WAY OUT PARENTING: “I could do SUCH a better job raising a straight child than my parents did raising a gay one!”

If you are like most gays, you were a constant source of anxiety to your straight parents. They never wanted you to express your budding lesbianism by wearing flannel shirts, chopping your hair off, and playing sports with the boys. And they tried to suppress your nascent gay-boyness by signing you up for team sports and setting you up with the neighbor’s budding lesbian daughter—hoping for a miracle.

Your parents were trying to fit a gay peg into a straight hole. And that’s why so many heterosexuals think you’ll try to fit a straight peg into a gay hole—in other words, make your child gay—if you’re allowed to parent. But that’s not what gay parents usually do. After experiencing years of coersive

parenting, most gays approach parenthood with the confident knowledge that they could do a MUCH better job raising a straight child than their own parents did raising a gay one.

Instead of trying to remake their children into what they want them to be, most gay parents actually study their children, try to figure out who they are, and help them on their way. That is why you see so many “gay” parents acting so uncharacteristically “straight” once they have children.

For example, you see lesbian mothers who…

despite their aversion to anything pink, purchase plush pink Hannah Montana saucer chairs for their eight year olds at Target for Christmas or Hanukah.

after years of wearing black and navy blue, allow their eleven-year-old daughters to take their hand and steer them into Talbot’s or Chico’s (where they’ve never ventured before) and convince them to try on that colorful sweater with little pep talks about taking fashion risks.

go for mother/daughter manicures and pedicures, even though they spent the first thirty-five years of their life unselfconsciously ripping off their nails due to high anxiety.

indulge their daughters’ innate urge to accessorize by making regular trips to Claire’s where, in any given month, they buy their girls more handbags, jewelry, and lip glosses than they have purchased for themselves in an entire life time.

learn how to create good ponytails, buns, pig tails, French braids, and never force their daughters to get short haircuts they don’t want.

help their daughters plan big white legally recognized weddings they’ve never been able to have themselves.

And you see gay fathers who…

though they’ve never played a team sport in their life become the manager of their son’s soccer team, sending out weekly reminders to other families to wear the blue uniform or the white one.

regularly resist the impulse to take their teenage sons to a real salon and get them properly coiffed, knowing that to do so would be to impose their higher—and gay—standard of self-grooming.

allow their sons to express their natural hunter impulses by having a toy gun or sword or light saber, even though they were denied the chance to express their natural gatherer impulses with a Susie Homemaker kitchen.

affirm their children’s budding heterosexuality by speaking only in positive terms about the heterosexual experience, even though they, as children, were subjected to Biblical rants and historical treatises on the corrupt nature of homosexuality.

Buy their son a set of drums and listen to his garage band practice—even though they would much rather listen to their favorite musical theater soundtracks.

DON’T take their son for a manicure, even though he really needs one before going to the prom.

And these are just a few examples. You see, gay parents could care less if their children are straight. They will still proudly introduce their children to all their gay friends and welcome their children’s straight friends to their table. They will still support their children’s right to live openly and proudly as straight men and women. They will even pay for their children’s weddings—which they can’t legally have themselves.

How many straight parents could say the same about their gay children?

© 2008 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.