work with flash cards every night so that he/she will at least be able to balance a checkbook. Your child grows up and gets interested in some sport that could possibly kill or paralyze them and you say, Really?? and accept it though you are holding your breath and closing your eyes every time they jump out of a plane (or whatever) and you are proud and terrified at the same time. Then they decide to move to a war-ridden, impoverished country and you are again proud yet terrified that they will be shot, raped, catch something or go missing..... And all you wanted for them was a fairly easy existence, a nice house, a good job, a loving spouse....

Being a parent is accepting and letting go a thousand times along the way. Some moments are just a little harder than others.

 

[luvmycock]

My mom has told me on several occasions that she doesn't want me "being that way" or "being like that". She doesn't want me to be gay because she doesn't want me having a "hard-life". I ask her straight up and if she's a homophobe. She denies with the "hard-life" thing. With that, do you think it's possible to have good-intented homophobia?

I don't think it has to do with homophobia, I just think as your mother she just wants the easiest and safest life for her child. Its just sad that in 2010 people still discriminate against anyone who is different and does not fit into "societies" view of what's right. Now her "being that way" or "being like that" comments are a bit on the phobia side.

 

[Bbucko]

This is partly true. It's ignorant because what she said implies that she thinks that you have control over whether or not you are gay, but her worries are not based upon the fact that you are gay, but based upon the fact that our society is backwards and gay people face discrimination and bigotry.

I am pregnant with a son and I'm not ignorant at all. If my son is gay, I know that he's gay and I can't change that. I wouldn't want to change that, because I'm going to love him no matter who he is and I'll always accept him.

But I still worry about whether his life will be harder, and I don't believe that has anything to do with ignorance or homophobia. That has to do with love and being a mother and growing up in a society that has treated gay people so badly.

I've thought about this a lot and I've thought a lot about how I will feel if my son is gay. My primary concern is that the world won't change enough and that he'll have a hard time, especially when he's young. That concern isn't ignorance, it's based upon fact. Puberty was incredibly difficult for me, and I wasn't a gay boy. Being worried about what sort of heartaches my child may face in life due to his sexual orientation isn't homophobic or ignorant IMO, it's based upon harsh realities of how unfair the world has been to been to gay people. That's not ignorant at all. It's just true.

I don't want my son to experience the things I know that my gay friends have experienced. It's out of my control, since I can't change the world to be a more accepting place, but it's still one of the things that I still worry about it anyway because I already love him.

You are obviously not homophobic, Petite, you're concerned that for some reason your son will face additional challenges. That's a natural concern, especially when you're pregnant.

But everyone faces challenges and difficulties in life: the character of someone is revealed not in his/her challenges but in the way they're handled and resolved. The right way to deal with this is with both eyes wide open and all the compassion and care you can muster, because as a responsible parent, that's really all you can do.

Like many other posters here, my mother expressed grave concerns about my having a "hard life" and that I'd grow old alone and lonely. Unlike most other posters here, I gotta say that the most blatantly outspoken homophobe I encountered in my childhood and adolescence was also my mother herself. I waited until I was 17 to come out (though I was certain years sooner) because I knew very well that her reaction would be poisonous had I tried any sooner.

Her flip and glib response when I finally did tell her ("You think I'm blind?") masked her anger, and as with many other posters, she found some way to make it all about her (a typical pattern of hers), just as her eventual acceptance was justified in her eyes as a testament to her magnanimity

After several tense weeks, she did a 360 and embraced her cross as the mother of a gay son as yet another burden to bear, not out of any real means of support for me or my life as I chose to live it. Being "cool" about it in that context is not the same as unconditional love, of which she is emotionally incapable, having been a chronic alcoholic and addict since the early 70s.

When, a few years later, my sister came out, all hell broke loose: it took years to repair the damage, and even 30 years later the contempt my mother feels for her bubbles up like Old Faithful now and then.

 

[petite]

You are obviously not homophobic, Petite, you're concerned that for some reason your son will face additional challenges. That's a natural concern, especially when you're pregnant.

But everyone faces challenges and difficulties in life: the character of someone is revealed not in his/her challenges but in the way they're handled and resolved. The right way to deal with this is with both eyes wide open and all the compassion and care you can muster, because as a responsible parent, that's really all you can do.

Like many other posters here, my mother expressed grave concerns about my having a "hard life" and that I'd grow old alone and lonely. Unlike most other posters here, I gotta say that the most blatantly outspoken homophobe I encountered in my childhood and adolescence was also my mother herself. I waited until I was 17 to come out (though I was certain years sooner) because I knew very well that her reaction would be poisonous had I tried any sooner.

Her flip and glib response when I finally did tell her ("You think I'm blind?") masked her anger, and as with many other posters, she found some way to make it all about her (a typical pattern of hers), just as her eventual acceptance was justified in her eyes as a testament to her magnanimity

After several tense weeks, she did a 360 and embraced her cross as the mother of a gay son as yet another burden to bear, not out of any real means of support for me or my life as I chose to live it. Being "cool" about it in that context is not the same as unconditional love, of which she is emotionally incapable, having been a chronic alcoholic and addict since the early 70s.

When, a few years later, my sister came out, all hell broke loose: it took years to repair the damage, and even 30 years later the contempt my mother feels for her bubbles up like Old Faithful now and then.

I wonder why your mother had a harder time with your sister's coming out than yours? Does it have something to do with grandchildren?

I know that I can't protect my kids from everything, but my own childhood has given me worries about how bad it could be and there are examples every day that things are just as bad now, if not worse because the internet had made bullying so much worse than it was when I was a child. I just created a thread devoted to Dan Savage's new project to prevent gay teens from committing suicide because of another teen who was bullied to death.

I agree that all I can do is face it will eyes wide open. I have no power to control what will happen, I can only be prepared to respond.

I do think that if any of my children are gay that things might be a little easier for them because we have gay friends and TheBF's family is close with a lot of gay people. I don't plan on being one of those parents who expects gay people to pretend to be straight around my children, or who refuses to acknowledge gay relationships to my children. I think that's confusing and it teaches bigotry and shame about homosexuality. Hopefully if any of my children are gay they won't feel as conflicted about it or afraid to come out and they'll feel like they have people they can talk to if they can't talk to us or if they feel uncomfortable about talking to us about it.

 

[Bbucko]

I wonder why your mother had a harder time with your sister's coming out than yours? Does it have something to do with grandchildren?

I know that I can't protect my kids from everything, but my own childhood has given me worries about how bad it could be and there are examples every day that things are just as bad now, if not worse because the internet had made bullying so much worse than it was when I was a child. I just created a thread devoted to Dan Savage's new project to prevent gay teens from committing suicide because of another teen who was bullied to death.

I agree that all I can do is face it will eyes wide open. I have no power to control what will happen, I can only be prepared to respond.

I do think that if any of my children are gay that things might be a little easier for them because we have gay friends and TheBF's family is close with a lot of gay people. I don't plan on being one of those parents who expects gay people to pretend to be straight around my children, or who refuses to acknowledge gay relationships to my children. I think that's confusing and it teaches bigotry and shame about homosexuality. Hopefully if any of my children are gay they won't feel as conflicted about it or afraid to come out and they'll feel like they have people they can talk to if they can't talk to us or if they feel uncomfortable about talking to us about it.

Mother/daughter dynamic is always kinda strange, IMO, and my mother's relationship with my sister is even more complex than I've seen with others. Considering the degree of neglect and abuse my mother heaped on her for most of her life, my sister's perceived need to keep in close contact with her borders on the perverse. I don't get it.

At the time, there were three factors involved in how my mom reacted to my sister's coming out:

1) "How much more can I be expected to bear? Isn't having a gay son punishment enough?"

2) "All my life I've wanted grandchildren, and now that stupid bitch is denying even that from me!"

3) "I have deeply ambivalent and unresolved feelings regarding my own sexuality which my daughter's coming out have brought right to the surface"*

*Note: she could never make such an honest assessment of her feelings, so in this one case I'm putting words in her mouth

I'll comment on Dan Savage's initiative in that thread; here all I'll say is that it gives me hope. FWIW, "it'll get better" were probably the single most over-used wise words of counsel I heard from adults from the ages of 11-17. Even my 8th grade guidance counselor told me that I wouldn't have "any friends till college"

My ex and I grew up in the same working-class "chain-link" jungle just south of Boston at just about the same time (I'm two years older): I came out early and escaped to Boston immediately after HS. My ex stayed in that town, closeted, until his late 20s when he moved to a rather isolated location on Cape Cod still closeted.

His best friends came from the same town as we did, as did most of his other friends. When he eventually did come out at almost 33, most people reacted poorly: most rejected him outright; some feigned being cool until I came into the picture (one guy even blamed me for his "going queer"); but his best friends stuck by him and welcomed me as part of the extended family. They had three young daughters (one aged 7 with 5-yr-old twins), and there was never a moment's hesitation in acknowledging the fact that we were two men who were in love and who shared each other's lives completely.

Not to condescend, but their completely open attitude really kinda surprised me. I'd grown up with these people and knew how hostile they could have been, and in most every other way maintained a very traditional working-class life: he was a house painter, she worked as a cashier at a supermarket. Neither one had finished HS (nor had my ex). There was nothing in their background or history to suggest why they were so accepting: they just were.

When the eldest was 9 and the twins were 7, my ex and I had a commitment ceremony in the back yard, complete with rings (it was 1997). There was quite a bit of flack from within their families as to whether or not the girls should attend. It was only after the wife shouted down everyone, including her own sister and her mother-in-law that I understood how important it was to them that their kids see gay people as capable of loving each other as anyone else. I finally "got" it.

 

[Triasco]

This is partly true. It's ignorant because what she said implies that she thinks that you have control over whether or not you are gay, but her worries are not based upon the fact that you are gay, but based upon the fact that our society is backwards and gay people face discrimination and bigotry.

I am pregnant with a son and I'm not ignorant at all. If my son is gay, I know that he's gay and I can't change that. I wouldn't want to change that, because I'm going to love him no matter who he is and I'll always accept him.

But I still worry about whether his life will be harder, and I don't believe that has anything to do with ignorance or homophobia. That has to do with love and being a mother and growing up in a society that has treated gay people so badly.

I've thought about this a lot and I've thought a lot about how I will feel if my son is gay. My primary concern is that the world won't change enough and that he'll have a hard time, especially when he's young. That concern isn't ignorance, it's based upon fact. Puberty was incredibly difficult for me, and I wasn't a gay boy. Being worried about what sort of heartaches my child may face in life due to his sexual orientation isn't homophobic or ignorant IMO, it's based upon harsh realities of how unfair the world has been to been to gay people. That's not ignorant at all. It's just true.

I don't want my son to experience the things I know that my gay friends have experienced. It's out of my control, since I can't change the world to be a more accepting place, but it's still one of the things that I still worry about it anyway because I already love him.

My mother feels exactly the same way. She operates not out of ignorance, or even out of homophobia, but out of concern for my well-being. I've been told on numerous occasions that the black community (I imagine the straight black community) is, as a whole, a bit homophobic. I'll be the first to admit that, because I've lived a somewhat sheltered life overseas on military bases, I don't know if that's true or not. However, if it is true, any attempt at engaging in intimate acts with the same gender could end with physical violence. Some men have attacked, and even killed, other men over the simple assumption that a man is gay. That is my mother's worry for me. She knows she has no influence over my preferences, and that, ulimately, I will do whatever I please, regardless of the consequences.

So, you can not say there is ever homophobia with good intention, because homophobia is homophobia. You can argue that parents may dislike the idea of their children being gay because it might endanger them in the future.

 

[FuzzyKen]

The problem here is by appearance not in any manner homophobia. Highlights of homophobia would be running around hysterically with a Bible while quoting scripture about condemnation. It would also include far more harsh and judgmental issues than that.

There are now many resources that are available to you that would benefit her including PFLAG. If she is able to share her concerns with other parents and they can share theirs with her, it might speed things up a great deal with regards to acceptance, understanding and support without reservation.

Actually it sounds to me like you have in your coming out done very well. There are people probably on this board who have come out to a very different set of rules and responses.

This is not an easy time for anyone involved in this process. The parent may question that they have in some way made some error in parenting which caused homosexuality which is not the case. The person coming out may become overly sensitive to questioning that by lack of knowledge on the part of the one asking is offensive to any gay individual within earshot.

Take it slow, take it easy and try to educate your Mom over time.

I had a second cousin (sadly a victim of HIV in 1996) whose Mom after a period of years was so accepting that she wanted him to take her to gay bars. She loved it and insisted that she had more fun with gay men because hell, they really knew how to dance! She lost her life sadly to brain cancer about six months after her Son. She was super, but she was not super in the beginning. It was time that changed her to the point that when her son had a commitment ceremony, she displayed the wedding picture with the two "grooms" just as proudly as the wedding pictures of her other grown straight children. Just give good ol Mom some time to adjust to it.

 

[496685]

Okay. My mom doesn't know I'm bi(she has had suspicions though). I'm a fan of Top Model(lol) and was looking at photos of people. There was this risque photo of someone. She caught a glimpse. She told me that, "I'd rather you look at nasty photos of girls than of the boys." I asked her if she was a homophobe. She said, "Yes." :/

 

[noirman]

Ignorance? Maybe. Concerned parent? Probably. I might get flack for this, I know some of my gay friends freaked. I would be beside myself sick to my stomach if my son had been gay. Would I accept it, yes. Would it be ignorance or bigotry creating the concern, no. It would be the death of a bit of my hopes for him.
Why would any parent be "happy" their child is different and will be set apart because of it? I had a friend who thought I should Have been hoping my kid was gay, because I'd understand him. I said no. I would never hope for him to be gay no more than I would hope for him to be poor, wear glasses, or missing a limb. The hopes are mine. Hopes for an easier, better life. Hopes for popularity, talent, brains and perfectly clear even toned skin. Hopes that would create my imagined ideal life free of struggles, pain, and heartache. Is it realistic, no. Nothing is ideal but on some level we all hope it is posdible. Even if a parent loves and is accepting of a gay child there is pain and loss for some of That "hope" and dream for your child.
There is a very good writing called "welcome to Holland" that could be applied to this as well.

I agree with you. When I came out to my parents, my mother was surprised but supportive and possibly even understanding as much as she could be within the framework of her values; my father, on the other hand, was crushed. I think his hopes of my continuing his gene pool and of my getting married and living his idea of the ideal life, in addition to what he perceived as the difficult life I would have in front of me, produced in him some sort of profound sadness that he neither understood not articulated. I have tried to explain to him that while it is a difficult rite of passage, once I started living life as I wanted/needed, it was worth every day of uncertainty and angst that I had suffered earlier. I aklso think that no two situations involving coming out to parents are all that similar. Parents' dashed expectations of and hopes for their children can generate different reactions.

 

[dad4you]

I think it was a well made but relatively unrealized point that trying to be something you are not is as hard a life, if not harder, than being different or a minority.

I also think the OP's mother is not homophobic in being concerned for the welfare and happiness of her son as a gay man in today's society. If she doesn't come around to accepting it, if she persists in other behaviors such as dismissing it as a phase or wondering where she went wrong, then yeah, she may be struggling with some homophobia.

As a mother, I can relate to wanting only the best for your child, and of course you hope they will be tall, attractive, slim, intelligent, popular, etc and so forth. And then you look at the genes you are using to create this person. Okay, so maybe tall is unlikely. You accept that. Then they are born and you realize your ears and the other parents nose are maybe not the best combination and you sigh and pay attention to the amazing blue eyes and cupid mouth. They get into school and their reading level is off the chart but they still haven't gotten down that 2+2=4 by 3rd grade and you panic a little but you accept it- and work with flash cards every night so that he/she will at least be able to balance a checkbook. Your child grows up and gets interested in some sport that could possibly kill or paralyze them and you say, Really?? and accept it though you are holding your breath and closing your eyes every time they jump out of a plane (or whatever) and you are proud and terrified at the same time. Then they decide to move to a war-ridden, impoverished country and you are again proud yet terrified that they will be shot, raped, catch something or go missing..... And all you wanted for them was a fairly easy existence, a nice house, a good job, a loving spouse....

Being a parent is accepting and letting go a thousand times along the way. Some moments are just a little harder than others.

^^^^^ This is a beautiful and thoughtful answer ... Thank you!!
I am not a biological father, but I did take in a much younger friend for many years that recently came to fruition as he moved on into the next phase of his life, and got some slight experience of being a parent. I felt angry, frustrated, proud and happy.. all the above feelings and more.
I have a LOT more respect for my siblings now and what they went through being parents. To the OP.. I wish you luck with your mom, and many years of a loving supportive relationship on BOTH sides.

 

[haulthat]

No. I don't think that wishing your kids won't have to deal with the kind of bullshit gay people do is homophobia though. I will admit, when I read the title I got :zx11pissed: before even reading your post. Being supportive of someone even if you don't always like every detail about them out of love is great. Wishing that your kids would never have to deal with the bullshit they will have to in the real world is natural. To a mom you could be 30 and your still her baby. She doesn't want to have to worry about some homophobes treating you like shit or beating you down. She also doesn't want to have to worry about aids, or some guy tearing you up and leaving you used and abused like she normally would only ever need to concern herself with as far as her daughter goes. Unless your moms gay, she can't understand everything that comes along with the territory. If she loves you she cares enough to concern herself with it anyways, and her worrisome instinct will fill in blank areas with nightmares. There isn't just Homophobes or parents who will go to a pride parade with you, there are lots of people who are no where near either of those extremes. Simply put though, yes when mentioning that and no other examples it could be genuine concern not a judgment of your "lifestyle". If my whole life revolved around being gay i think it would be hot for like a 1 week to 1 year, then be played the fuck out. Sounds like yo mama loves you, just be strong let her know her little boy is a man and he gonna be takin care of his self, and be takin care of yo self. Otherwise she gonna go crazy! I dunno why the fuck I just started sounding like that... hope you get what I mean!:bling1:

My mom has told me on several occasions that she doesn't want me "being that way" or "being like that". She doesn't want me to be gay because she doesn't want me having a "hard-life". I ask her straight up and if she's a homophobe. She denies with the "hard-life" thing. With that, do you think it's possible to have good-intented homophobia?