My 8 year old son has said he wants to be gay

[Bkg79]

Hi there

I am new to this. My 8 year old son is a loving, caring boy who would do anything to help anyone.

When he was 5 he was linked with a girl in his class and they would call each other boyfriend and girlfriend for 2 years. That stopped last year. When ever I asked about other girls he would get aggressive and say there is no girls.

His father and I are getting married this year after 13 years, and I causally said, would you like to get married when you are older, he said I want to be gay when I am older and adopt.

I was shocked, but also loving and caring being reassuring that he can talk to me anytime, and proud.

I know kids his age are still developing, and may change his mind. He knows what gay means so there is no questioning that. His dad says our son doesn't know what he wants to be and to leave it. But this will play on my mind. Any advice?

I forgot to say at this age children can be very literal. So if DS really likes a boy and they have things in common and play together every playtime etc, he might interpret this as loving him and is therefore gay. Kids learn things in personal development lessons or whatever they’re called now, such as when two grown ups love each other, they might live together or get married and maybe decide to have children if their own. This could be interpreted as I really love playing Pokémon and PlayStation with my friend, we go to each other houses to play etc, so I love them and think I’ll marry them when I grow up and as we are both boys, I am therefore gay. The workings of an 8 year old mind is stuffed full of the very beginnings of reasoned thought processes and they’re trying to make sense of huge and complex issues such as climate change, gender and sexuality, morality etc. On that basis, I always listen very carefully, correct anything scarily wrong and take most things with a pinch of salt.

Why is it playing on your mind? Maybe he's gay maybe he isn't, either way what's the problem?

Don’t see the issue. “Linking” him with a girl at 5 on the other hand is weird. They were friends.

Exactly. I'm not blaming but I wonder where this generation of kids wanting to be gay and trans has all started from and how and so so young. I would leave it OP even at 8 talking about marriage plans.... I don't know what people are exposing their kids to these days!

There's a whole generation of kids who want to be gay now?

My daughter is 9 and since being about 4 she has always said she won't be getting married and having children because she wants to marry a girl 🤷‍♀️
I'm very open and I've always instilled in her she can be with whoever she wants as long as she's happy.
I'm an older parent but I'm impressed that today's youth can express themselves and not feel the social norm is something they have to follow.

Where did you get this impression? That a whole generation want to be gay or trans?

Its hard to know whether children are genuinely straight at this age or whether its an outside influence with the amount of homophobia and straightness being constantly shoved down their throats.

@Newshoess

I'm on my forties and kid's definitely had girl friends/ boyfriends when I was at primary school. Kids role model what they see that's completely normal. The fact that children talk openly about boys having boyfriends, girls having girlfriends means we are doing a better job of representing society and I think it's fantastic because maybe those who are gay won't feel the stigma of. coming out' that gay people of previous generations have felt.

I have a son who is 9.5 years old and he has always gravitated to boys.

All the other boys in his class have “girlfriends” in the silly way that 9 years old do, but my son just isn’t interested. He never has been and just dismissed them all.

However, there are two boys that that he talks incessantly about, one is in his class at school and the other one is on his football team, and he raves about how brilliant they are and he will find any excuse he can to put his arms around them. Strangely enough the two boys look very, very alike.

A week or so ago a boy from school was in the park with me and DS and he was winding my son up about fancying a girl and my son got really upset about it, it was like he was horrified at the thought of it and he clearly didn’t want the other lad thinking he (DS) liked a girl. He was so strongly denying it between his upset and anger and I genuinely thought he was going to cry at one point and it took me a while to calm him down.

Then a little later, when we were with the same boy in the park, my DS was talking about his friend from the football team, and the boy we were with then started teasing my son about that, saying DS fancied the boy in the team and how everyone knew etc. It was all very jokey though in the way kids are when talking about crushes. However, my son was really calm about the accusation this time and he was just smiling and giggling about it.

The contrast between the two reactions definitely struck me.

I am going to go back and have a really deep read of this thread as I’ve had suspicions for a while as to my son’s gravitations so it will interesting to read the experiences of others.