It's interesting how if you ask anyone about what happened when they came out to their parents, the parents' version and the kid's version always differ. The first time I 'came out' was when my parents read a letter I had written to a friend confiding in them that I like guys. So everyone totally freaked out. My stepdad was less surprising because he's a redneck who hated me for years before that happened. (I, apparently, am not a man because I like to read and write and be smart instead of just digging holes outside all the time.) My mom is a religious conservative Catholic and basically asked how I could "do that" to god and wondered if she could love me the same. Eventually she was making comments that I should be sent away and I'd come home to messages for returned calls about mental hospitals, et cetera.
But now? She says those things never happened and I must have just been very depressed, and that if I had a boyfriend I could even invite him over for dinner. She's totally okay with it, of course, and how could I ever think otherwise, I'm her son, she says.
I always thought it was strange. I can understand embarrassment at really freaking out and turning a difficult situation into what was basically hell for me. But at least admit your mistakes. At least tell me I didn't deserve that. That I deserve honesty. Nobody, least of all your kid, would expect that moment to go perfectly. It's so utterly terrifying and everything seems so bleak. You could lose everything. The number of gay teens who are homeless because their parents just 'got rid' of them like they were trash is astonishing. And whether or not you know those facts or precise numbers going in, intuitively, you understand that it could happen.