Parents experience of Gay Children Emotional Desires - Essay Example

?Parent’s experience of Gay Children Emotional Desires In today’s ultra-modern society, it is a known fact that Gay and Lesbian exist. People are aware of this change happening in the society and have adopted themselves and their thought process according to the change which has taken place over a gradual period of time. When we look at the situation from behind, it looks that people are more prepared to change and adopt their ideas to accommodate their lives with the ones lead by the Gay and Lesbian people. However, it is a totally different scenario when this happens in your own family, and that is where the distinction lies in determining what path to take with regard to the social consciousness of the parent with respect to his children. It is a very tough decision to make for the parent with regards to the relationship with his children when he or she comes to know that his/her child has become a Gay or a Lesbian, when all the parents expected their children to be straight and usual in nature. In the first transcript, the parent is utterly confused and surprised as to how the turn of events took place. They were suspecting that one of their sons would be Gay, but it turned out that the younger son who was shyer in nature was Gay in nature. This realisation is not an easy one and it takes time to adjust and accommodate to the change which has happened. This paper is divided into two parts. The first parts deals with the parent’s role in the life of their children, and the second part talks about how they emotionally experience their children’s sexual orientation with respect to Gay and Lesbians. Along with this, emphasis will be laid down on the transcripts as well as other means of research and information. Parents Influence On Children: Parents have never shied away from bringing up their children in the manner they want. They take great pride and energy in petting their children, and often have dreams which they relate to their children as and when they grow up in life. It is of extreme concern for the parents with respect to the kind of life their children have been leading. Looking from the societies perspective, it is of no surprise that there have been times when the society was not ready to usher in the new age development of Gay and Lesbians living the same life as straight men and women. Although things have changed as the time has moved on, but certain things always remain unchanged, and one of them is the fact that the parents are not comfortable at all when they figure out that their children has turned to homosexuality in practice. It has not been an easy ride for the parents in general to adopt the beliefs of their children. In the first transcription, however, the parent took the initiative to know her child better since he had now turned Gay, and as it turned out she was able to accommodate herself with the change she saw. She was able to engage with him, it was a life enriching experience for her and the relationship got better after she realised that this is a part of her child’s life. Even though there might be possibilities where they cover up for the tears they shed in the background, there is no denial that this is a serious truth which is hard to swallow for them. Homosexuality has not reached a point where a parent would be fine with their children dealing with it. It is not on the stage where the parent might think that it is a good or a positive thing to happen to their child. It is still marked by scepticism and denial. A parent cannot do anything once he or she comes to know that their child has turned to Gay. Obviously, they cannot ask him or her to change their minds as that would not be possible, and therefore they take things how they are and try to deal with it in the most harmonious manner. Sharing the emotional experience for the parent has been a very trying one. However, in some of the occasions the parent is either not ready or reluctant to give information, which shows just how hard and tough it is for them to deal with the situation at hand. It is a difficult process to begin with, but as seen with parents 1,2 and 5, after opening up they had become more aware about LGBTs and improved their relationship with their children. When the parents are heterosexual and their children turn out to be homosexual, it is a big cultural shock for them to deal with. “Psychologists say that sense of loss is real for most heterosexual parents coming to grips with the fact that their son or daughter is gay. Margaret Buttenheim, a psychologist at the University of Michigan’s Center for Child and Family which counsels families of both gay parents raising heterosexual children and heterosexual parents raising LGBT children, said it's about recognizing that although your child may be like you in many ways, he or she is also their own person and very different from you in many ways.” "If you’re a heterosexual parent, you have as a long-standing fantasy that you're raising boys and girls who are going to go on and reproduce, and do it the same way you’ve done it. So there’s a loss of a fantasy that you might not have ever known, or considered to be a fantasy," Buttenheim explained.” The parents expect their children to be the way they have been, to practice life in the same manner as they have done and to bring up children in the same fashion as they themselves did it. However, for one it is a big change to adjust to and is not an easy one for sure. It shows that the parents have to stretch the boundaries of their emotional wellbeing and go out of their comfort zones which have been defined for ages. The parents are not totally satisfied with what they see, and it takes time to come to terms within their own families. Let us analyse a quite from a passage below: “I am very afraid he is going down the wrong path and I do not want to loose any more communication with my son than I already have. I do love him but sometimes I think I feel like it is a love hate relationship which is NOT what I want to feel. I feel very disappointed in his choices in life but again I know I cannot change those choices he makes I have never had to do anything like this before in my life so I hope I have stepped up to the plate and made a good choice. Any help that I could get would be greatly appreciated.” This is a passage from a text where the parent throws light on her feelings about her Gay son, and the subsequent realisation of how it happened. According to some psychologists, the change to take place in the parent is extremely elongated and does not come overtime. As mentioned in the quoted text, the mother suffers through a love hate relationship with her son. Parents have a deep sense of loss for their children with respect to the way they have decided to live their lives. The parents do have an understanding that the child might be going on the wrong path and therefore are very afraid as to what might happen with them. Now, having read the interviews, the following analysis can be introduced: 1. Parents weak to absorb Emotions 2. Impact of Homosexuality in Family Dynamics 3. How readily acceptable is the individual’s homosexuality for the parents Parent Weak to Absorb Emotions: The will to absorb change does not come immediately. It is a time consuming procedure and therefore needs to be looked at a cautious and slow approach. At the very first beginning he parents are not at all chilled out about what their child had become. Even though at the face of it they might agree to their children emotionally they are extremely disturbed and perturbed as to what has happened to their child. At this stage, the parents are reluctant to see the change. Its but natural for them as they come from a totally different background as opposed to what their children are now going through. There is a sense of misunderstanding which might creep in so it is imperative to be open minded and understanding with what one is doing and thinking. Some parents have taken this whole thing very aggressively and negatively. And there is a massive chance for that to happen because along with their children the parents also have certain dreams and desires to be fulfilled and accomplished. A strong mother or father who has let go of their child would feel differently, but a possessive mother would be extremely saddened by the turn of events with respect to his child. IN one of the interviews the mother was very angry over this. There is a major possibility for that to happen and such possibilities are totally justified. The reason for justifying angry emotions is simple. Anger is just an escalated form of emotion which comes out in the strongest form. For something which you have never experienced anger can easily take control and there is a slight possibility that it might result in negative tendencies to float in which shall be discussed later on in the paper. Once the anger creeps in, it is important to calm down and relax and question as to why the child eventually took to this decision, where the aim should be to try and understand the child’s desires and emotions in a respectful manner. Anger might also creep in when the parent is too selfish or self-centred. These emotions follow in when their children take a totally different path and therefore the parent who is self-centred finds it extremely hard to cope up with what he has seen. The advice is to maintain peace and calm and try to go with the decision of the child. There is no way that in such circumstances the child would eventually lead a “normal” life. Impact of Homosexuality in Family Dynamics Homo sexuality has had a very deep impact in the total family dynamics. It has had a both positive and a negative impact on the hole dynamics of the family. The family takes shape according to the behaviour of its members, and in such a case where one of the members is Gay/Lesbian then it makes a lot of difference to the dynamics. Most of the families have reported a healthy relationship between them and the Gay/Lesbian member of the family. It is an old saying that a family which eats and sleep together lives in harmony. There is no denial that from the transcripts, out of 5 parents interviewed three of them had been able to accommodate their homosexual child and thus were able to sort things out with respect to any negativity flowing into their minds. The first family which was interviewed confessed that it took them some time to actually incorporate changes within the family system, but once it was done everything was back to normal for them, as if nothing had happened at all. There is always room for comfort between the parent and the children and therefore both needs to come clean about what had really happened. The parent has to understand the complexity of the situation and not shy away from the reality. The second family which was interviewed mentioned that they were also able to tak the positivity out of the whole situation as there was no way that they could just sit and feel disappointed and hurt themselves and their child. Therefore, they opened up more to their child and that reflected in a totally different relationship which was much more relaxed and harmonious. Many times it is noted that parents do not interfere in their children’s private life, and some of them have condemned this decision of theirs by mentioning the fact that it should have been better if they had kept an eye on them and not let them run away with such awry decision. One of them had said that their child was involved in one of the communities and there was a Father Divine who kept on influencing their minds. Since there was a man like that who demanded attention from them the reason for her child to turn Gay was attributed to this Father Divine. The parent in this situation said that there had not been a situation where he had not mentioned this Father Divine and he was so motivated and controlled by his thoughts that he kept on talking about him day and night without fail. However, regardless of the negative aspects and the parent not having been able to accommodate their child into the family, the majority of the transcriptions show that the families have been very accommodating. The dynamics of the family have changed from being a heterosexual family to one which still maintains the same stance, however, with more flexibility they have moved ahead with times by adjusting the dynamics, thus improving the relationship as well with their child. How readily acceptable is the individual’s homosexuality for the parents The last part of the analysis shall deal with the fact as to how the homosexuality is acceptable to the individual’s homosexuality. Once the information is out in the domain of both of them it is of extreme importance to allow some calmness in the air as mentioned before. As far as the parents 3 and 4 are concerned, it took the ma while to be able to understand the whole situation. They have been very reluctant in engaging in conversations with their children with regard to their sexuality. The reason for this is that they do not feel comfortable with the bunch of ideas propounded from their perspective to the children and to the parent. The child refuses to think form the parent’s perspective and in the same way the parent refuses to think and look at things from their child’s perspective. In such a situation a deadlock happens which results in both of them not willing to listen more to each other and carry on with their own perspectives. (transcription 3&4) And at all the times as studied in the interviews it is the parent who is at the losing ground emotionally. For the child there is the partner who he or she has who can take off the emotional burden from their shoulders with respect to dealing with the society and the parents. But nothing as such happens with respect to the parent who is extremely graved and saddened about the whole thing and therefore needs someone to listen to them and cry on their shoulders. On the concluding part, one must understand that there is a big difference between the parent’s and the child’s way of thinking and both need to adjust and accommodate each other’s spaces to live a better life. Works Cited http://gayfamilysupport.com/blog/distressed-mom-of-gay-son http://www.pflagdetroit.org/parenting_a_gay_child.htm Read More