My First Day As A Psychologist

Actually that's not entirely true, I have had many...let us not forget I have an extensive background in bar tending. A couple of days ago I received a frantic phone call from my friend Sherrie, who I may add I have not heard from in awhile. She was someone I met when I was working for a design company in Scottsdale. Not an acquaintance, not a close friend, but we hang out occasionally. She was extremely distraught and needed to talk to somebody. In the back of my mind I'm thinking that the fifteen people ahead of me on the friend list may not have been available when I answered the phone, however she was clearly upset and I listened. Shortly you will understand why, this was a specific problem...
"My daughter says she's a lesbian", she tells me while she is sobbing hysterically. Hmmmmmmmm, this is why she called. WOW, and now I don't know what to say because I have a million different responses. So I carefully siphon through them to try and figure out how to calm her down...but let's review a few of my thoughts here.

Response #1: OMG Sherrie!!! Let's book her immediately into Sarah Palin's church boot camp to cure homosexuality. She could be a danger to society.
Response #2: Sherrie, I know this is a shock but try and think of it this way...She is just switching teams, it's not any different than Jonny Damon switching from the NY Yankees to the Detroit Tigers. He's still a great ball player.
Response #3: No, the fact that you neglected to breast feed her as a child is not the reason she is gay.
Response #4: Sherrie, muff diving isn't bad. It's just an acquired taste...some have said it taste like chicken.

I started thinking maybe these were not the responses one might want to hear so I just listened. Here is the scenario, her daughter is 20, went to study a semester overseas and met someone really special. She just happened to be female. Sherrie says "how does she know, she's just a kid". Well this is true because to a mother she will always be just a kid, but maybe she knows like I knew at 17, that this was the way life was going to be. "She's a political science major, this will kill her career", ummmmmm not necessarily, check out Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir Iceland first openly gay Prime Minister.
Then the next question..."what did your parents do when you told them"? Insert sarcasm here..."Sherrie they were ecstatic, my dad was jumping around on the couch like Tom Cruise was when professing his love for Katie Holmes on the Oprah Winfred Show". Then for a second I kind of understood my parents position. Like Sherrie, they were looking out for the best interest for their child, and confusion, guilt and anger all followed because of lack of knowledge and understanding. I explained to her that while this may be difficult for her to understand at the moment because she is struggling with answers on why this happened, she needs to understand that her daughter is also struggling with her own set of issues on how to be true to herself and be happy in life. It's a big adjustment on both sides, but from my experience personally it's made a very strong bond between me and my parents. Sherrie is an open minded person and over time it will work out, it's called unconditional love. I have no doubt that the two of them will work through this and laugh about it someday. And her daughter will be able to claim that the big cluster of gray hairs that will appear just over Sherrie’s left ear will chronicle this event in their lives.
Now some of you may be reading this and thinking "yeah well what do you know my experience was completely opposite of your". I am not blind to the fact that there are parents who do not respond this way, I had a partner for over 6 years who had a mediocre (at best) relationship with her parents. My question to you is every time you get handed lemons are you going to keep them or are you going to make some gourmet lemonade out of them?