The Naked Truth | Coming out to your parents: why they may take it badly, and what they should do instead
- Traditional parents, especially Chinese parents, fear social stigma and the family name dying out because there won’t be grandchildren
- A sex educator says parents should learn to accept their children for who they are
No two reactions are the same when someone comes out to their parents as gay. Some parents will be caught off guard. Others may merely feign surprise. For the child, opening up comes at the risk of losing everything if their parents don’t take the news well.
When parents react badly, it is mostly because of old-fashioned fears – of social stigma, or of losing the family name; in their eyes, if the child is in a same-sex relationship that automatically means no grandchildren.
Ignorance, Chinese values, religious dogma: LGBT Hong Kong students’ plight
The matter of how parents react to their children’s homosexuality was in the news last week when Etta Ng Chok Lam, the estranged teenaged daughter of film star Jackie Chan, married her Canadian girlfriend.
In a public display of defiance, Ng claimed they had been left homeless, forced to live under a bridge for a month, because of their homophobic parents.
Parents who react adversely to their child coming out may threaten to withdraw their financial support in a misguided attempt to force the child to conform.
