To the parents who trivialize their children's sexual orientations: I don't get it. No, seriously. I don't get it. What do you hope to accomplish there? It's truly sad that in my four months of being a high school's nurse (I was in an elementary school before that, and for two and a half months in the early part of this calendar year) I've had too many students in my clinic crying over parents' dismissiveness to count on two hands.
That's right. I saw that more often than I saw drug issues and STDs combined. That's just depressing, Parents. I'm not even a guidance counselor.
What do you think's going to happen? Oh, I snickered told my son that his being gay is just a phase, so he's going to see how silly he's being and suddenly like boobs. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's examine this piecemeal.
Assumption: Homosexuality/bisexuality/pansexuality/asexuality/what-have-you is bad, for some reason.
Option 1: Rebellious phase. Okay. Sounds good. Every teenager goes through phases, and some of them make more sense than others. As much as I'd like to say everyone knows for sure who they are at all times, it's not true. Teenagers really do occasionally go through sexual orientation phases. Here's the catch. If you say something nasty or derisive, you'll wind up pushing your teenager into rebellion mode. As soon as you make someone defend their points, it becomes harder to change their minds. This is true of children as often as of adults. You've seen it before. Leave it alone. If being gay/bisexual/pansexual/asexual/what-have-you is a phase, it will go away on it's own.
Option 2: Plain old confusion. I don't even know why I have to explain this. Giving someone an absolute answer with no real supporting evidence to a terribly confusing, multifaceted issue is the opposite of helpful. Try an actual discussion. Your child may realize he or she isn't as confused as he or she thought.
Option 3: Not a phase. Which, believe it or not, is the case more often than not, I think. All you're going to accomplish by mocking your child is to cause massive psychological damage and self-esteem issues. As much as they want to think your opinion doesn't matter, it does. Parents have more power, even over older teenagers, than they know.
Now shape up. I would really prefer not to see any more crying children over something like this.
On a side note, I do not recommend writing blog posts after taking benadryl. In fact, it might be better to stay off of the internet altogether once you've taken benadryl. The Davis Drug Guide refers to it as a hypnotic for a reason.
I might come back and make this post more coherent tomorrow morning. Or I might just delete it. -shrugs-
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