Do parents not care so much about whom their gay kids marry?

I think they assume gay people won't have children, so it doesn't matter anyway.

OP, it is who, not whom.

Grammar troll

As in they don't care who they marry

What is your native language, OP?

Is OP mad because the parents weren't bigots?

You are asking about millions and millions of parents based on your insights with one neighborhood. It sounds like an EST as far the neighbor and their list of demands,. Next time less detail and better luck. .

OP it sounds like they took their daughter's marriage much more seriously than the son's marriage. I know of many parents and others who consider those marriages which are not performed within a religious ceremony (gay or straight) as 'not serious' or 'real', but those marriages performed within a religious ceremony ('under the eyes of God') as very serious / real. And this is from people of all religions.

Don’t kid yourself OP.

I’m just as big of a pain in the ass to my gay kid as I am to my straight kids. At least according to them.

The truth is I, and I would hope most parents, want the same for our gay kids as we do for all our kids.

Partners who love them, respect them and stand by them. Partners who will be partners. That means contributing to building and supporting their family in whatever way works best for them as a couple. Partners who enjoy spending time with us, his birth family who loves him and will love the partner too. Because if our child loves the partner and the partner makes our child happy, the partner certainly deserves our love.

So yes, we scrutinize equally.

I think maybe straight parents of gay kids can’t relate, or don’t have the proper frame of reference. When my partner and I were moving in together, my mom’s heartfelt advice was to make sure we use protection. I’m like, what!? We’re a monogamous couple and neither of us has a sexually transmitted disease, mom.

Agree with R9. Obviously, you would expect parents to care about who their kids marry, but if they don’t have experience with same sex relationships, it’s appropriate for their opinions to be weaker.

Also, in the case described in the OP, I’m guessing that they expected the daughter’s husband to do the heavy lifting in terms of financial contributions (or they at least wanted him to be credibly white collar so that it wasn’t obvious it was their money paying for the house, summer camps, and private schools). Switching the genders up, parents might be concerned about their son marrying a woman who they don’t think would be a good mother. But if their son was marrying a man, they might be less concerned about his partner’s parenting skills if they were confident in his.

It’s an interesting question, though. A parent trying to do the right thing by not attempting to steering a gay child in a romantic direction might actually create the impression that they value the gay child’s marriage less. Or they might actually value it less.

Parents should be ecstatic their gay son is getting married and settling down. “ my son no ho he a married man”

All parents should be so lucky.

If this is the case widely, I think it is more a son/daughter difference than a gay/straight difference. Daughters tend to remain closer to the family than sons do in general, daughters will often tend be much more the care giver in their old age. Sons can be harder to control than many daughters. I feel this is often the case but of course not always.

This is R8 again.

My gay son is getting married next year. We’re thrilled. We adore his partner.

My straight son moved in with his GF last year. We’re happy if he’s happy. We’re fond of his partner.

Put another way, my daughters and I have some concerns about the GF. We’re keeping them to ourselves. As long as he’s happy we’re happy. Should he start looking unhappy we may start dropping hints.

Hope that puts some things in perspective.

[quote]What is your native language, OP?

Esperanto

[quote]OP, it is who, not whom

Actually, "whom" is correct here.

Whom is the object of marry

R9 maybe—but you’re wrong. Your mom gave a standard “take care of each other” statement… you should have been delighted at her attempt to relate.

Like any parent should, my folks asked only if I was happy and if I loved him. The rest was up to me. I think sometimes my mom liked him more than me ;)

[quote]You are asking about millions and millions of parents based on your insights with one neighborhood. It sounds like an EST as far the neighbor and their list of demands,. Next time less detail and better luck.

I've actually seen this over and over, in many different neighborhoods. I just gave one as an example

Parents just aren't used to gay marriage and don't think the standard traditions apply

Obviously, all parents are different. A middle-aged friend was with a manipulative but very cute and fit younger man. The friend’s parents objected over the age difference and the young partners’ character. They broke off communication mutually with my friend and have not resumed, even after the marriage and divorce.

[quote] my mom’s heartfelt advice was to make sure we use protection. I’m like, what!?

So many gays I know have this exact experience. Usually, when they come out to parents. Parents are caught flatfooted. The only thing they seem to know about gays is HIV

OP, did your neighbors' son & his husband adopt their kids? I'm not sure how Judaism views adoption -- of course it's legal according to a secular view, but are adopted kids the equivalent of children born to the parents according to their religion? If the kids were born via surrogacy, that raises still more issues. None of my business, just curious.

Jesus Christ…I mean Yahweh or G-d.

That’s not how Judaism works.

R22, they were by surrogacy. Twin (one obviously from the son and the other from the husband) and a younger daughter (from the husband)

^Op, forgot to sign post

R18 well if this is the thing you see all the time with the straight parents you know who are all confiding in you about their kids wedding plans I stand corrected..

I take your word this is not an EST. I am nearly 80 have been around straights a lot it’s never once happened to me. It seems to happen to you a lot.

I don’t find that real parents normally talk the way. But this is the DL so……

R17 - what is wrong about what I said?

You dissed your mom for showing love

You got from what I wrote that I dissed her!? I said she didn’t know what to say so said to use protection. That’s not dissing. That’s demonstrating that she didn’t know what else to say in the moment. Which I suspect a lot of straight parents of gay kids might do. I didn’t take it as not showing love.

[quote]If this is the case widely, I think it is more a son/daughter difference than a gay/straight difference. Daughters tend to remain closer to the family than sons do in general, daughters will often tend be much more the care giver in their old age. Sons can be harder to control than many daughters. I feel this is often the case but of course not always.

There's the old saying, and there are several variations of it, "A daughter is a daughter for life, a son is a son until he takes a wife." R10's financial take was probably also a factor in what OP describes.

R29 you’re cool. It came across as less than loving . No worries. YMMV

All Jews care about is money and keeping the money in their white supremacist tribe op.

Mel Gibson has joined the conversation at R32

After what my straight brother married, I could do no wrong!

Some do, some don't. It varies.

Mine were very happy (I married well) until it hit them that I’d be moving out of state. They had this assumption that I’d be the nice gay bachelor son who’d care for them up close in their elder years because I’m responsible and kind and (in their view) i didn’t have much else going on.

I do what I can from 300 miles away, and visit a few times a year, but there’s still some guilt.

R34 no shit I landed my guy after my older brothers had gone through 4 wives ;)

I feel as though some people commenting here ought to rewatch Torch song trilogy.

My impression it's that most observant Jews would clearly prefer that their daughters marry Jewish husbands, but since Jewish identity is conferred through women, they would be marginally less concerned than if their straight son were engaged to a non-Jew who was opposed to the idea of conversion. (Because their potential grandchildren through that union would not be accepted as "real" Jews by a significant proportion of the Jewish population). A close friend of mine is in that situation. She's married to a Jewish guy, but she's a non- convert. Her daughters were raised Jewish, went to Hebrew school and had bat mitzvahs. Their congregation allowed it, but it was a combined congregation of reform and conservative and there were some people who objected.

But if their gay son is already leading a life that's suspect in the eyes of the wider community, his choice of partner is less likely to get them agitated. Children are another issue. If their gay son decided to have children via surrogacy, and if he had any choice, they might try to persuade him to use a Jewish woman as surrogate, on the chance that he'd want to raise the children as Jews. But someone would probably need to verify all of that to satisfy religious law. It's quite a tangle.

If parents of any religion have overcome their upbringings to love their gay children unconditionally, then they are already aware that their children had to overcome a lot of pain and fear of rejection their whole lives, and I think their main concerns would be that their children have found someone who loves them and makes them happy

R38, that's the hope, regardless of religious background or any other consideration. Fingers crossed in any given situation.

Yes—we get our history of religion from a Broadway show 😵‍💫

Whom is truly on its war out. OP is one of the few who use it correctly. As a result, he’s corrected right and left and asked what his native language is.

OP is still incorrect.

The grammatically correct sentence would say, "Do parents care who their gay kids marry?"

The "about" is awkward and unnecessary.

R42. You are confused. Marry takes the accusative case.

I dated someone 15 years older for a short while. I think that probably was an adjustment.

For the sample, “whom I marry is my own concern”.

R42, your in know position to bee giving grammar advise.

When in doubt, revise the sentence. "Does it seem to you that parents don't care much about their gay kids' choices in mates? " "

But there is no to doubt OP is correct.

I think the non-bigoted ones care. My parents always ask me about my boyfriend's job/family/life when he's not there. I think normal people are interested in their kid's LTRs.

After I told my parents I was gay they couldn't give a shit about what I did. They were going to be so generous, so full of promises and set me up for life(I was so depressed as a youth and had very little social life and did not do well at school, no compartmentalizing skills whatsoever, a big blur) and they could afford to and were going to make it up to me. But I showed no interest in girls whatsoever. So at 30 they asked me the question. I responded yes. It seemed too stupid to lie at that age. But they had wanted me to lie. So all the promises turned to ash, I live off government programs and section 8 housing. They couldn't give a shit. I'm sure if I married a man(no job and section 8 housing, fat chance of that happening) it would have meant nothing to them. They lived far too long. I am completely devoid of emotion. There is nothing inside of me. Like when Harry looks inside of Meghan in that South Park Episode. Just don't have her cunning. Though wouldn't want it.

R50 and everyone else with a similar story, I am so sorry your parents failed you. It keeps happening, sadly.

R51 My mother died of pancreatic cancer. At the end of her life I was taking turns with my sisters caring for her. The very last thing she said to me when we were alone was 'Were your father and I mean to you?' I said nothing. She turned her head away with a sad look on her face. A friend said you should have said 'You did the best you could.' I could have never said that. It was not true in any way. My parents' actions were done out of bigotry, meanness, and maybe even some hatred. A gay son? The only son of an only son? I was a lemon to them.

The last thing my mother said to me was “I love you”

I've heard from others whose experience matches r50's. I recall an aunt talking about a gay son being "lost already"

Did they check the bathhouse? Maybe he was hiding.