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The Day My Dad Kicked Me Out For Being Gay Changed My Life Forever
I'm not sure if anyone saw this article on Huffington Post when it appeared in June, but here is the link to the article:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dad-kicked-me-out-gay_u...
This is a true account of a young man's experience of being thrown out of his home for being homosexual. I think that the same kind of treatment would take place for someone who is transgender. Even though I know that many of us have experienced this same thing already, this is one of the few public stories that I have seen and I felt that making others aware of it was important.
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Uh Huh
The Mills Brothers said it much better than I can.
You always hurt the one you love
The one you shouldn't hurt at all
You always take the sweetest rose
And crush it till the petals fall
You always break the kindest heart
With a hasty word you can't recall, so
If I broke your heart last night
It's because I love you most of all
My oldest son turns 44 tomorrow. I remember going toe-to-toe with him over many issues. There was a phrase running around parenting circles at that time "Tough Love." It condoned being an asshat if the outcome seemed positive.
Wrong!
Being an asshat never is right.
Compassion, compassion, compassion.
If you simply can't understand, try a different paradigm.
I had to be lucky to make it through my son's teens with a relationship intact, but we did. I'll be at his party tomorrow night.
Thank you for posting.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I remember tough love.
My daughter got into the drug culture and as a result, couldn't manage to stay in school. After being expelled from her regular high school for poor attendance (read sporadic), dropping out of night school and then dropping out of an alternative high school, she informed me that she'd be turning 18 in January and that she would be an adult and didn't have to submit to me for anything.
I had a quite conversation with her to be sure that was what she wanted. My wife and I discussed what we should do. After careful consideration, we drew up a contract which would allow my daughter to remain in our house without submitting to me. That is to be treated as an adult and have adult responsibilities. A synopsis of that contract follows.
She would be required to either attend school full time or work at least 20 hours a week. Lacking being able to find a job she had to volunteer for twenty hours a week. (I pointed out that if she couldn't find any other place to volunteer, that the church secretary would be happy for the help.) She could go no more than 10 working days (two weeks) without this condition being met. (The point of this was she couldn't just lay around the house all day and go party all night.) -- Failure of this clause was grounds for eviction.
She was responsible for doing her own laundry... to coordinated with her mother so she didn't conflict with our use of our washing machine. She was responsible for cleaning her room... if she couldn't keep it clean, she had to keep the door closed so we didn't have to look at her mess.
If she had friends over and we decided we didn't want the there for what ever reason, she would ask them to leave without making a fuss.
(There was to be written notice of violation. Three violations in 90 days of any of these last was grounds for eviction)
I was willing for her to live under these conditions until she was 25. (I thought that 7 years was plenty of time for her to get her act together.
A week before her birthday, we went over the contract with her and asked if she still wanted to be an adult. She said she did, so she signed the contract.
One of her friends read the contract and wanted to know if she could move in under the same contract. It sounded much better to her than she had it a home.
Long story short, my daughter couldn't keep the first clause. I then offered to rescind the contract and allow her to stay under the conditions she had before she turned 18. She refused the offer. So she moved out. We told her she would be welcome to stop by for a visit, stay for dinner any time. She was, after all still my daughter.
What ensued was she spent nearly twenty years in uncertain living conditions. Live with her grandfather for about a year and then he wanted her out. (He also said she was welcome to visit, but not live there.) She crashed with friends... But then she was an expert at that, having been a chronic runaway since she was 13. She spent sometime as a street person. Lived with several boyfriends for indefinite periods. All the while she was in and out of drug treatment programs (three in all) never really completed any of them. We saw her and heard from her sporadically. She nearly always showed up for Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Finally she hooked up with her current boyfriend. He was good for her. His dad had COPD and needed to move to Arizona for his health. Her boyfriend went with him to take care of him and soon found out he needed to have full time care he couldn't provide and work. So he paid for her to come and provide that. Being responsible for someone else made her finally grow up (at about 40 years old).
There's a long sequel to that... but suffice to say I twice paid for her to come back an live with me due to circumstances beyond her control. The last time was a year and a half ago (they ended up homeless after the dad died. Arizona is no place to be homeless in the summer time. People die just from being outside.) She's still living with me. Working part time and contributing to the upkeep of our household.
It was a very difficult decision to make to evict her. I tried everything I knew short of letting her not fulfill her contract without consequences. All the while we let her know that she was our daughter... we just evicted her, not disowned her. It took a long while, but I turned out well.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
What the dad in the article did wasn't love, tough or otherwise
What you did, Patricia was tough love. The strategy was invented by members of Al Anon; because an alcoholic or addict will play you every way they can; promising they want to change (they might even mean it until temptation overcomes them + gives them a better idea) and fucking up over + over, bringing insanity and havoc into the lives of everyone who tries to help them. I've been the recipient of your type of tough love from my parents, it resulted on me living on the street for 6-7 years. and I realized later it was probably the only thing they could have done. Also, I was no longer a minor at the time...
But applying this concept to gay or transgender youth because you're convinced it's a wrong that needs to be and can be "cured" is misguided at heart, and EVIL in application. I'm sure many parents who ship their kids off to conversion (brainwash) therapy quacks and the quacks themselves think what they're doing is tough love; But it's like the officers of the Spanish Inquisition claiming they're concerned for the souls of the Jews and other infidels they put on the rack.
And what the dad in the article did wasn't even tough love- it was declaring his son an abomination and disowning him completely. I'm sure if the child was trans she would've gotten the same treatment from this pseudo-Godly son of a bitch. And considering that the old fuck is still totally unrepentant, I think the son is pretty forgiving for wanting to have any kind of relationship with him at all.
~hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Miss guided and evil
Indeed. Drug addiction and alcohol addiction has no comparison to gender or sexual orientation. The former is destructive in the addicts life and body, as well as in their relationships, while the latter is about the core person.
The real difference in what I did and what the dad in the article did was I made certain that my daughter knew what we did wasn't a rejection of her, but an effort to make her a useful member of society... all the while trying to maintain a relationship with her. The dad in the article simply rejected the son's core person, disowning him in the process.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt