Even though I can freely date people now, I'll never be able to be fifteen and go on a date, and that's something that I'll never quite get over.

I'm straight and I didn't go on any dates when I was fifteen. It's not that big a loss.

When I came out to my mother, I was past high school, and this was in the '00s.

Her words, still? Be careful. It wasn't a sign that she wasn't accepting. She said she knew what was out there, and that she always wanted my road to be as easy as it could get, and that society wasn't nearly as accepting of gays as straights. She was telling me to be wary of everybody else out there. Those gay bashing motherfuckers (my phrasing, not hers)? Be wary of them. I thought it was sweet.

In 1988? "Be careful" had a hell of a lot more meaning and emphasis than it did today. Now? Be careful still matters, especially depending on the community.

Also...I LOVED having sexual sleepovers when I was in high school. It was so easy. Kids? If you really want a reason to not come out in high school...its getting to have your friends over for sex, with full parental knowledge of the partner's presence.

I'm feeling like an old fuddy duddy, because I read both of these and all I can think is "there is no way for parents to handle their teenagers' sex lives well, because anything the parents do - or don't do- will be wrong, and mortifying, and not enough, or too much...because that's what being a teenager IS".

Yes, parents can absolutely fuck it up, especially when they have gay kids who want and need (or DON'T want and need NOT) to come out to them. Parents who reject their kids due to sexuality are failing, and can do real and lasting harm. But awkwardness and lack of tact and not giving kids exactly the right words that will soothe an aching heart and misunderstanding friendships for relationships (or vice versa) and expressing concern in a way that lands really poorly...that is pretty danged normal.

And in case anyone thinks I just can't possibly understand what gay kids go through, I was one.

@3 I think its sweet that they're trying and asking. You can't fault them for that.

@1: I know, right? I didn't have any dates until I was 17, and honestly, my high school boyfriend wasn't that great. Fact is, there are a TON of people who don't date when they're 15, gay or straight, for many reasons.

I'm an auntie to the children in my life. I aspire to "Auntie Mame-dom," but I'm still young @ 33 & working on it. "Part of the village," as I say.

I'm a non-breeding straight gal—tubal ligation (which, as an aside, shows very promising signs of being one viable method of preventing ovarian cancer—the latest & greatest news from ovarian cancer research ((my field of expertise)) is that ovarian cancer ((a definite son-of-a-bitch for women)) seems to most often start in the fallopian tubes)—& it's my opinion that becoming a parent makes most folks forget what it's like to be a kid.
Surely this is the reptile-brain manifesting itself to enable parents to care for their young, & I see its evidence often, but not always in a positive way. (I see this as another bonus for people who have children sans breeding—they remember what it was like to be a kid.)
Parents of queer kids, & I mean queer as in not like other kids, not only gay kids, but children of all stripes: continue, or start, seeking advice from non-parents you trust: We haven't forgotten what it's like to be a kid.
Most parents don't have a clue as to what their kids are really clued into. I distinctly recall knowing that adults had no idea of all that I was aware of.
We all miss out on something in childhood—for instance, I'll never know what it's like to be a popular kid, or join a sorority, both of which are fun & have their benefits, I'm sure.
The best advice I can give parents is to accept your children for who THEY are. You'll do yourselves, & your children, a great service if you can get to know them & accept them as they are. Rid yourselves of your pre-conceived notions about who you THOUGHT they'd become. Gay, straight, queer, whatever. Encourage their personalities & support their individualities.
Hopefully, the children of today's children won't have to worry about this soon-to-be non-issue. You are who you are, & if you're smart, you'll just keep getting better.
Kids: if your parents are too dense, look around for an adult who seems more with it, & seek their counsel. You'll be schooling your parents soon enough. OXO

DUD shouldn't assume that his son & Gomer are lovers - they may be nothing more than fuck-buddies.

Way back int eh Dark Ages of the early 1970s, I was a late bloomer and started having gay sex when I was 19 and still living at home (conveniently close to my college) with my "Gomer", a 16/17-year-old neighbor buddy.

It was basically a "trade" relationship with mutual benefit: I got to suck dick and he got much-wanted blowjobs several times a week. I turned into the big ol' queer I knew I was, and he got married four times.

That said, I think the neutral advice to invite Gomer to dinner etc is right on. Keep ALL possible options open.

I feel sorry for the gay kid with the too dense parents who has to turn to a 33-year-old non-breeding straight-gal "expert" on what happens when people have children that thinks the "reptile brain" somehow keeps parents from remembering what childhood was like.

I'm with @6. All the people in my closeted childhood who helped me most were non-related adults, mostly childless, who treated me (and talked to me) like an adult.

It makes me squirm a little now to realize it, but I'm sure they understood the essence of who I was much sooner and more completely than I did. I'm forever grateful for their kindness and gifts of time.

Well put, Ms Mama @9. Either way, it's a long process.

I didn't date except maybe once on a rather traumatic outing until after high school, so I have to say the whole "missed the dating thing at 15" is probably overblown.

THAT aside, lots of generally good advice here, although if parents wind up feeling a bit of "damned if they do, damned if they don't," well that's kind of par for course with teenagers to begin with.

Tell 'em you love 'em and support 'em every chance you have and that should help you past your inevitable stumbles.

As a mother, I honestly don't get the whole "coming out" thing. I mean, yes, on a societal level I totally get it. But on a personal level? Uh-uh.

My daughter's first romantic/sexual liaison - at age 17 - was another girl. I only figured it out one day after they'd spent a night together and I noticed a hickey on my daughter's neck. Hmm. Well, that explained all the sleepovers. The other girl, a bit older, had her own place, so they'd go over there.

None of us felt the need to comment on the situation. My response was just to change gears and treat the girlfriend as The Important Person in my daughter's life, instead of just as another friend. We included her in family stuff, and I think we all may have hugged more. They were more physically affectionate around the house than they had been.

None of us ever discussed it. There was no big conversation. I think I felt like it was none of my business who she chose to love. Plus her girlfriend was a sweetheart whom we were all genuinely fond of. Nine years later, I think my daughter's had a few male and a few female partners, but we've still never discussed her sexuality. We're very close, but there's just a lot that goes without saying.

Just an alternate scenario to the whole "coming out" conversation, which as a parent I was just a little too shy to engage in.

Mouseanclown sounds like a whinny ingrate.

What I see from mouseanclown is a lot of assumption that ANY concern and ANY disapproval of a gay child's choices are due to some underlying nonacceptance of their sexual orientation.

When I entered my teens as a straight girl, my mother told me to be careful. I would wager that a fair proportion of humanity has heard similar warnings from parents, parents who either felt uncomfortable taking the conversation further or felt (probably rightly) that their teenagers would die of embarrasment if they made a big production of the thing.

That's not to say that this intepretation by a closeted gay kid is not understandable. You have a teenager (drama!) with a Big Secret (even more drama!). They will likely interpret EVERYTHING through the lense of that secret. That's why I hope DUD can get his son out of the closet sooner, rather than later. The sooner it's out in the open, the less opportunity his son will have to mine hidden rejection out of what actually is normal parenting. Even when the boy is out of the closet, DUD will probably commit some "sin" of being insufficiently cool about his son's sex and relationship life, making him exactly like every other parent of a teenager, gay or straight, that has ever walked the Earth.

The only disagreement I have with the LW is his annoyance at parents saying, "Be careful."

What the Fuck??

Look if my son (now 13) knocks up a girl at 16, who pays for the child support? Not the minor, the parents of the minor. Who has to worry about a grandchild being brought up by a single parent? The grandparents. When my son turns 21, then he is suddenly liable for another 11 years or so of child support (which I, as his parent, will goddamn well vigourously enforce).

And if my son is gay? Gays, particularly gay teens, continue to be murdered and commit suicide, be raped and be taken advantage of by police, older, amoral chickenhawks, and others.

"Be careful?" Goddamn right I'll tell him to be careful! There are a LOT of mean sonsofbitches out there (male and female).

To Mouseandclown:
I don't know your situation with your parents, I don't know the context and the tone, and, as a nearly 30-year-old straight guy, I don't know what it was like to grow up closeted. But I want to speak up in defense of "be careful."

"Be careful" is what my mom said to me just a few months ago. I was competing in a national event in my parents' home town and they came out to see me. My mom prides herself on knowing and getting along with most of my friends. She asked about a woman she saw me talking to and I said I was thinking of asking that woman out. "Be careful" she said, but I heard "The last time you mentioned a girl to us, she broke your heart. You were madly in love, and for a while so was she, and you two worked for a long time... until you didn't. You were depressed and you let yourself go. You gained weight, had no clothes that fit for months, and were let go from your job shortly after. We were worried about you. We called so often not to annoy you, but because we thought you might be spiraling downward and would do something rash. So be careful, your heart could get broken again."

"Be careful" is what I said to a lady friend of mine. She'd met a guy at a party and he had just invited her to his place for a movie. "Be careful" I said, but she heard "We didn't know most of the people there, and I'm not sure why he was there. He's probably a nice guy, but maybe he's not. You're a good friend and I don't want to see you hurt, Make your first date somewhere public, wait till you get a sense of who he is when you haven't been drinking before going to his place. Bad things happen and you hear stories that start out this way all the time. So be careful, you don't want to be one of those stories."

"Be careful" is what one of my closest friends, and also an ex, said to me. We were talking about the girl I had mentioned to my parents and how things were going with her. "Be careful" she said, but I heard "I like her, she seems really good for you, so don't mess it up. You have a habit of coming on really strong and being clingy and needy. It's one of the things that drove us apart, and I don't want you to make the same mistake again. I've seen you mess it up with other girls and then feel bad about it, which is a shame, because you really are a wonderful guy. So be careful, you want this one to work out."

"Be careful" is what I said to a friend. He'd just confessed that he's completely resigned to being single, because every guy his age that he meets is either in a relationship or doesn't want one. "Be careful" I said, but he heard "Don't let this make you jaded and cynical. You're fun to be around, smart, and dedicated, there is a guy out there for you. Don't be so resigned to this fate that you pass up one a good thing, because you can't see it for a good thing. You need to keep putting yourself out there, because otherwise you'll turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy, where you are always single and bitter and nobody is going to break you of that. So be careful, he could be the next guy you meet."

"Be careful" is what I will say to my child. He or she when my kids come home from high school and talk about a boy or girl they are starting to date. I'll hopefully already have had the safe sex talk with them, but that's mechanics. This is love and no amount of lecturing can get through on that. "Be careful," I'll say, and then continue to make sure they hear, "this is something that was almost certainly going to happen and I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. But I don't. I just want you to know that this relationship is a young one, and while it may end up seeming like the center of the universe, it isn't. You have so much growing and changing left to do, I certainly wasn't fully mature or fully myself into my late 20s. It probably will come to end, and it probably should. If you are smart and caring about it, though, you'll grow and learn about yourself and what you want from life. If you aren't, it can cause bitter and resentment for years to come. Your life is ahead of you, and while this may feel like it's the center of the world, there will be plenty more to come. So be careful, know that this relationship does not need to define you."

"Be careful" is what we said. And whether it was a friend in need or a relative doing fine, we said it because it needed to be said. You, Mouseandclown, say that you feel confident they would have treated a straight relationship it like it mattered. Again, I don't know their attitudes, I don't know you, and I am not trying to defend the actions of your parents 25 years ago. I can't, and I probably don't want to. But in each of the examples I gave, "Be careful" is what was said, but what was meant is "I love you. I care about you and don't want to see you hurt. What you're about to do is dangerous and has so much potential to cause you pain and hardship. But we're not saying don't do it. We know this is something that is worth the risk, something you should do. I love you and don't want to lose you. So be careful, and know that no matter what happens, there is a person that cares enough about you to tell you that."

@1 I'm straight and I did on dates when I was fifteen, and no one really missed much if they didn't.

@19 Applause.

Jesus, you're 42 and you haven't gotten over your parents fumbling their statement of support for you? Fuck, those feelings were understandable when you were a kid, but sometime in your 20s you have to start trying to pull your head out of your ass and forgive your supportive parents for their understandable, and pretty minor, screw-ups.

Mouseandclown might need some therapy.

Oh, don't be such a fucking special snowflake.

Be careful? Not only would your dad have said the exact same thing if you had been seeing a girl, he would have said the exact same thing if you WERE a girl.

Girls can find themselves pregnant, infected with a temporary or permanent STD, dead of AIDS or something else, beaten up or raped for fucking the wrong person, et cetera. Boys who go for girls can find themselves on the hook for her pregnancy, infected with a temporary or permanent STD, dead of AIDS or something else, beaten up or in jail for fucking the wrong person, et cetera. The only one of those that doesn't apply to you is getting pregnant/getting someone else pregnant. OF COURSE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE CAREFUL, STUPID.

That and I flat-out disbelieve you when you imply that you would have graciously accepted all the approaches you suggest now. If Dad had started oh-so-casually talking about "some other gay kid he knew" and what he would be doing about Circumstance X, you immediately would have thought "ZOMG! He's trying to weasel his way into The Talk! Oh shit ohshitohshitoshitwhaddamigonnadonow." Which is pretty much exactly what any teen, gay or straight, would be thinking any time the parent attempts something so obvious, oblique or not.

Yes, accept your kid's relationship at face value. Yes, do everything in your power to show support for your kid's developing relationships and sexuality. But no, being gay does not garner you a free pass on the "be careful" talk, or most of the other talks either. If it would apply to anybody else -- and most of the good quality stuff does -- then it applies to you too.

That letter from Mouseandclown made me actually cry, which is awkward because I'm at work, so fuck you man. That was beautiful.

@19 Bojac6, WELL SAID. Thank you.