"Our Son is Gay" by Amanda Spake

"Our Son is Gay" by Amanda Spake
(Family Circle, 3/3/87, p 45)

It was a beautiful September day in 1984 in Palo Alto, California.
Ann Davidson, an attractive 48-year-old mother, was spending it
with her older son Ben, 21, a junior in college who was home for a
visit. A big family dinner was planned for that evening. It was
wonderful having Ben home, Ann thought. They'd had lunch together,
gone shopping and were now rushing through the supermarket to get a
few last-minute items.

Earlier in the day Ben had said that he wanted to tell her
something. The Davidsons had always been close, and Ann figured it
was something about college, where Ben was pursuing a performing
arts degree. It was 5 pm when they carried the bags of groceries
out to the parking lot.

"Mom, there's something I really have to tell you," Ben said.
"What is it?" She smiled as they loaded the groceries into the
car. "Mom, I'm in love," Ben said nervously. "And his name is
Alan."

Ann looked up at her son in shock. At first she could not believe
what she was hearing. Was Ben telling her that he was a
homosexual? Tall, dark, handsome Ben, who had so many girlfriends
in high school? How could this be? Ann said little as they drove
home, but her mind was racing as she turned the news over in her
mind. "I had a momentary, fleeting feeling of disgust," she
admits. "I had flashes of images of him making love to a man,
which made me feel very uncomfortable; I did not know what to say.
I felt disappointed, hurt and upset. We had to go home to this
big family dinner, and I had to put on a cheery face -- but I could
hardly look at Ben."

That was how Ann Davidson learned that her older son was gay. As
it turned out, she was one of the last to find out. That night,
when she and her husband, Julian, were finally alone and could
talk, she discovered that Julian already knew. He had not told Ann
because he wanted her to hear it from Ben himself. Their other
son, 14-yea-old Jeffrey, had known longer than either of them. Ben
had told his brother sometimes earlier that he suspected that he
might be gay. After he fell in love with Alan, Ben introduced him
to Jeffrey.

Julian Davidson, who is a 55-year-old research scientist at
Standford University, discovered Ben's homosexuality inadvertently
from Ben's physician, a family friend. One day when Julian asked
casually about Ben's health, the doctor said Ben was fine, but that
his "changing life-style" had occasioned some concern. "I didn't
say anything more, and the doctor didn't say anything more," Julian
remembers. "He thought I knew, and I had only suspected." Not
long after, Julian brought up the issue to Ben directly, and Ben
told his father the truth: After a painful struggle he had
recognized and accepted his homosexuality. He had met and fallen
in love with Alan -- and for the first time in his life, he said,
he was happy. For the Davidsons, at first, there was sadness. "I
was not devastated," says Julian, "but I was concerned for several
reasons. First, I realized Ben was in a minority that tends to be
persecuted; second, he won't have any children' third, AIDS -- I
really hope he does not get sick." Julian also feared that, as
men, he and Ben would lose something -- "it might seem "as if we
belonged to different breeds."

In the days that followed, Ann too worried about Ben and herself.
"I thought other people would dislike him, reject him, and I didn't
want him to part of a despised minority that people call names. I
worried about AIDS. But mostly, I worried that he'd be lonely and
hurt and rejected. For myself, I worried what other people think
of me as a mother."

So began an emotional two-year journey for the Davidsons as they
denied, talked about, cried over, grappled with and finally
accepted their son's sexual orientation. They say that they have
come a long way, that most of their early fears have given way to a
new sense of love and pride in their son. Today they counsel other
families who are trying to understand and accept gay children. For
these parents, like the Davidsons, one of the early hurdles is
learning what homosexuality is and how to seperate reality from
stereotypes.

Alfred Kinsey's studies on sexuality in 1947 and 1953 showed that
about 13% of all men and 7% of all women were exclusively
homosexual throughout their lives. This figure, still acepted by
social scientists today, means that in the United States about 23
million people are homosexual.

But Ann and Julian had never known anyone who was openly gay. They
had accepted the stereotypical images of homosexuals: limp-wristed
men or masculine-looking women. Because Ben didn't fit the
stereotype, they secretly tried to convince themselves that he
wasn't really gay.

Says Ann, "I thought, 'This is a phase.'" But as she gradually
accepted her son's homosexuality, she wondered if there had been
indications during his life that she had ignored.

She thought about his childhood. His kindergarten teacher had told
Ann that Ben did not play with typical "boy things." Instead, he
was creative and artisitc. "I don't believe that every soft,
creative boy is going to be gay," Ann says now, "but my feelings
always were that he did not play easily with other boys. He always
made friends with mavericks, loners. He did not play ball; I had
to push him into the Cub Scouts. So I always had these fears, not
that he was homosexual but that he was alone and isolated."

For a while, she blamed her husband for Ben's homosexuality.
"Julian was very preoccupied with with his career when the children
were small. I wanted Julian to be around more. So when this came
up, I, of course, said to him, 'You see!'"

After Ben "came out" to his mother, he and Ann talked it out. "I
realized I had always pushed him to be more of an all-American boy.
As a result he always felt that I did not approve of him and
rejected him," Ann says. "I saw that now that he didn't have to
hide this big part of his life, Ben was happier than he'd ever
been."

The talks were a turning point for Ben and his parents. Ann and
Julian, married 24 years, could not envision Ben's future: "The
idea of a promiscuous, anonymous sexual lifestyle turns me off,"
Ann said. But Ben was able to reassure them, explaining that he
was commited to a long-term relationship, just as they were.

Ann also had to grapple with her feelings that homosexuality wasn't
"natural"; she felt it had to be a conscious "choice" that Ben had
made. Yet after talking to Ben and reading about the subject, she
came to believe that homosexuality is an "orientation," determined
early in life by factors that are not yet understood.

Gradually the Davidsons realized that Ben had not chosen to be
homosexual any more than they had chosen to be heterosexual. In
fact, he had tried for years to convince himself that he wasn't gay
and to behave as he thought "real men" behaved. But then the
burden of the secret became too heavy. He wanted to be honest with
himself about who he was.

Julian did not have a great need to talk about Ben's homosexuality
except with Ben and Ann. But Ann felt terribly alone and she did
not know where to turn for support. Finally, she told one friend,
the mother of a lesbian. "I felt so isolated with this secret,"
Ann said. "She was the first person I went to because she wouldn't
criticize me as a mother. She had always talked very openly about
her daughter, for which I am very, very grateful. I now think it
is extremely important for people to speak out, for gays to come
out and for families to come out. The more people who do, the less
aginizing it is to go through the adjustment."

Over the course of that first year, Ben's relationship with both
parents -- to the surprise of all three of them -- improved. "The
easiest part of it is that I really love this boy," says Ann.

Julian's fears that they would grow apart as men were not realized.
In fact, for Julian, his son is more enjouable than he's ever
been. "Ben has become easier to get along with and much easier to
talk to. He's finally found himself and that is a beautiful thing
to see. And it helps that his lover is a fellow I've come to like
a lot."

The time finaly arrived for Ann and Julian to meet Alan. They all
decided to go out to dinner together in Santa Cruz, where Ben is in
school. By the time the evening of the dinner arrived, all three
Davidsons were extremely anxious. "Alan, bless his heart, broke
the ice," Ann remembers. "He said, 'Boy, this is strange.' And
then we could say, yes, it really is, and we were fine. I look
back on it now and I say, 'What was the big deal?' but I truly
didn't feel that way then." Last fall Ann and Julian moved into a
three-bedroom house in Bethesda, Maryland, so that Julian could
work at the National Institutes of Health. Ann, still confronting
unresolved questions about Ben, heard about an organization called
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. or "Parents FLAG," as it
is commonly known.

The group was an eye-opener. Both parents and gays come to
meetings to discuss the issues concerning homosexuality, including
how to tell family and friends about it. Ann met many gay people
and their parents, and she was, in her words, "overwhelmed by the
normalcy of these people." She experienced the most important
important emotional boost Parents FLAG offers: "You learn you are
not alone."

Julian started attending Parents FLAG with her, and by spring, the
two of them were participating in workshops for kids and parents.
Julian thinks that a child's homosexual orientation may be more
difficult for fathers to accept than it is for mothers. "It seems
to me it's harder for fathers because of the whole macho thing.
It's not 'carrying on the line.' We don't have as many fathers as
mothers in the Parents FLAG group, which is an indication, I think,
that men find coming to terms with it mire difficult." When he
counsels other fathers, Julian says, "I make positive comments.
People complain about how hard homosexuality is to accept. I don't
find it to be easy, but I try to stress that there is a worthwhile
side to this."

Ben says he's very proud of his parents. "I felt compelled for the
sake of my own integrity to tell them." he says. "It was
something that was making me happier than I'd ever been, and I
didn't want to degrade my experience by having to lie about it to
them. I now feel much closer to both my parents."

For Ann and Julian there are still parts of Ben's life that are
difficult to accept. They worry about AIDS, though that is not a
concern for the moment because Ben is involved in a serious,
long-term relationship with Alan. As Ann puts it, "I think if you
asked me if I would prefer that Ben be heterosexual, I would say
'Yes,' because it is a much easier life. But I think it will be
O.K."

-- Except for Alan, all other names in this story are real.

-- For more information about PFLAG visit http://www.pflag.org/