|
|
Do you have this problem? |
Yes |
|
56% |
[ 74 ] |
No |
|
30% |
[ 39 ] |
I used to.. |
|
13% |
[ 17 ] |
|
Total Votes : 130 |
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 5:23 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:09 pm
|
|
|
|
I had actually listed it as a topic for someone or several someones to handle as a class in the Academy.. or I can when I finally get moved and finish up the others I have on hold.
Coming out of the broom closet isn't always easy.. especially to parents and especially to parents who are christian.
My personal experience... my father, who was raised Lutherian... accepted it a little better than my mother, who is Catholic. Of course, my father was told by his pastor he was going to burn in hell for marrying a Catholic when he and my mom got married. I suppose that's enough to make someone take a good hard look at any religion and think twice about their rules. My mother though... has been a devoted Catholic her whole life and cannot seperate the teachings of her church from what she knows of me.
In other words.. my mother knows the kind of person I am... that I'm so far from the "stereotype" that she should be able to understand something isn't right there... and yet, she cannot wrap her head around it.
I've tried several times to talk to her about what I believe.. to explain things.. and she just tells me she doesn't want to know. I finally gave up, and we just don't mention it.
My father and I talked once, back when I made the choice to stop being christian. He asked me why... I told him.. I explained how it's just hard for me to imagine God is just a man... when there are so many women in the world.. and someone up there has got to understand "women's problems" because we both know men would rather not hear about it.
He seemed to understand that.. and I've never had a problem with it since.
Some parents fly off the broom handle (forgive the pun) when their kids tell them, mostly because parents always blame themselves for things in their kids lives. You might not understand it... I didn't for the longest time. Most parents want nothing more in the world than for their children to grow up, be happy and healthy, and have a better life than they did. This means that they want to protect their kids from anything harmful and hurtful. At some point, the realize, they have to let go of the sterring wheel, and let the kid drive.. but it scares them... not because they don't have faith in you... because they don't trust the world, and they worry they didn't do a good enough job preparing you for it.
So when something happens to a kid... parents, on some level, blame themselves. Even the most open-minded and accepting parents I know, have a moment of pause and worry when things translate to their own children.
For example... let's say there's Sally... and Sally brings two of her friends home one day to meet her mom. Andy and Trisha... and they are both gay. Now, Sally's Mom is open-minded and accepting, and her reaction is "That's nice dear... good for them." Two weeks later, Sally tells her mom she's Bi. Her mom.. has a moment where she thinks to herself "What did I do wrong?"
Why? Because parents... most parents, that is... hold themselves accountable for the way their kids turn out. Even those who understand... have a moment of doubt. Maybe if they hadn't been as accepting of the gay life, their kid would have been straight instead. I've seen it. Moments like these usually pass.
But when it comes to religion, a lot of parents just assume their kids will be the same religion they are. If a parent is very religious, they expect it. When children instead branch out to something different, they wonder where they failed in raising them 'correctly'. Most religions, even the christian religions... have issues with all the others. Baptists against Catholics, Catholics against Prodestants... Lutherians against... well, you get the picture.
You would think that being a "christian" would be good enough, but there are a lot of hostilities even among those of the same faith. Ireland is a good example of Catholic verse Prodastant. And then there's that thing which happened to my father. If this is how they feel about someone jumping ship from one christian religion to another, imagine what happens when someone goes Buddhist...
Add in the centuries of church teachings against "witchcraft" and "magick"... and well, you get a pretty nasty picture.
Now, parents whould be smart enough to look at their kid and go "well, she's not trying to BBQ the cat, and she's not requesting I buy her pig's blood... she seems happy and sweet and really sure of herself... Maybe this religious thing isn't so bad"... but instead their mind is probably going "cult.. cult.. Waco.. Jamestown... Get her out now..."
And even if they do understand the religion, they are still left with the questions of "what did I do wrong that she didn't like my religion."
Then... you have to be careful of another thing.. some kids (and I've seen this too) get preachy at their parents... and try to convince them that their religious choice is the only correct one because.... and in th end, it comes off to the parents like the kids are trying to say "You've spent your life devoted to this religion, and you were such the idiot. Watch me mock you."
This is never good, for obvious reasons... No one likes to hear theat the path they follow, which makes sense to them and makes them feel better, which makes them feel whole.. is incorrect and they are fools for following it.
And sometimes... because of the fact parents internalise things... when a child branches off to something different and I mean.. different.. the parent instantly feels like nothing they did was good enough for the kid, that the kid is flipping them off, and they feel like they failed. Some have a hard time feeling like they fail, so they get angry and agressive, and try to force the kid to change back to the 'correct' choice so that they can feel they are still right, and didn't fail. (I personally think this explains a lot of anger and hostility parents sometimes show toward kids who come out as homosexual... )
Anyways.. I don't know if my ramblings help any. I might have just made things more confusing.
When I've had more sleep I'll work on some suggestions for coming out of the broom closet... nite all!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:20 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:54 am
|
|
|
|
..I honestly don't know if I ever will.
Especially not my dad EVER. He's a bible believing christian, and my dad tends to think right away, exactly what the religion tells him to think.
And I told him that that's silly, that he's got to have half a head of his own, you know?
I don't even know if my mom would care. when I do wierd things now, she doesn't even care anymore, because she knows she can't fix it. Or...she accepts it? I doubt that.
My mom doesn't believe in god, so I don't know how that goes.
I dress goth/punk/wierd sometimes, and my dad hates it and he tried to make me stop, and I told him I NEVER would, and he's like "You're doing this JUST to make me mad." But I yelled at him at told him I was doing it because it's who I was, and my sense of Individuality. My mom didn't like it at first, but now she doesn't care. She offers to buy me clothes, even.
Well, Whatever. I know I should but.. I don't know.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:26 am
|
|
|
|
Honestly, I live with my mom who is an uber-Catholic, to put it lightly. Well, the first time I peeked out the broom closet, I had found a mentor who worked at my library, and so then I asked my mom if I could get taught. Uh...well the nub and the gist of it was that I was a Satanic follower, and I couldn't do that Satanic stuff in her house. Back into the closet for me. Sadly enough, I got found and pulled outta the closet, when she found one of my books. Yikes. She said next time I let her find a book, or next time she found one, she was gonna fight me. I'm only 15, and not looking to die anytime soon, so...i changed my hiding places. It's not as hard as I thought it would be though, it's just study in silence and keep the secresy. Annoying, but not so bad. domokun
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:03 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:45 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:37 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:00 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:32 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 11:46 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:32 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
xXSadisticevil_lilVampyXx
|
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:19 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:03 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:23 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|