A supportive mom and dad are seeking some guidance after their 11-year-old son came out as gay. It sounds like they just need some help with the logistics.
The mom writes on Reddit:
Last night my 11 yo told my husband and I that he’s gay. We talked for about 1/2 an hour and of course we love him, support him, be himself. For us it changes nothing about our love for him. He’s an amazing kid. At this stage of his life, he’s talking more about who he is attracted to, etc. so sex isn’t the issue (yet), but I need some advice on some parenting stuff. Two issues jump to mind:
- Sleep overs. He’s had sleep overs with his friends since he was eight. His older brother has his best friend over every weekend (they switch houses). I don’t really care, but I’m worried about what other parents would do. Should they know? If it was a little girl wanting to spend the night with my son, the answer would be “not appropriate”, so how is this different? I know it’s societal, but just wanting to know how other parents handle it.
- Scouts – he’s about to bridge over to Boy Scouts. He loves it. Loves camping, etc. We are fortunate that our unit is accepting of adult leaders who are gay (although we don’t have any yet), but there are still a few ignorant leaders (and boys). I don’t want to post this issue on the scouts website because I don’t want the stupid comments. I just don’t want to make it seem like a punishment that he has his own tent when all of his friends sleep two to a tent.
We are super lucky that he already goes to a small, secular private school so I don’t worry about him being bullied there. I asked him if he planned to tell other people. His response was “I don’t care if anyone else knows. Once I made the decision to tell you guys, I figured I don’t care who else knows.” He’s always not really cared what other people think, but we talked about bullying and how I wanted to make sure he knows to come to us with any of that.
I’ll x-post to the askGSM sub, but it doesn’t seem as active, so I thought I might get some better tips here.
What advice would you have for these parents?
