Coming Around: Parenting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Kids by Anne Dohrenwend
Authors: Anne Dohrenwend
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child’s sexual identity is necessary for his or her continued emotional development, but it is also necessary for the successful transition from the parent-child relationship to a parent-adult child relationship.
The relinquishing of parental control comes in stages. In early adolescence, you need to encourage your child to make minor decisions,such as clothing, length of hair and whether to join a sports team or try out for the school play. By late adolescence, your child should be making decisions that have more lasting consequences, such as whether to go to college or get a job and whether to say yes or no to sex with a partner. Eventually, as the child becomes an adult, the child should assume full responsibility for his or her decisions. When that happens, the child becomes a full-fledged adult. The age at which adulthood commences is not set in stone, but a good estimate is somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two years of age.
Failure to separate from parents leaves a young adult psychologically tethered to them. Not only does this limit psychosocial development, but also it puts a strain on the parent-child relationship. Any small conflict can feel like a tug-of-war.
Family systems psychologists (among them Salvador Minuchin, Virginia Satir and Murray Bowen) have developed and popularized approaches to family therapy that focus on issues such as the importance of boundaries between family members. In healthy families, individuals maintain and respect boundaries while maintaining connection. When a family member’s boundaries are too rigid, family systems therapists refer to the relationship as disengaged. When a family member’s boundaries are too permeable, family systems therapists refer to this relationship as enmeshed. Boundary problems in a family can delay, halt or distort normal child development. When a child is gay, parent-child boundary problems add yet another layer of complication to sexual identity development, a process already burdened by homophobia. 1
In working with LGBTQ adolescents, the problem of overly permeable boundaries is significant. I’ve had gay adolescent and young adult clients whose parents not only rejected the children’s sexual orientations but also used whatever leverage they may have had to discourage the children’s relationships.
It can perhaps be hard to comprehend how a parent and child can be too close. Clasp your hands together so that the fingers of each hand interlock alternately. Notice that it can be difficult to tell, just by looking, which fingers belong to which hand. Similarly, when two people are enmeshed, they find it hard to determine which decisions belong to whom. When your hands are clasped, it’s hard to see that they are two separate parts and not one whole. Now try to move one hand. This drags the other hand along with it. In enmeshed relationships,conflicts are emotionally charged. Because the parties involved are entangled, movement by one party disrupts the other.
Another way to think about enmeshed relationships is to think about power. When identities become entangled, struggles over personal power occur. Often it appears as though one person gives his or her power to another and, right after doing so, begins a fight to get it back. Here’s an example: Keith tells his mother that he’s going to the park to play basketball. His mom says she doesn’t want him to go out because he has bad sunburn. Keith tells her he’ll wear sunblock, but his mother insists that he stay inside. Keith, who was on his way out the door, turns around and slams the door shut. He plops down on the couch and begins a long rant, “Mom, I’m seventeen years old. When are you going to stop telling me when and if I can go out! You hover over me like I’m a five-year-old kid! None of my other friends have a mother like that!” In this case, Keith’s mom doesn’t recognize she is overstepping and Keith doesn’t realize that he need not let her. Keith could have
The relinquishing of parental control comes in stages. In early adolescence, you need to encourage your child to make minor decisions,such as clothing, length of hair and whether to join a sports team or try out for the school play. By late adolescence, your child should be making decisions that have more lasting consequences, such as whether to go to college or get a job and whether to say yes or no to sex with a partner. Eventually, as the child becomes an adult, the child should assume full responsibility for his or her decisions. When that happens, the child becomes a full-fledged adult. The age at which adulthood commences is not set in stone, but a good estimate is somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two years of age.
Failure to separate from parents leaves a young adult psychologically tethered to them. Not only does this limit psychosocial development, but also it puts a strain on the parent-child relationship. Any small conflict can feel like a tug-of-war.
Family systems psychologists (among them Salvador Minuchin, Virginia Satir and Murray Bowen) have developed and popularized approaches to family therapy that focus on issues such as the importance of boundaries between family members. In healthy families, individuals maintain and respect boundaries while maintaining connection. When a family member’s boundaries are too rigid, family systems therapists refer to the relationship as disengaged. When a family member’s boundaries are too permeable, family systems therapists refer to this relationship as enmeshed. Boundary problems in a family can delay, halt or distort normal child development. When a child is gay, parent-child boundary problems add yet another layer of complication to sexual identity development, a process already burdened by homophobia. 1
In working with LGBTQ adolescents, the problem of overly permeable boundaries is significant. I’ve had gay adolescent and young adult clients whose parents not only rejected the children’s sexual orientations but also used whatever leverage they may have had to discourage the children’s relationships.
It can perhaps be hard to comprehend how a parent and child can be too close. Clasp your hands together so that the fingers of each hand interlock alternately. Notice that it can be difficult to tell, just by looking, which fingers belong to which hand. Similarly, when two people are enmeshed, they find it hard to determine which decisions belong to whom. When your hands are clasped, it’s hard to see that they are two separate parts and not one whole. Now try to move one hand. This drags the other hand along with it. In enmeshed relationships,conflicts are emotionally charged. Because the parties involved are entangled, movement by one party disrupts the other.
Another way to think about enmeshed relationships is to think about power. When identities become entangled, struggles over personal power occur. Often it appears as though one person gives his or her power to another and, right after doing so, begins a fight to get it back. Here’s an example: Keith tells his mother that he’s going to the park to play basketball. His mom says she doesn’t want him to go out because he has bad sunburn. Keith tells her he’ll wear sunblock, but his mother insists that he stay inside. Keith, who was on his way out the door, turns around and slams the door shut. He plops down on the couch and begins a long rant, “Mom, I’m seventeen years old. When are you going to stop telling me when and if I can go out! You hover over me like I’m a five-year-old kid! None of my other friends have a mother like that!” In this case, Keith’s mom doesn’t recognize she is overstepping and Keith doesn’t realize that he need not let her. Keith could have
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