I’ve often looked at my kids and wistfully looked into the future to imagine what kind of adults they’ll Grow into be. As far as I know, I have no expectations of them. I imagine how they’d look physically, if they’ll have piercings and tattoos and such. I imagine their jobs, their cars (or the lack of them); I am imagine their significant others and wonder how many boyfriends/girlfriends it will take them to settle down with one, or if they will ever settle down at all. And then, I take a little detour and wonder if one of them will turn out to buck the heterosexuality majority and turn out to be homosexual. I find myself reacting pretty easily to it, of course. I am all about accepting your own sexuality and accepting others’ as well.
It’s encouraging that many of my friends are accepting, if a little nervous, about the possibility of their child being gay. Funnily enough, most of them are okay with their daughters being homosexual as opposed to their sons. For some reason, the idea that their son might be gay makes them a lot more uncomfortable and even angry. It would be interesting to explore that reaction but that’s not what today is about. Today, I am trying to understand if there is a way to understand or predict that your child could be gay.
Signs and indications
Scientific American, in a not-very-expansive story, says that predicting your child’s sexuality is pretty much an inexact exercise at best. Largely, it’s all the stereotypes: boys who are fascinated by their mother’s makeup and heels, girls who take on a boyish, square-jawed stance. But if you were to do mere guess work: there are other indications. Boys who eventually grow into homosexual men usually Prefer solitary sport like swimming or riding instead of rough contact sport likes football. Girls tend to show an affinity to tools and mechanical things. Though neither of this means a child will grow up into a gay adult but more often than not, these are good indicators, Scientific American quotes a paper written in 1995 by psychologists J. Michael Bailey and Kenneth J. Zucker
“The most salient differences are in the domain of play. Boys engage in what developmental psychologists refer to as “rough-and-tumble play.” Girls prefer the company of dolls to a knee in the ribs. Toy interests are another key sex difference, with boys gravitating toward toy machine guns and monster trucks and girls orienting toward baby dolls and hyperfeminized figurines. Young children of both sexes enjoy pretend play, but the roles within the fantasy context are gender-segregated by age two. Girls enact the role of, say, cooing mothers, ballerinas or fairy princesses, and boys prefer to be soldiers and superheroes. Not surprisingly, therefore, boys naturally select other boys for playmates, and girls would much rather play with other girls.”
To me, this seems largely stereotyping because I know enough parents whose kids don’t fit these archetypes. But it could be that they are exceptions than the norm and that most kids do fit the stereotypes above. So typically, applying this research and some common sense, it would be safe to say that young boys who will become gay adults prefer the company of girl children in their childhood. And similarly, girls may seek the company of boys and play sport that satisfies their urge for rough and tumble play.
Is there an age?
Scientifically, there is no real age by which kids start to display “signs” of being gay, except perhaps when they start to become aware of their sexuality and start to understand who they prefer. Even in those cases, socialisation and stigma is so strong that they’ll do what their friends are doing. Ie.: boys will have girlfriends, and girls will have boyfriends. Unless they are in supportive environments where children are able to tell their parents with faith and trust that they prefer persons of their own gender to have romantic interactions with.
Many mothers have been known to sense their child’s sexuality when they were very young but it is often believed to be a case of memories being retrofitted to suit the stereotypes that surround homosexual people. So, for example, a mother might say that her son consistently played with her make up with actually it might have just been the regular curiosity of a young child, irrespective of sexual orientation.
Are you afraid?
Which then brings me to the questions of why parents are afraid of their children turning out to be gay when they grow up. The basic reason, biologically, is a no-brainer. With same-sex relationships, it’s unlikely that they are going to reproduce and evolution has wired into us that we need to grow our own kind. That preservative instinct kicks in and so does the fear. The second, more rational, reason is society and stigma. How will I react to friends if my child is gay? What will they say? How will they treat my child? All of these are fear inducing. Till you realise that your support for your child is more important than anything anyone says about your or your child.
When you are standing by your child and saying you’re there for her or him, no matter what, what will emerge is a circle of love and trust between you and your child. And a circle of true friendship outside of it, where you know which of your friends are judgemental and which aren’t, who will stand by you and won’t.
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