One Parent's Reaction

By Anno Prodericks

The experience of learning a daughter is gay undoubtedly evokes different responses from different parents so, to make clear some of the pitfalls that can wreck good family relationships at such a time, I can write only a personal account of what happened to me and my daughter.

For many years our relations had been excellent with, apparently, full confidence and trust on both sides. Suddenly her behavior began to change. She became evasive about the simplest things. She began to cut classes without boing able to give a valid reason. Her excuses for coming home late were not convincing. I recognized she was going through some sort of orisis, but she had never been able to make articulate her deepest emotions so there was nothing I could do but watch and wait.

One day a rather senseless argument erupted into real bitterness on her part. She packed a few clothes and announced she was leaving home. No amount of reasoning or argument could sway her decision. It is obvious that now she had been waiting for such an opportunity, but I had no way of knowing that then. For a week or so I had no idea whore she was. I called her friends, but they claimed to have no knowledge of her whereabouts. Finally one of them gave me a clue.

I found her in a dirty, run-down rooming house. With her was a much older woman whom I immediately recognized as being homosexual. Jean was ill end in need of money, but she still refused to return home. She kept She kept herself so frozen that there was no chance of communication. My first thought was of "rescue." Something concrete must be done.

I went to the police, but they refused to do anything because she was of age. They even refused my request to stage a threatening scono and thus frighten her into returning home. I was still convinced that, once there, she would automatically become herself again. I was also