Parents Matter. Parents' Relationships with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons by Muller, Ann

The mother of a gay son, Muller makes two key assertions in this simply written and sympathetic exploration of families with homosexual children. The first is that lesbians probably have greater difficulty being accepted by their parents, which she attributes to rigid sex-role definitions that keep some people from approving of single, successful women. Second, she contends that Freudian and neo-Freudian psychology have sent the negative message that the combination of a dominant mother and weak father "causes" gay children. The author's discussion of these arguments is strengthened by research and interviews with 71 parents, daughters and sons, and she concludes that parents' attitudes matter greatly to their homosexual children because gay people are "harshly judged by the larger society."