What about the Parents?
- Thread starter jeff black
- Start date
D_Gunther Snotpole
Account Disabled
My parents died quite early, Jeff.
I don't feel I was old enough when he died to have ever come to know my dad. We were just starting to develop an adult-to-adult relationship. (Maybe I'm jumping the gun here, because I was only just through puberty.)
My mother died a few years later, very suddenly, of a cerebral aneurysm. Her health had been extraordinary and we had every reason to think she had 20 years left.
There were strains between my mother and I that I still don't quite understand. (Some, I honestly believe, were implanted in me by therapists ... sincerely trying to pull patterns from textbooks and make me see they fit my emotional history ... but it was all bunk, says I to this day.)
I can't complain about my parents at all. They were totally responsible parents, provided well, and modelled true adult behavior for their children. Each funeral did an almost unexampled thing ... filled the church sanctuary to overflow with people who had loved them and wished to do them honour.
They died before I would have come out to them, but I never doubted that there would never have been the slightest issue.
My father probably would have said: "So, you're gay. So what? Whaddya gonna do? Get on with life."
And that might have stung a little bit. But the wisdom, and the implicit total acceptance, would have been just the item for the confused younger Rubester.
I don't feel I was old enough when he died to have ever come to know my dad. We were just starting to develop an adult-to-adult relationship. (Maybe I'm jumping the gun here, because I was only just through puberty.)
My mother died a few years later, very suddenly, of a cerebral aneurysm. Her health had been extraordinary and we had every reason to think she had 20 years left.
There were strains between my mother and I that I still don't quite understand. (Some, I honestly believe, were implanted in me by therapists ... sincerely trying to pull patterns from textbooks and make me see they fit my emotional history ... but it was all bunk, says I to this day.)
I can't complain about my parents at all. They were totally responsible parents, provided well, and modelled true adult behavior for their children. Each funeral did an almost unexampled thing ... filled the church sanctuary to overflow with people who had loved them and wished to do them honour.
They died before I would have come out to them, but I never doubted that there would never have been the slightest issue.
My father probably would have said: "So, you're gay. So what? Whaddya gonna do? Get on with life."
And that might have stung a little bit. But the wisdom, and the implicit total acceptance, would have been just the item for the confused younger Rubester.
My dad and I were beginning to develop an adult-adult relationship when he up and died of a heart attack. He was just two days shy of ihs 45th birthday and I was just over 21 and in the 'nam. Went and rained on our parade......I did get to come home for his funeral and then recv'd a compassionate reassignment to Fort Riley Ks. We had the "normal" fahter-son relationsip til then.
Mom and I...well I talk to her several times a year, birthdays, holidays etc. She is bipolar, and so am I....it is best if we do not have too much to do with each other. She lives with one of my sisters, who is also bipolar, (Who ever says mental illness is not genetic is full of shit.)
I do hope I have better relationships with my daughters, one of whom is bi-polar.
Mom and I...well I talk to her several times a year, birthdays, holidays etc. She is bipolar, and so am I....it is best if we do not have too much to do with each other. She lives with one of my sisters, who is also bipolar, (Who ever says mental illness is not genetic is full of shit.)
I do hope I have better relationships with my daughters, one of whom is bi-polar.
jfrsndvs
Experimental Member
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2006
- Posts
- 352
- Media
- 2
- Likes
- 16
- Points
- 238
- Location
- Quincy (Illinois, United States)
- Sexuality
- 69% Gay, 31% Straight
- Gender
- Male
as a kid, I was by far much closer to my dad than my mother, she on the other hand was much closer to my brothers, she babied them big time, I think that my dad always knew that I was the stronger one of us kids and could make it on my own without any problems.
I am somewhat close to my mother, but I have to limit my time around her because she would get on my nerves fairly quick, I do go to her house twice a week, to make sure everything is ok there, and to see if there is anything that needs to be done around the house, and get that taken care of, and then I come on home. now if my dad was still alive, I would probably be there a whole lot more.
I am somewhat close to my mother, but I have to limit my time around her because she would get on my nerves fairly quick, I do go to her house twice a week, to make sure everything is ok there, and to see if there is anything that needs to be done around the house, and get that taken care of, and then I come on home. now if my dad was still alive, I would probably be there a whole lot more.
rob_just_rob
Sexy Member
I get along very well with my parents - they are the two people who are closest to me.
TitanicJake
Expert Member
Mom left dad when I was about 5 months old. I grew up with him and my 2 older brothers. He treated us like a team not a family. Dad was strict and made us lift weights and wrestle. Dad was an exboxer who bought a bar and still drinks too much. He rarely shows affection. When I won a wrestling tournament he ran onto the mat and hugged me and cried. He smacked and pinched my butt. I knew he loved me and at that moment he was so proud of me. Sometimes I wished for a more conventional dad. Not a dad who promoted me fucking as many women as possible. But I love him and my brothers. There were few secrets and no modesty in our home growing up.
Jake
Jake
I come from a textbook gay upbringing---overbearing mother, distant, passive father. Hostile older brother.
Any psychology books pre-1970s will tell you this is exactly what produces homosexuality, give or take the hostile older brother.
Anyway, I get along fine with both my parents now, though there were rough spots. When I came out, my mom hated me for a while.
Brother is many miles away, thank goodness, but he's nicer now during our shorter visits. He still doesn't believe I'm gay. I mean it--he really believes I'm lying.
Any psychology books pre-1970s will tell you this is exactly what produces homosexuality, give or take the hostile older brother.
Anyway, I get along fine with both my parents now, though there were rough spots. When I came out, my mom hated me for a while.
Brother is many miles away, thank goodness, but he's nicer now during our shorter visits. He still doesn't believe I'm gay. I mean it--he really believes I'm lying.
I have always had a very good relationship with both of my parents. When I told them that I was gay, it was difficult for them at first (particularly for my mother) beacuse of all the usual reasons. In time, however, they accepted it, and now, me being gay is not an issue. They genuinely like and respect my partner, and he is included in all family gatherings. His parents are the same way in regard to me. I feel very fortunate; I could not ask for a better situation, knowing what many gay people go through with their families. I have one brother-in-law who is a jerk about his kids being around my partner, but he is a jerk in most ways, and my poor sister is very unhappily married.
I beleive many people (e.g. one's parents) can get past the views and prejudices taught to them by their upbringing and culture, but they need something to force the issue in a real way that directly impacts their lives. My parents are loving and intelligent people, and I never truly worried about being rejected by them beacuse I am gay. (And I live in a very conservative part of the countrty.) Once they fully understood that I was not going to change and that I was happy and content, they got on board pretty quickly. It is a human tragedy that there are those whose hearts and minds are so small that they cannot or will not overcome a son or daughter being gay.
I beleive many people (e.g. one's parents) can get past the views and prejudices taught to them by their upbringing and culture, but they need something to force the issue in a real way that directly impacts their lives. My parents are loving and intelligent people, and I never truly worried about being rejected by them beacuse I am gay. (And I live in a very conservative part of the countrty.) Once they fully understood that I was not going to change and that I was happy and content, they got on board pretty quickly. It is a human tragedy that there are those whose hearts and minds are so small that they cannot or will not overcome a son or daughter being gay.
I've posted about various aspects of this in other posts, so I won;t rehash it all. My mother have a reasonably decent relationship, but she chose to be hateful about my being gay, so I don't talk to her much about my life--and she calls me on that, but, she made a choice, and I am respecting that choice. I never came out to my father, he died when I was 22, and was a proud gay basher. I loved him, and we got along pretty well overall, I guess because I never knew him when he wasn;t an alchoholic, so just accepted him that way, which the other kids had a hard time doing. My parents taught me some important things, and I respect many of their best aspects, and do my best to take those lessons into my life, and forget the bad stuff. I love my family, but we just don;t see each other very much. THe other kids see each other more than they see me. But I have never been all that close to them, so patterns established early in life tend to continue. I'm not sure how our relationship will be when my mother eventually dies.
Wow. What a tough and loaded question. This may sound ramling for a moment, but bare with me and I'll try to answer the question as best as I can. This week at work we were all informed there will be no more overtime available to us. Which means a tightening of the belt loops and eating of Ramen noodles... anyway, I told my roommate that if this was going to be a permanent thing (we work at the same place) that I wouldn't be able to be his roommate anymore because I wouldn't be able to afford it anymore. But here's the kicker: The only other place I could possibly move to is my parents' house. Boomerang Child 101, please. I've boomeranged in and out of my parents' house too many times to count. So today I went over to my mom and dad's house to spend the day and I realized there is no possible way I could ever move back in with them. None. Both of them are fine in really small doses. REALLY small doses. I've lived with them before and I made it work by just not being home except to sleep. I have what I call a working relationship with my parents. It's very bare. It's efficient and it burns on all eight cylinders. That's right, just like a machine. But anything deeper than that there is nothing. I suppose that's a part of being an adult. You just don't bare your soul to your parents anymore, nor do you expect them to bare their souls to you. You either find a mate to share those inner most feelings and dreams and wishes and fears and desires. But on some levels I do miss the deeper relationship I used to have with my mother. I was the typical "mommas boy". I prefered staying inside and reading or spending time in the kitchen with mom cooking or playing board games with mom, or just doing stuff with mom. Whereas my two brothers were the exact opposite. As far as my Dad goes, he comes from the VERY OLD school: As long as he put food on the table and a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs, his job was done. So to the other person who said he fits the profile of a pre-1970's homosexual "textbook case", I'm with you, brother. But I'll see your classic homosexual texbook case and raise you by saying not only am I one of the textbook cases, but I am also the middle invisible child that always did well in school and never gave my parents cause for worry. Plus, just like you, my older brother was a bully. Anway, as far as my being gay, my Dad and I do NOT speak about it. No matter what. That is our way of handling it. Actually that is his way of coping. He's fully aware of my sexuality but as long as he doesn't have to talk about it, he's fine. Every now and again my mother and I will talk about it. But since I've been out so long, unless I'm dating somebody I want them to meet or something that is specifically "gay" that I feel they should know about, since my world is bigger than my sexuality, it rarely comes up. Of course, when I first came out it was different. My father kicked me out of the house. My mother didn't believe me. My older brother was 1500 miles away so it really didn't figure into our relationship, which was strained anyway, and continues to be to this day. I just don't get on with him for reasons I will not divulge in a public forum. As far as my younger brother goes, because we lives such seperate lives and I don't approve of his life choices, we don't really have a lot to talk about. We have a very surface kind of relationship as well. He's completely okay with my sexuality, though. In fact, I told him before I told my parents. And I'm done rambling...
B_Danceswithlamps
Experimental Member
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2005
- Posts
- 519
- Media
- 0
- Likes
- 4
- Points
- 163
- Location
- Traveling!
- Sexuality
- Unsure
- Gender
- Male
hypolimnas
Superior Member
How is your relationship with your parents?
Plus, I am curious to see how many people still have great relationships with mom and dad if they came out of the closet, and compare them to those who are straight.
My parents were very loving kind to my sister and I. My experience of them has been full of contradictions when I think about it.
They decided not to live together when I was eight. They were very idealistic, semi hippy, wishy washy liberals. They weren't particularly skilled at life in many ways. My mother's family paid for the house I grew up in.
My father finally took his own life after several attempts. At the time I was studying, it was a huge tragedy for all of us. He had married again, and had a new family, we didn't know how unwell he was. I am very pleased that I made a big effort to get to know him in the preceeding years. We became close through working together on expeditions into the forest to collect plant material and insects.
He was very gentle and very skillful/knowlegeable about animals, and plants. He inspired me in my studies. There were two great tragedies in his life. He didn't inherit the family farm, as he expected he would, and his childhood boyfriend died in a shooting accident when he was 18. He was a good musician, and had close relationships with men throughout his life. He was a Marxist, I narrowly escaped being called Karl (tradition won, and I am the fourth in my family to carry my name). I still feel his love, and he still inspires me.
My mother's family are very ambitious and competitive. My mother's upbring was very strict like my father's. They were both very supportive when I came out at school, and always tried to surround my sister, and I, with love. We had a nanny (she died some years ago), when my mother was in hospital for a few years after her own failed suicide attempts. Today she is fine, and devotes her time volunteering at a large city mission. She is happier serving dinner on Christmas day to homeless people, than spending much time with family. She is very strong-willed and has devoted her life to quietly working with those in great need rather than her family. She has had a few lesbian relationships, but is pretty solitary/self sufficient these days.
Today my mother finds it hard to relate to my sister, and I. We respect her for her independent mind and individuality. We all love each other, but all support each other's chosen work in life. We don't live each other's pockets.
Actually I now find her quite annoying especiall after spending about 2 or 3 hours in the same room with her. She has become very judgemental/critical (about everything that isn't important), but we live quite some distance apart, so geographical distance it makes it easier for me to love her in many ways. She was a very good pianist, and insisted on educational opportunities for me.
These days I still iron my shirts in precisely the same "correct" way she insisted on. Her political preference for anarchism didn't extend to the ironing!
My extended family have had as much influence on me as my parents, my Uncles and Aunts have always supported me, and my sister (including our borfriends/partners) as they did my parents.
Both my parents insisted on the morality of kindness to everyone, respect for the poor and unfortunate, and service to the community. They were very unconventional parents, highly individual/eccentric. Looking back I can see they have deeply inspired my sister, and I today, especially in the work we do, our relationships, and the value we place on community service.
Plus, I am curious to see how many people still have great relationships with mom and dad if they came out of the closet, and compare them to those who are straight.
My parents were very loving kind to my sister and I. My experience of them has been full of contradictions when I think about it.
They decided not to live together when I was eight. They were very idealistic, semi hippy, wishy washy liberals. They weren't particularly skilled at life in many ways. My mother's family paid for the house I grew up in.
My father finally took his own life after several attempts. At the time I was studying, it was a huge tragedy for all of us. He had married again, and had a new family, we didn't know how unwell he was. I am very pleased that I made a big effort to get to know him in the preceeding years. We became close through working together on expeditions into the forest to collect plant material and insects.
He was very gentle and very skillful/knowlegeable about animals, and plants. He inspired me in my studies. There were two great tragedies in his life. He didn't inherit the family farm, as he expected he would, and his childhood boyfriend died in a shooting accident when he was 18. He was a good musician, and had close relationships with men throughout his life. He was a Marxist, I narrowly escaped being called Karl (tradition won, and I am the fourth in my family to carry my name). I still feel his love, and he still inspires me.
My mother's family are very ambitious and competitive. My mother's upbring was very strict like my father's. They were both very supportive when I came out at school, and always tried to surround my sister, and I, with love. We had a nanny (she died some years ago), when my mother was in hospital for a few years after her own failed suicide attempts. Today she is fine, and devotes her time volunteering at a large city mission. She is happier serving dinner on Christmas day to homeless people, than spending much time with family. She is very strong-willed and has devoted her life to quietly working with those in great need rather than her family. She has had a few lesbian relationships, but is pretty solitary/self sufficient these days.
Today my mother finds it hard to relate to my sister, and I. We respect her for her independent mind and individuality. We all love each other, but all support each other's chosen work in life. We don't live each other's pockets.
Actually I now find her quite annoying especiall after spending about 2 or 3 hours in the same room with her. She has become very judgemental/critical (about everything that isn't important), but we live quite some distance apart, so geographical distance it makes it easier for me to love her in many ways. She was a very good pianist, and insisted on educational opportunities for me.
These days I still iron my shirts in precisely the same "correct" way she insisted on. Her political preference for anarchism didn't extend to the ironing!
My extended family have had as much influence on me as my parents, my Uncles and Aunts have always supported me, and my sister (including our borfriends/partners) as they did my parents.
Both my parents insisted on the morality of kindness to everyone, respect for the poor and unfortunate, and service to the community. They were very unconventional parents, highly individual/eccentric. Looking back I can see they have deeply inspired my sister, and I today, especially in the work we do, our relationships, and the value we place on community service.
TitanicJake
Expert Member
I have a 2 year old son. If he told me he was gay I would hold him, kiss him and accept him. I would be very frank about sex and try to instill in him the need for a loving respectful relationship. If I was gay I could never tell my father. I don;t want my son to feel that way.
Jake
Jake
Similar threads
