What to wear to a gay bar if you 39

Straight up, what should you do? Psychologists and therapists have been blaming everything from autism to zoophilia on bad nurturing, bad mothers and bad parents. The newest twist is to just blame it all on fathers. Bottom line: all of that tripe is a lie. Either you control the things you can control, acknowledge the things you can not, and rely on Christ to help you know the difference or you will end up frustrated, alienated and in pain.

All parents who throw a child out accomplish is making sure the child does not have a safe place to sleep. All parents do who who do not listen with love is they teach their child it is not safe to tell the truth. Be serious. There is nothing you can tell your child at this point that they have not heard before, other than, maybe, that you really love them.

That no matter how shocking, whatever they tell you, you will love them forever, just like Christ does. But not always. I should have been clearer that you can control whether it is possible, not whether or not it will happen. Incidentally, I presume these are the pre-adult expectations.

A girl’s modern guide to gay bar etiquette

And they deserve neither blame nor credit, for their near-adult and adult children and even their younger ones will make their own choices, according to plan. Hopefully the parents in your OP will also find it in themselves to listen long enough when their child speaks so that he or she knows that someone is listening.

Knowing there is a place of safety can be of great value. I would also add this: there is a difference between kicking a child out and agreeing together that the child might do better on his own. The second recognizes that the child deserves the dignity of his own choices and their consequences. I would say this applies to a teen cruising any bars, gay or not.

My advice would be the same if they were committing any other sin: Love them and try and help them through the steps of repentance, with the first and hardest step of helping them recognize the sin. He is the prince of peace and the only one that will be able to truly help them. Some friends might find the narcissism implied in this counsel offensive or at best useless.

I am on the road, but the comments have been in line with what I expected. This post lacks the right kind of hooks to draw a large number of comments or the forcefull ones. I admit I was tempted, but the hooks would have gotten in the way of the advice. I will try to respond more when I am not on a mobile phone trying to beat freezing rain.

That said, it may in fact feel narcissistic to a parent faced with the reality that a teenager or adult child will make his own decisions independent of what the parents wishes. The OP is not a plea for the parents to feel better about themselves, but to recognize what they can and cannot do about the present situation.