During my more than 40 years as a counselor, I have dealt with a countless gays, lesbians and their parents. I have yet to meet even one couple that from the very start welcomed the idea that perhaps their son or daughter is gay. There is always resistance and a lot of denial that it is so until they are faced with irrefutable evidence that indeed they have a gay offspring.

That reality hits them like a ton of bricks. It is as if their world has come crashing down on them. They are assaulted by deep sense of dread and shame, don’t what to do or where to turn to.

The number one problem in the beginning is denial. The parents don’t want to believe that their child is gay. For as long as they can, they will deny it. Even when faced with strong indicators, they will continue to deny. It is almost as if by denying, they can cause the “problem” to go away. They can’t and it won’t.

For most parents I have talked to, the homosexuality of their child causes a kind of gap between them and their child. They rarely admit that it is so, but there is strong proof that, because they do not know how to deal with the situation, that gap surely does exist.

I have yet to meet parents who wanted a gay child. That simple fact is enough to indicate that the emergence of homosexual indicators in a child creates a sense of confusion and fear in the hearts of the parents. They are terribly disappointed and worry about how they will face family and friends even if they don’t blame the child for what he/she is.

In the beginning, they will do all in their power to try to reverse the situation. There is even the thinking that if the gay teenager can have sex with a woman, that might cure his homosexuality and “make him a man.”

I have counseled some gay men who were traumatized by a father who in his desperate attempt to rid his son of his homosexuality dragged the youngster to a prostitute in the hope that a bit of sex will turn his son around.

The truth is that the discovery of a gay child in the family is never welcome and if parents could wave a magic wand and “cure” the youngster, they would. But they cannot and that reality creates all kinds of problems for both the parents and their child.

What is most difficult to accept is that there seems to be no remedy. The only options appear to be:

1. Accept the fact.

2. Reject the child.

Neither option is very appealing.