For some girls, it might begin with a crush on an older sister’s best friend or a strange physical sensation that occurs while watching Xena, the Warrior Princess on television. For a boy, it might be a fantasy to take a bath with a buddy or a strong urge to run his hand across his gym teacher’s bearded cheek. At first, these children might not pay much attention to these early stirrings—when they first appear boys and girls are usually too young to know what they mean. However, at some point as they get older they come realize to their horror that there is something wrong with these feelings—horribly wrong. These urges threatened to pull them away from everything and everyone they know, leaving them as lost and alone as an unmoored boat, bobbing and drifting on a cold, dark, dangerous sea.
Children with these feelings often want nothing more than to be like everyone else, to be accepted and well-liked by their peers. However, they soon realize that if they were found out they would be ridiculed as outcasts. They could lose everything: their friends, the respect of the teachers and classmates at school—and—perhaps the most frightening prospect of all, they could loose the love of their parents.
Now imagine you are a parent of one of these children. You noticed that your tomboy daughter does not seem to be developing interests in boys like her older sister did at her age and also seems to have a particularly intense friendship with the girl next door. Your sensitive son prefers to help his mom around the house rather than play ball outside with the other boys. Like a gentle summer breeze, the thought occurs to you. “Does this mean . . . could it mean . . . ?” but, before you could finish it, the notion, like that breeze, is gone. You push away any nagging worry the thought leaves behind and try to forget it.
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