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Frank Bruni's Beautiful Essay
Posted by: Claude J. Summers
WWW.GLBTQ.COM
Frank Bruni.
On December 23, 2012, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni published a beautiful essay about his father's
coming to accept his son's homosexuality. The essay is deeply personal
and provides a poignant portrait of the dynamics of a particular family,
but the father's growth is placed within the context of the nation's
movement toward acceptance of homosexuality, and the essay has universal
application, especially for gay men and lesbians who have had
problematic relationships with their fathers.
Bruni's "A Father's Journey" begins with this telling paragraph: "FOR a long while, my father's way
of coping was to walk quietly from the room. He doesn't remember this. I
do. I can still see it, still feel the pinch in my chest when the word
'gay' came up--perhaps in reference to some event in the news, or
perhaps in reference to me--and he'd wordlessly take his leave of
whatever conversation my mother and my siblings and I were having. He'd
drift away, not in disgust but in discomfort, not in a huff but in a
whisper. I saw a lot of his back."
Like most young men of his generation, Bruni came out first to his
mother, the "freer spirit" who insisted that she would tell his father,
who was emotionally taciturn. His father seemed unable to discuss his
son's homosexuality. "I was sure that he'd resolved simply to put what
he'd learned about me out of his mind and pretend it didn't exist." But
Bruni now knows, "I was wrong. He was mulling it over, trying to figure
it out."
Indeed, Bruni's father made the same journey that the country has been making.
Bruni writes, "at some point Dad, like America, changed. I don't mean
he grew weepy, huggy. I mean he traveled from what seemed to me a
pained acquiescence to a different, happier, better place. He found
peace enough with who I am to insist on introducing my partner, Tom, to
his friends at the golf club. Peace enough to compliment me on articles
of mine that use the same three-letter word that once chased him off.
Peace enough to sit down with me over lunch last week and chart his
journey, which I'd never summoned the courage to ask him about before."
On the one hand, the journey simply confirms the truism that when
straight people know openly gay people, the less intolerant they become.
But Bruni renders the evolution with sensitivity and in telling detail.
I was struck by the fact that while Bruni does not express any shame
for his homosexuality, he does admit that he "had long felt a measure of
guilt about the extra burden I'd confronted [my father] with, the added
struggle." By the end of the essay, however, that measure of unfairly
imposed guilt is beautifully assuaged by the father's simple and
revealing statement of acceptance.
Bruni's essay is must reading because the relationship between gay
and lesbian children and their parents is so frequently fraught with all
sorts of anxieties.
Coming out to parents is one of the primary sources of stress among
glbtq youth. Many young people fear negative reactions from their
parents, including losing financial support and and even being disowned.
Even when they are not utterly rejected, they are often made aware that
they have deeply disappointed their parents.
Until recently, most gay and lesbian adults conducted their
relationships with their parents in the spirit of "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell." The child's homosexuality was something known but not
acknowledged or at least not discussed.
That reticence may have avoided some painful discussions and the
revelation of some home truths, but it also compounded the guilt and
shame felt by the child and, to some extent, by the parents.
It has frequently been noted that sexual minorities differ from
racial, ethnic, and national minorities, who may face discrimination and
disdain, but who develop within their families important systems of
support and nurturance. In contrast, glbtq individuals generally grow up
in families in which their minority sexual orientation or gender
identity is concealed, ignored, or condemned. Hence, they often receive
little or no support from their families, especially during the crucial
and often traumatic coming out process.
Moreover, since most parents are heterosexual and may have imbibed
the larger culture's misinformation about sexual minorities, they are
frequently ill prepared to understand and accept their glbtq children.
However, one of the most positive consequences of the national
conversation about the movement for equal rights is that parents have
become more knowledgable about homosexuality and many have openly
embraced their glbtq children. Hence, the journey made by Bruni's father
is by no means an isolated event.
Indeed, the support of parents and siblings has played an important
role in the recent social and political gains achieved by the glbtq
community.
