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Publishers Weekly Review

The mother of a gay son, Muller makes two key assertions in this simply written and sympathetic exploration of families with homosexual children. The first is that lesbians probably have greater difficulty being accepted by their parents, which she attributes to rigid sex-role definitions that keep some people from approving of single, successful women. Second, she contends that Freudian and neo-Freudian psychology have sent the negative message that the combination of a dominant mother and weak father ``causes'' gay children. The author's discussion of these arguments is strengthened by research and interviews with 71 parents, daughters and sons, and she concludes that parents' attitudes matter greatly to their homosexual children because gay people are ``harshly judged by the larger society.'' (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

In this book, Muller has written the most sensitive account to date of relationships between parents and gay children. She combines her own experience as the mother of a gay son with extensive interview data to describe how parents react when a son or daughter ``comes out,'' and how the relationship may or may not be substantially altered. Muller examines a wide variety of factors, e.g., age, religion, political views, sex-role expectations, to see how they may influence parental response. She finds that the risk of coming out to parents is greater for daughters than for sons. Muller also offers enlightened discussion of how the Freudian paradigm of the etiology of homosexuality strongly affects a parent's sense of guilt about having a gay child. Unlike most available literature on gays and lesbians derived from interviews, a substantial portion of Muller's sample is black. This book is a ``must-read'' for parents of gay children, and will also be of interest to gay men and women who are interested in the issues surrounding their relationship to their parents. Recommended to those committed to understanding and overturning homophobia in American society.-M.A. Fingrutd, Amherst College