For some parents, having a child come out as LGBTQ+ is a change so unexpected, so outside the realm of their understanding and belief system, it can be a life-altering process coming to terms with it. Some never do, resulting in not just severed relationships but often much worse. According to The Trevor Project, LGBTQ+ youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual youth, and that number gets even higher when they come out in rejecting households.
While it would seem a given that no parent would knowingly reject their child, the reality is it happens far too often. Many parents struggle to accept their son or daughter as LGBTQ+ for a variety of reasons: pressure to uphold societal norms of the “perfect family”; deep-seated cultural biases, religious beliefs or political leanings; or the desire to protect one’s status or reputation. When their child’s coming out challenges one (or more) of these, some parents believe they face an impossible choice.
If the statistics tell us anything, it’s that parents and families have to do better at making room for our LGBTQ+ youth; their lives are depending on it. The question is, how?
When our sixteen-year-old daughter told me she was gay, I had no idea how to fit this new reality into my conservative religious framework. But finding a way to do so felt crucial and necessary. She needed my love and understanding, and I needed a new paradigm, one in which I could love and accept her and still hold on to the values and beliefs I lived by.
Making room for a change of this magnitude required time to experience the full gamut of emotions: grief, confusion, doubt, hope, and even joy. In the ten years since my daughter came out, my heart and my faith have been stretched in ways I never thought possible. Here are eight strategies I’ve learned in making room for an LGBTQ+ child.
• SURRENDER YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Give yourself permission to name and then grieve the loss of dreams you’ve been holding on to for your child and for yourself, especially as they relate to marriage and family. You may be surprised at how specific the details are, how visceral the letting go will be. It will take a while, but this will leave room for new possibilities to grow: about who they’re becoming, what your future together might look like.
• ASK QUESTIONS
Awkward and silly ones, as well as ones you can hardly summon the words for. Ask them of your child, of Google, of your spiritual mentors, and of any and all experts you can find on the subject. Most of all, ask yourself the bedrock level questions about what matters and what you believe. Questions shed light on fears that are hard to articulate and, most importantly, keep the communication channels open between you and your child.
• FIND FRIENDS YOU CAN TRUST
It’s hard to talk about the day-to-day realities of having an LGBTQ+ child when no one in your friend group can relate. I discovered friends from less conservative backgrounds than mine, who carried less religious weight about this topic, felt safer to be around in the beginning. The silence and sometimes flat-out rejection you’ll experience from some folks will be disheartening and feel isolating at times. But you’ll also be overwhelmed by the warmth and understanding you’ll receive from unexpected people in your life; they will become your new community.
• LET THEM TELL THEIR OWN STORY
Resist the urge to say too much too soon in public. It’s tempting, once people start hearing the news, to want to control the narrative. To get all over social media and shout: “It’s fine! We’re fine!” (or the opposite if you’re not). You’ll sometimes want to make it all about you—how you’re adjusting, how happy or sad you are. Keep a close circle of friends for working through your own issues, but otherwise take your cues from your child. Let them tell their story in their own way and at their own pace. Your relationship with them will be immeasurably better for it.
• GET TO KNOW THEIR FRIENDS
Take a few baby steps into their world. Your efforts to get to know some of their LGBTQ+ friends will speak volumes to your child, and go a long way toward easing your own fears about ‘the gay lifestyle’ – which you’ll discover is mostly carryover from stereotypes and biases you had growing up. Sitting at a table with my daughter’s friends and listening to them talk, I heard the unmistakable sound of humanity. I realized that Scout was right in To Kill a Mockingbird: There’s just one kind of folks; folks.
• LAUGH
About the absurdities, the awkwardness, the weird stuff you’re trying to figure out as a family. It will feel strange for a while. For a while for us it was language—‘L-G-B-T-Q’ was a lot of letters to mix up and ‘queer’ wasn’t something you called someone when I was a kid. For a while, we landed on “The BLTs” as it was the only configuration we could remember, and it became the family joke for years. Laughter is a collective sigh, a break in the tension, a chance to let go of the reins and admit life is sometimes puzzling. Laughter can open the door to necessary conversations you might otherwise avoid. And you can never, ever, underestimate the healing power of a good belly laugh.
• EXAMINE YOUR BELIEFS, WRESTLE WITH YOUR DOUBTS
Early on after our daughter came out, it became imperative to me that I address the doubts at the core of my struggle to accept my daughter as gay. I had never questioned or examined my conservative Christian beliefs around homosexuality until then. Part of that involved a deep, comprehensive study of the topic from both a biblical and scientific perspective—I wanted to be sure of what I actually believed and why. More importantly, it involved facing deep-seated biases and ignorance and admitting they were largely based on fear. This is the hardest and most necessary work of making room.
• ENVISION A NEW FUTURE
Begin to imagine a way forward that allows for your child to be whole and healthy, flourishing in every way. It won’t look the same as the vision you had for them before they came out, but work on constantly adjusting your dreams according to what is instead of getting trapped in the what if’s. If you can do that, you’ll begin to know peace.
I know full well how each of these steps represents an indefinite amount of time, tears, struggle and prayer. It’s why I wrote an entire book about the process by which I came to fully understand and accept my daughter as gay. It’s been my experience that a parent’s heart can ultimately make room for both the unconditional love we hold for our children and the values and beliefs we hold dear. Love really does make room.
Staci Frenes is a Christian music artist, speaker, author and mom of an LGBTQ+ daughter. Her book, “Love Makes Room: And Other Things I Learned When My Daughter Came Out” (Broadleaf Books) is available wherever books are sold.
