PARENTING:THE KELLY family had just arrived home from midnight Mass on Christmas Eve in 2005 and were about to have a celebratory drink when 16-year-old Jamie decided the time was right to disclose to his parents that he was gay, writes SHEILA WAYMAN
He told his mother, Vera, first in the kitchen and she quickly called in her husband, Michael, and Jamie told him as well.
“I did get quite upset,” says Jamie, recalling the moment in the company of his parents at home in Firhouse, Dublin, more than three and a half years later.
“We all got upset,” agrees Vera. It was an emotional time anyway for the family as Michael’s mother was extremely ill in hospital. Vera was to learn later from other parents that a person’s coming out often coincides with something else going on, such as serious illness or exam stress.
Jamie was reassured when his parents’ initial reaction was, “Oh is that all”. “They thought it was something else, like drugs. You thought there was something playing on my mind,” he reminds them.
“We weren’t surprised,” says Vera, as she and Michael had already discussed the possibility.
“We weren’t sure,” explains Michael. “We just waited until Jamie found the right time.”
The “right time” for coming out is generally now at a much earlier stage in the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people than it was even a decade ago. The most common age for coming out in Ireland is 17 years, according to research published earlier this year. It found the average age for coming out among people it surveyed was 21.
However, that study of the mental health and wellbeing of LGBT people also found that the most common age of respondents becoming aware of their sexual orientation was 12, while the average age was 14. So there is typically a gap of up to seven years between a child coming out to him or herself and coming out to others.
"This period of seven years on average was reported as a particularly stressful period in the lives of participants," comments the report, entitled Supporting LGBT Lives, which was launched by the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, in February. "In addition to the normal range of challenges associated with adolescence and puberty, respondents reported feelings of loneliness and isolation as well as the fear and/or anticipation of rejection if they come out at this time."
It is clear that parents of LGBT teenagers now have a much bigger role to play in supporting them than they did when people were waiting until their 20s or 30s before coming out. Acceptance by family and friends has been identified as a vital positive factor in young LGBT people’s sense of security and well-being. There is no definitive figure for the prevalence of homosexuality but a common estimation is 10 per cent of the population.
Neither of Jamie’s parents had a problem with his sexuality, although Michael concedes that Vera would have been quicker to tell her friends than he was.
“Jamie being gay wasn’t ever an issue,” says Vera. “The only issue I think most parents would have from the outset is how are other people going to deal with your child? Would other people be homophobic? Could people be cruel? That is really the main issue.
“You do tend to become protective. It took us a long time to come to terms with being able to drop our guard on you going out,” she says to Jamie.
“In the early days you’re a bit raw,” says Michael. They were sensitive to jokes among groups in social settings. “Before you would have rowed in with laughter yourself,” he admits.
Does he think it is harder for the fathers to accept their sons’ homosexuality?
“We were just talking to a lady about this last week,” replies Michael. “In her case it was her daughter and it was much easier for the father to deal with the daughter than for her. And I said it’s the same thing but the other way around.”
Jamie believes the parents’ own sexual orientation is a factor in this. “The mum is sexually attracted to men, so she can kind of understand why someone, not necessarily her son, would be attracted to men.” It would be vice-versa for the father and daughter.
Just before Jamie turned 12, he knew he was gay. “When I became sexually aware I knew I was homosexual. But I didn’t know how to take it. I was very ignorant on anything to do with sex, but especially on anything to do with homosexuality.”
He didn’t know anybody who was gay but he knew the term was used in a derogatory way. “So I was kind of worried about coming out. I didn’t know how to handle it. I thought it would be easier to be straight. But now, looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
When he was 15 he said it to a good friend and then claimed he was just joking. “I had looked into it a good bit by then but I still did not feel it was the right time to come out. I didn’t have enough confidence in myself.”
His parents were the first people he told. “I definitely felt a weight off my shoulders.”
“We were happy for him too because we had waited on the time,” says Vera. “And we were worried if it was a burden on him. For all of us, it was a form of liberation. We could talk about it then.”
About six months later Vera heard about a support group for parents of LGBT people, which she found to be a valuable source of information and reassurance, and both she and Michael now offer support to other parents in a similar situation.
“When you get to talk to other mams and dads, you realise you are not the only one. Some who have been on the road longer than you will say some of your fears are unfounded and you just have to be practical.”
Vera thinks it is great that kids have such a good relationship with parents now that they can come out to them as teenagers. “It was ridiculous when you think years ago that they were afraid, trying to hide it from their parents. That was horrific.
“We met a fella recently who still can’t tell his mother and he’s in his 40s,” says Michael. “There are a lot of people condemned to living a different life.”
It is not easy for most teenagers to discuss sexuality in the same room as their parents, never mind in the presence of a reporter as well. Yet Jamie, now aged 19 and who has just completed his first year studying neuroscience at UCD, radiates self confidence. It is clear that he and his parents have a particularly honest and comfortable relationship, with laughter and gentle humour lacing the conversation.
For Jamie, choosing his parents as the first people to tell about his being gay was a reflection of their close bond.
“I think telling them was like reciprocating their trust. They are so tolerant and accepting of what I do and give me so much freedom, within bounds of course. It was my way of repaying it. The more I thought about it, the more it was they would like to be informed, so I should tell them,” he explains.
For a Co Galway mother of two gay sons, now in their 20s, the discovery of her eldest son’s sexual orientation came out of the blue 10 years ago. She became suspicious about his Internet use when he was 16 and when she checked his browsing history, found he had bypassed the net nanny and was accessing gay porn websites.
“He was really mortified at the time. He wasn’t ready to tell us, so it was tough enough on him,” says the mother who lives in a rural area and asks not to be named.
While in hindsight she says it might have been better to have waited until he was ready, she is also glad that her intervention deflected him away from pornography.
“I had to sit him down and say, ‘It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, it is not the way to start any relationship. You are worth more than that and you will find someone who will be there for you.’”
She decided to tell her husband before her son talked to him as she wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. “Once you’ve said something, you can’t take it back,” she points out. However he was fine about it. With her second son, she was pretty sure he was gay long before he told them at the age of 20.
Before she found out about her eldest son, she says she had never heard of homosexuality. It was a sharp learning curve, she agrees, but points out that she had not learnt to prejudge either. “I felt isolated myself because I did not know anybody else in the same situation.” It was more than four years before she talked to parents in a similar position – the parents of her eldest son’s long-term partner.
She has only just become involved with the parents’ support group which has recently started meeting in Galway.
Vera and Michael were aware of homosexuality and never had a problem with it but they had not thought a lot about gay issues before Jamie came out. They agree it has changed their lives and made them more tolerant.
All the family were devout, practising Catholics but they cannot accept the church’s stance on homosexuality now, particularly comments by the present pope.
“We would have been Mass-goers but with everything going on in the church we have taken a step back. Of course we still have our faith. When you see the hypocrisy, you do have to question it. So we do what we think is right for ourselves,” says Vera.
“I need God in my life without a doubt,” she stresses. “God sent me Jamie and I had to wait eight years to get him!”
Both she and Michael are hoping for a few grandchildren too, not only from their eldest child Lesley-Anne (27), who is about to leave home to live with her boyfriend, but from Jamie as well, “from some source”, laughs Vera.
She sees gay marriage as the only way forward. “I hope and do still pray that it will come. Society is changing; we will just have to be a little bit patient.
Loving Our Out Kids – one of the support groups for parents of gay children
IRELAND WAS A very different place when Patricia Kilroy, now aged 83, learnt that her son was homosexual. She still remembers the moment, at 1am in the kitchen of their home in Churchtown, Dublin, when 19-year-old Walter said he had something to tell her: “I’m gay.”
Her first thought was: “My poor son is going to have a sad and lonely life.” But the reality, she says, “has been so wonderfully different!”
At the start of the 1980s, homosexual acts were still a crime and the issue was little discussed. However she did not find it at all difficult to accept.
“If you know your son, you know there is nothing wrong there.” It was a little more of a “revolutionary thought” for his father, she says, but he soon adjusted to the idea. Meanwhile Patricia embraced the cause of gay rights and wanted to help other people understand.
“The first thing I did – it sounds so whacky now – was I went around to the local garda station (Dundrum) and started talking about it.” She always remembers how the garda she was discussing it with was trying not to laugh because, as it turned out, one of his station colleagues was gay and they were well acquainted with the issue.
“It was a wonderful reaction. I still remember the kindly twinkle in his eye,” she recalls from her present home in Sandycove, Co Dublin.
Sometime after that, she heard of a gay march being held in Dublin and went along. “It was no good if nobody knew what I was marching about. So I made a small notice, ‘Mothers love their gay sons’, put it on a long pole and put on my best hat.”
As well as attracting the attention of photographers, with her picture ending up in a gay publication in London, two parents with a gay son also saw it and talked to her. It was they and the Kilroys who formed Parents Support in 1980, for parents of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered children.
Initially it was all about providing parents with reassurance and information. Since then its activities have broadened out and now include giving talks to professionals who work with children, such as GPs, teachers, gardaí etc.
But the parents’ group, which is still very small, has recently become a lot more visible with the launch of a website last month and its change of name to Loving Our Out Kids (Look). The revamping of the organisation’s image reflects the changing times, says its secretary, Louise O’Donovan.
“One of the differences is when children used to come out they weren’t children any more, they were in their 20s and 30s. Ireland was very conservative and so there was a lot of grief and devastation around it.
“That has changed. The big difference now is that the parents are a lot younger and better informed.”
Decriminalisation in 1993 was extremely important because it removed a huge element of fear, she says. The fact that there is far more legal and medical back-up for the gay community nowadays also helps. Coming out during the teenage years produces an entirely different dynamic, Louise suggests. There might be a tendency to dismiss it as a phase they are going through.
Parents also need to realise not all the behaviour of gay teenagers is attributable to their sexual orientation; they are just behaving as all teenagers do.
She finds the main concern of parents today is that their children should be happy. “You will get a parent ringing saying they are just looking for more information: ‘I have told my son or daughter it is okay, I love them; it doesn’t matter.’
“But for themselves they take it one step further and they ring you.
“That’s good. It means it is not the huge emotional disaster it was anything up to 10 years ago.”
But she acknowledges there are still parents who have a problem with it, mostly older parents outside the main urban areas.
- Look has parents available to talk in confidence via the phone, email or face to face. For more information, see www.lovingouroutkids.org or contact an organisation such as the Gay Switchboard (01 8721055) which will give parents a number to ring.
- BeLonG To is an organisation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people aged between 14 and 23. It started in Dublin but now has groups meeting in centres such as Galway, Waterford, Limerick, Dundalk and Tipperary. See www.belongto.org for more details or tel: 01-670 6223.