Children of Queer Parents Perspective on life
Children of Queer Parents Perspective on Life
Alex,
Tinker, 13, who lives with his 2 moms has high self esteem. He plays sports and is also a straight A student.
His biological father sees him regularly and they hang out together.
According to Alex, “ I don’t think there’s anything wrong with
being raised differently.”
Nathaniel
Sleig, 18, comments, “I have never lost a friend because
my dad is gay.” Even his girl
friend’s conservative parents don’t have a problem with it.
He considers his dad first as a dad not as being queer.
Maya Jaffe, 17, who has a queer parent says, “I ‘m more sure about my
sexuality than my friends.” She
says the reason that is, “because I now it would be OK if I am a lesbian, but
I ‘m not.”
Josh
on the other hand had a negative impression of having queer parents.
When Josh was 10, his father died. He
started living with his mother and her partner.
Josh kept his family life from his friends.
His mother’s partner did not go to parent teachers’ conferences or to
his sports events because she wanted to protect him.
According to Josh, “I couldn’t understand it.
I t was out of the norm,” Josh says now.
“They weren’t my family. Basically,
I just hated them.”
The fact that Josh’s parents were lesbian also affected his marriage.
He and his wife had a child. His
wife later divorced him because of her “discomfort” towards her in-laws.
This homophobia went further when Josh’s wife tried to keep Josh’s
parents from getting visiting rights.
Kate Amus is another example which shows discrimination.
Kate had graffitie on her locker. One
example is, “KATES’S A LESBO, YOUR MOM’S RECRUIT.” Kate is 18 now and
considers her mom and her mom’s partner “Ward and June Cleaver”.
Losing a parent because of AIDS is another traumatic effect of having a
gay parent. Stefan, 24, watched his father die of AIDS.
His father felt guilty abandoning his son during his teenage years.
The two of them talked little about the illness during that time.
Breauna Dixon, 7, another victim of a parent who died of AIDS, wrote a
picture book about her father’s death from AIDS.
This book is now used to help others who have family members who are
dying of AIDS or have died of AIDS.
Society affects the lives of children of queer parents.
Most children are just as closeted as their parents. Also, in past generations, children with queer parents have
been the result of divorced heterosexual marriages.
It has been found that both children in traditional families as well as
those in queer families are subjected to the same amount of teasing in school.
Problems occur regarding the question of custody of the child or
children. Life could be easier for
queer parents if they could marry. The
couples tend to have multiple custodial papers stating who can make life/death
decisions concerning the child or children.
An
example, of an ethical conflict concerning custody of a child was in a
Florida court took custody rights away from a lesbian mother and gave them to
the child’s father who had gotten out of prison after spending 8 years for
killing a previous wife.