We’ve talked about this before on this blog, but we’ll talk about it again. One of the most difficult things for any straight spouse or mixed orientation couple to face is the question of “what do we tell the children”?and teenage children, as they worry about peer pressure, acceptance, and harrassment.

For most families, children of all ages will likely be more immediately concerned with divorce and how it will impact their lives than they will with a parent being gay.  Having a homosexual parent is an issue for middle school

Younger children want to know they are loved, cared for, safe, and provided for. If you explain to them that Daddy is gay, or Mommy is a lesbian, they may not understand what you mean.  After all, young children do not understand what sex is.  Tell them in an age appropriate way having to do with what they personally will experience if you separate or your living arrangements change.

It’s important to remember that when gay people come out after years of being in the closet, they want to move quickly into their new life.  But when you are married and have a family, coming out involves more than yourself. It involves your family.  It can take a while for a straight spouse to recover from discovery or disclosure and a breakup.  Likewise, new relationships for children have to be considered carefully.  Don’t introduce your children to everyone you are involved with – wait until you know that a new partner is going to be a stable person in your life.  Don’t expect that everyone will meet your timeline in accepting the new situation. And please, choose your partner carefully and remember, all stepfamilies have difficulties at times.

Going forward with family, out of the closet, is important.  If a gay spouse is in denial, the straight spouse should not be afraid to make the decision to tell the children if appropriate and necessary.  The important thing for the straight spouse is to refrain from telling the children in anger, or to get revenge on the gay spouse.  Tell them calmly, possibly with a counselor or clergy person present for support.

It may not be necessary to tell young children right away. School age children and teens may already have an idea that a parent is gay, and be reluctant to discuss it.  When a straight spouse keeps the secret, it can appear to teenage children that they are lying as well.

Honesty is painful, but the best way for a family to proceed.  Just be sure that when you tell the children, do so in an age appropriate way.

A big question for straight spouses is “how will having a gay parent affect our children?” For answers to this question, we suggest you take a look at what the experts say. The best experts are the adult children of gay parents.

You can find their perspectives in several places on the web. Abigail Garner’s website Families Like Mine is usually a good place to start. She has written a book,  Families Like Mine which describes growing up with a heterosexual mother and a gay father. She’s also written an excellent piece for Newsweek on her experiences.

Abigail hosts Oversampled, a collection of blogs written by adult children of gay parents.  Their perspectives are diverse, and their lives take many different directions.

A very comprehensive resource for different perspectives of adult children of gay, lesbian, and mixed orientation marriages can be found at Queerspawn.org. The name Queerspawn is a tongue in cheek term used by some adult children of gays and lesbians to define their unique experiences with the homophobia and misunderstanding that children of gay and lesbian parents encounter.

A common thread for many of the perspectives of adult children in “families like ours” is that family itself becomes redefined or expanded to include non traditional structures. Family can include mom and dad, siblings, step siblings,  parents’ current and former lovers and their children, or close friends. Another common experience is fear of letting their peers know more about their families because of the threat of being harrassed, misunderstood, or targeted for bullying.

For children of mixed orientation marriages, the primary concern growing up is the continuation of family after divorce. Issues related to their parents sexuality are secondary for many. As they get older, having a gay parent affects their world because they sometimes find themselves not being accepted by straight friends. Some live in the shadow of assumptions made about them based on their parent being gay.

As straight spouses, we know that there are children who do not enjoy a close relationship with their gay parent, for many of the same reasons that some children don’t connect with one parent in a heterosexual divorce – the parent’s behavior is not family friendly, or they cannot be depended upon to routinely honor visitation agreements or support orders. Sometimes there is conflict with the gay step parent, and a child will decide as a teen to not go to the gay parent’s house for that reason. The voices of adult children of lesbians and gays currently available reflect the perspective of people who were raised to have close relationships with both the gay and straight members of their respective families.

Our families encounter step parenting issues that generally are not addressed by many counselors, or by gay friendly organizations. It is possible for our children to love both their parents, and not their gay and straight step parents. It is possible for our children to experience the same difficulties that all children of divorce experience, but feel as though they cannot share these issues with counselors or friends due to a parent being gay.

Some of the young adults blogging on oversampled or featured in the Queerspawn diaries refer to themselves as being “culturally queer” even if they are themselves heterosexual. Having a gay parent, they become part of the family that the gay parent builds, which can include partners and friends. Family may not always be the people our children are related to, but the people who relate to them in the same way a family raises and supports children.

Our children of mixed orientation marriages will develop their own perspective as time goes on – and for children of mixed orientation marriages atany age, the primary focus is on what happens to their family and their relationship with their parents.

When the promotions for Oprah this week showed that she was interviewing a lesbian, many straight spouses probably said “what again”?  Programs about sexuality are nothing new for Oprah.  Her program this week “Living without Labels” featured a woman who had been married, had daughters, and had a late in life realization that she is gay.  In fact, her daughters told her she was a lesbian, noting how she looked at women. Several other women and a sex therapist were interviewed. The article in O, The Oprah Magazine “She’s So Fine” was a point of reference for the discussion.

What was unusual about this program was that the daughters gave an extended interview about what the effect was on them and the family.  Now grown women, they appear to still be very emotional when talking about it.  They spoke of their anger when their mom finally came out, and of their anguish over the divorce.  They spoke of the pain in the entire family.  But they came to see that their mom was happier.

It was a good, informative program.  Many of the women featured on the show said things that are all too familiar to straight husbands who come to the Straight Spouse Network for support.  “I’m not a lesbian, I fell in love with the person”.  The only husband of a lesbian featured on Oprah within recent memory has himself been gay.  The absence of the straight husband’s perspective on any of the programs about fluid sexuality and married people is quite noticeable, as is the lack of mentioning the Straight Spouse Network as a resource of support for families, including straight husbands.

Oprah appeared surprised that not everyone who has a sexual attraction to the same sex “always knew they were gay”.  Perhaps if she spoke to the men and women who are part of the Straight Spouse Network, she would be surprised to learn that few of us are surprised by anything that was on the program.

For some men, it may come as a surprise that it still hurts to hear the same things that were said over and over in their marriages now touted as a celebrated aspect of female sexuality.

Straight spouses often find that their questions about how to best support our children are often unanswered.  The issues affecting our children are varied, and complex.  They depend upon the developmental level and age of the child, the ongoing relationship with both parents, and the child’s own unique personality and interests.

For most children of all ages, including adult children, the initial question upon disclosure  that one parent is gay is “What happens to our family”?  Younger children want reassurance that they will continue to live in a stable environment, and they’ll want answers concerning how much they will see mom and dad, just like in breakups where both parents are heterosexual.

For adolescents and pre teens, disclosure may come at a time when they are resolving their own questions of personal sexuality.  They may wonder if they will be gay too, or they may reject displays of behavior from their lesbian or homosexual parent that they perceive as “gay”.  This might be due to peer pressure, or simply a rejection of a gay or lesbian expression as a role model.  Or, it may be a complete non issue to them, and they direct their rebellion against the straight parent, wanting to distance themselves from the anger, fear, hurt and rejection that are an ongoing part of this experience.  When the straight parent maintains residential custody and has no time to “move forward” due to the difficulty maintaining a parenting partnership while coping with the same ongoing secrecy, abusiveness, inconsideration, or unrealistic expectations of what is age appropriate that the gay parent displayed during the marriage, the children may rebel or distance themselves from both parents.

Another difficulty our children have is something they share with everyone who has ever been part of a step family – accepting their gay parent’s new spouse or partner, particularly if the relationship is formed quickly after separation or has been a factor in  the decision to end the marriage.  Stepfamily issues are common ones – but when an adolescent is told that their negative feeling toward the gay step parent is due to “homophobia” or “parental alienation syndrome” they can feel as though their own true problems and perceptions are being ignored, with the adult perspective just being forced on them.  Courts usually instruct both parents to not introduce children to new partners “of the opposite sex” until they know it is going to be something serious and ongoing, in order to minimize adjustments the children have to make.  When there is conflict with a gay step parent, it really is not helpful to say “don’t tell your mom/dad because s/he can take you away since I’m gay” or “your mom/dad put this idea into your head because s/he can’t get over it”.

Conflicts will also happen with straight step parents too, especially if the child’s relationship with the gay parent is important to them, and the step parent is uncomfortable with homosexuality.  It’s not helpful to make a parent’s homosexuality a subject to argue about with a step child, when the real issue is the usual “my rules, my house” situation.

Emergence from the closet is often accompanied by a feeling of exhilaration, relief, and a desire to share the new authentic life with family and friends.  To a homosexual person who has been waiting their whole life for this, it doesn’t feel like it’s happening too fast – but to the family in a mixed orientation marriage, it can feel like it happens at lightening speed.  Our children need to adjust to the whole experience, without having too much thrown at them all at once.

There are support groups for children of gay parents, but there appears to be little organized direct support for children of mixed orientation marriages, regardless of which parent they reside with.  Perhaps this is because our family connections are ongoing, complicated, and requiring continuous communications and compromise – not major rallying points for positive images.  Nevertheless, support for our children and their unique issues and perceptions is vital to the ongoing health of our family relationships.

What have your experiences been with mixed orientation stepfamilies?