Now That You Know: A Parents' Guide to Understanding Their Gay and Lesbian Children, Updated Edition (Paperback)

by Betty Fairchild (Author), Nancy Hayward (Author) "It happened on a snowy Sunday morning in early 1970..." (more)
Key Phrases: gay child, most gay people, many gay people, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
If the coming out process is difficult for gay people, it is often equally difficult for their parents. Confusion, anger, and fear frequently cause fathers and mothers of gay men and lesbians to disavow, strike out against, and even resent their children. For many parents, a child's coming out feels like the ultimate rejection--not only of their dreams and hopes but of their own heterosexuality. In Now That You Know: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Their Gay and Lesbian Children, Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward--the mothers of, respectively, a gay man and a lesbian--have charted the rough seas that almost every parent of a gay person travels.

Fairchild and Hayward presume that homosexuality is a positive good, and that it is willful ignorance and homophobia that are moral wrongs. They also believe that families can and should love all members and that it is distraught or confused parents (not their gay offspring) who must change. Mixing common sense with a firm sense of social justice and love, the authors systematically address almost all of the problems faced by parents of gay people. Answering questions on religion, AIDS, health, children, alternative families, and sex, they make the complicated gay world--often a nightmare vision for "just out" parents of gays--not only manageable but happy and nurturing. --Michael Bronski

From Library Journal
Fully revised and updated, this classic in the field is still the source of support and information for parents trying to understand their children's sexual orientation.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Harvest Books; Second Edition edition (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156006057
• ISBN-13: 978-0156006057
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #594,324 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly outdated for such an important book, April 20, 1999

By	Daryl J. Bem (Cornell University (Professor of Psychology)) - See all my reviews

This was a very important book in 1979 when it was first published, a book that I often recommended to gay/lesbian students who wanted to inform their parents. But the authors have been very lazy and have barely changed it in the 20 years since the first edition. I was disappointed in the second edition (1989) because it was virtually unchanged from the first edition except for an added chapter on AIDS and a minimally revised discussion of the PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) organization.

The third edition is even worse. Again the first 9 chapters appear to be untouched. Even the AIDS chapter remains unchanged except for a 1 page postscript about "recent" treatments. The chapter is now such a "downer" in the light of recent developments that it will hardly reassure parents worried about their gay sons. Why not rewrite the chapter optimistically, with a warning that the crisis is not over and that safer sex is still a requirement?

Less crucial but still disappointing is that the book is still quoting old Kinsey statistics on the incidence of homosexuality rather than using more reliable data from a recent national survey. The discussion of the nature of homosexuality is still based on sources over 30 years old. Nothing is said about recent data (and controversies) over the biological correlates of sexual orientation. Any parent who has read Time or Newsweek in the past 5 years would know more about these developments than they will find in this book.

Maybe the personal stories of parents will still resonate with some families, mainly those who haven't been exposed to the mass media for 20 years.

The most valuable part of the book may be the updated bibliography. But as long as you are already here at Amazon.com, why not just search here for "related" books? Or go to the pflag website for information, recommendations, and literature: www.pflag.org.

So disappointing. It was such an important book, sympathetically written, and perfectly pitched for its intended audience. Shame on the authors (and their publishers) for such laziness!

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is sadly out of date., July 8, 1999

By A Customer

Upon the recommendation of others, I bought this book; however, many better choices exist for parents dealing with the new knowledge that they have a gay child. This book's information comes from the 70s. Even though the book has been republished twice, the authors have done an inadequate job of keeping up-to-date. I'm sure the book seemed heaven sent in the early 80s, but not now.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too Old For Modern Use, February 12, 1999

By A Customer

It's obvious that this book was useful back when it was originally written, in the 1970s. But with the changing issues involving gay and lesbian youths in the 1990s, a 1970s approach isn't applicable.

I bought this book as a guide to how to tell my parents. After reading the book for myself, I decided the book would do more harm than good, giving my parents a view about the gay lifestyle as one embodied in the 1970s, not the comfortable, main-stream life I lead today and believe most of my friends do also.