To be shocked by my friend's observation that boys brought up by single mums are effeminate?

[MsBrown]

Had my friend round earlier for a pizza and catch up. We got chatting about school days and it lead on to boys we went to school with who are now openly gay.

My friend made the observation that of 6 of these boys (now men), 5 of them were brought up by their single mums. She seems to think that this somehow influenced their sexuality!

I told her i think people are born either gay or straight. But she said she knows other young boys/men being brought up by single mums and are effeminate. Making the point that these boys/men have/had no contact with their fathers.

Am i being unreasonable to be really angry with her and to have cut our 'pizza night' short?

In my experience of men raised by mothers alone they have been less misogynistic than most 2 parent families.

This is why I hate all that 'boys need fathers' crap. Need them for what? To learn how to hate women?

God honestly. I am amazed how people come up with these theories. I would have felt the same as you op but not cut my evening short, i tend to air my side of things in an amicable way and then unless the person is being offensive agree to disagree.

Our dd2 is gay and has been openly since she was 14. I brought her up alone until she was 8 years old and I met dh. I find it interesting how certain misguided individuals decide it is the 'fault' of the parent if their child is gay as if it is a bad thing! Dd2 enhances our lives on a daily basis, she is an adult now with a rich, interesting life and fantastic friends many of whom are gay some are not, but all a pleasure to be around due to their intelligence and attitude of live and let live. Not an iota of prejudice lurking around and they all just seem to get on with living and making each other happy.

It's a real shame so many people spend their lives trying to change others, analysing and criticising them. Even if done in an unintentional homophobic manner, why label and pigeon hole, why can't we just 'be'? My soon to be fil came out with a real gem the other day- dd2 shouldn't be allowed to have children because of her sexuality, wouldn't be fair on the child apparently.

Having decided to not waste our breath debating with him,(dd does attend peaceful protests etc regarding issues which affect her but fil is ignorantly stuck in his ways) we tend to just ignore his comments in a polite manner now and get on with our lives.

I was brought up by my dad, surely by her logic I ought to be a lesbian?

And very manly? north you do realise all lesbians are butch don't you? And in a couple one has to be 'the man' apparently. Another pile of fil's crap heh heh

Oh dear I have done it again, mixed my children up. Post should have read Dd1, dd2 is 6 I have no idea whether she will be gay or not as yet!! I blame it on the baby brain I currently have

how strange out of all the gay men i know only one of them was raised in a single parent family. the others were all raised with parents in heterosexual relationships, most of which with a very 'masculine' father actually.
my friend who was raised in a single parent family was very effeminate growing up. his father refused to accept this as part of his son and resented him. his mum kicked this father out because of how he treated his son.
i'm probably going to get shot down for this, but when i think back to the children i attended school with who are gay/lesbian/bi it was noticeable there was something different right from primary school, not in a bad way though. i'm not saying this is the case for everyone though.
did your friend consider that many of these boys fathers may have also struggled to deal with that side of their sons and thats why they weren't on the scene? thats what i would wonder more than single mothers turning their sons gay.

blimminwashing dd1 said she felt a bit different to her female friends when she was at school as did some of her gay friends. I think it depends on personal awareness of your feelings. I don't know if it was actually noticeably obvious to others but inside she felt it.

Good point about some fathers not coping, this happened in our family my cousin came out when he turned 17 his dad is still in denial now, cousin is 37. He has never been allowed to talk about his 'real life' and my uncle will never visit him and his very long term partner. They have a relationship which is amicable and loving purely because my cousin has decided he would like to stay close to his father in some capacity, he compromised not my uncle. He just accepts this otherwise he would never see his dad. Sad though isn't it?

I don' think this is necessarily true. Your friend has obviously been fortunate enough to never have been put in the position of being a single mother of a young boy. Single mothers should receive nothing but praise and should not be being accused of the circumstances of there relationship turning their children 'gay'. For a woman it isn't easy trying to raise a man and I'm sure all do the best they possibly can.

I think the underlieing problem is the tone that if single mothers are "turning their boys gay" that it is a bad thing. If she had come out with "I have noticed that the sons of single mothers are nearly all good at ironing" we'd have said oh really, thats interesting.. onto the next conversation.

Hang on.
Someone should definately tell the government about this.
For have they not been blaming singe mothers for raising boys who then go on to sire dozens of children by different mothers?
Whilst rampaging in a hyper macho way around the land?

Are the all in denial ?

We have a couple of gay men and a gay woman in our family. All raised in two parent families and none displaying "gay" characteristics. The men particularly are not remotely effeminate or "camp", and nor do they have -any taste at all a good eye for soft furnishings, clothes, whatever.

Stereotypes are just lazy.

There have been studies that have explored the theory that a large number of homosexual men have domineering mothers and weak or absent fathers.

Where are these studies?

Found a guardian article don't worry

no idea - have a google....

I just hope your friend is never in the position of becoming a lone parent to a boy, for the vast majority of us, it wasn't a choice but we do the best we can.

Ds's dad is pretty absent. I'm pretty "domineering" (or just in charge of our household as any parent should be? I'm his MUM, not his friend). If a woman raising a lad alone is seen as weak, then her parenting is criticised and everyone tells her he's headed for prison, if she's strong he'll turn out gay. Single Mums can't win it seems, even in 2012. Mysogynistic much?

I've met heterosexual camp men, and very macho gay men. Not seeing the correlation between the two at all beyond "are you being served", and the carry on films.

If he does turn out to be gay, then my chief concern will be the predjudice he may face from others as a result of it. I love him to bits, just the way he is. We are an ethnic miniority and he has an invisible disability, he doesn't need any more crap thrown his way from the bigoted iykwim. I worry that he'll pick up some of the feral behavior we see around us, living in the inner city, I never fret about his sexuality as he grows. I suspect many Mums from 2 parent families have exactly the same concerns.

Those studies you mention were actually discredited a long time ago

Maybe your friend is right that was hard to say as I disagreed at the start of the thread

What I mean is - some.single.mothers are single because their Exs were utter dicks. A lot of Utter Dicks would be livid if their sons were gay (making them even Bigger Utter Dicks), so if the couple had stayed together, the son who.kneewhe was gay would suppress his desires to please the father. as the Big Utter Dick.is.off the scene, the son can come out.

Just a possibility.

I always argue that people are born gay, not turned. I look forward to the day when the default setting isnt Hererosexual

...but, it's possibly what the OP's friend had in mind when she said what she did.

They were popular theories in the 50s and 60s when it was still widely thought that homosexuality was caused by environment

I think the op's friend was probably generalising and exaggerating her point. I would like to know her definition of effeminate actually, she is probably confused with sensitive or has stereotypical ideas of how boys should be.

Boys and girls going off to school at 8 are being raised far more throughout the whole day and more so than many are at home. Boarding schools take pastoral care very seriously and from morning to bedtime there is nearly always something do take part in.