In addition to being disinherited, discrimination, moving to more expensive bluer areas that are more tolerant, and such that people have already touched on, and I’m sure are significant factors at play, I just kind of want to spitball a couple thoughts. I’m no sociologist or economist or anything of the sort so I don’t know how much these thoughts hold water
The sort of stereotypical American dream- husband & wife, 2.5 kids, 2 cars, house in the suburbs, etc. probably looks at least a little different for many LGBTQ people. In many cases, the kids are kind of a non-starter- adoption, IVF, surrogacy, etc. are out of reach for a lot of people for a few different reasons, and if you’re not planning around having kids, you may not need that house in the suburbs with a good school district and a yard for them to play in. And if you’re not spending money on kids, you may want to spend that money elsewhere, it may be more important to you to be close to other things, or to not have a mortgage hanging over you’re head and want to be able to move to a different neighborhood, city, state, or maybe even country every few years when your lease is up.
I’m a fairly stereotypical straight dude, I grew up holding the flashlight for my dad and getting yelled at while he fixed pretty much everything around the house himself, and it gave me a pretty solid foundation as a handyman. There’s not much around a house that I’m not confident I could fix myself or with a couple buddies if I needed to, and I suspect that a lot of girls and probably many gay guys have a different experience with that kind of thing in their childhoods. Not that they can’t learn those skills on their own later on in life if they want/need to, but it can be a pretty daunting prospect, and I could see a lot of people who didn’t grow up learning those skills choosing to live in an apartment or rental house where they can just call maintenance or their landlord when something breaks instead of needing to learn a bunch of plumbing, electrical, carpentry, drywall, etc on the fly as your house is falling apart around you. I’m not sure I’d want to take on home ownership if I had to start from square one and relearn everything I picked up from my dad on my own.
Lol your points are very reasonable, but that part about gay dudes not being familiar with home improvement is pretty goofy/baseless. I’m not mad, just acknowledging the outdated stereotype. Gay kids learn from their fathers same as you.
A lot of them absolutely do learn those skills the same way I did
But for a lot of parent/child relationships, being gay can still be a pretty big stumbling block. If your dad is rejecting you, doesn’t want anything to do with you, maybe even kicking you out of his house, you’re not going to be able to learn anything from him. If he’s overall supportive but worried about not wanting to push you into traditional gender roles and ideas of masculinity and such that you may not identify with, he may not try hard enough to pass those skills on. If a kid coming to terms with his sexual orientation feels pressured to act a certain way because of pressure from his peers or society, he may push back against his parents trying to teach him those skills, etc.
It’s not unique to being the father of a gay son, lots of parents struggle to find ways to bond with their kids who have different personalities, interests, opinions, etc. than they do, but being gay can throw an extra level of complications into the mix and so I suspect you’d see it at least somewhat more among gay guys than otherwise comparable straight guys.
In addition to being disinherited, discrimination, moving to more expensive bluer areas that are more tolerant, and such that people have already touched on, and I’m sure are significant factors at play, I just kind of want to spitball a couple thoughts. I’m no sociologist or economist or anything of the sort so I don’t know how much these thoughts hold water
The sort of stereotypical American dream- husband & wife, 2.5 kids, 2 cars, house in the suburbs, etc. probably looks at least a little different for many LGBTQ people. In many cases, the kids are kind of a non-starter- adoption, IVF, surrogacy, etc. are out of reach for a lot of people for a few different reasons, and if you’re not planning around having kids, you may not need that house in the suburbs with a good school district and a yard for them to play in. And if you’re not spending money on kids, you may want to spend that money elsewhere, it may be more important to you to be close to other things, or to not have a mortgage hanging over you’re head and want to be able to move to a different neighborhood, city, state, or maybe even country every few years when your lease is up.
I’m a fairly stereotypical straight dude, I grew up holding the flashlight for my dad and getting yelled at while he fixed pretty much everything around the house himself, and it gave me a pretty solid foundation as a handyman. There’s not much around a house that I’m not confident I could fix myself or with a couple buddies if I needed to, and I suspect that a lot of girls and probably many gay guys have a different experience with that kind of thing in their childhoods. Not that they can’t learn those skills on their own later on in life if they want/need to, but it can be a pretty daunting prospect, and I could see a lot of people who didn’t grow up learning those skills choosing to live in an apartment or rental house where they can just call maintenance or their landlord when something breaks instead of needing to learn a bunch of plumbing, electrical, carpentry, drywall, etc on the fly as your house is falling apart around you. I’m not sure I’d want to take on home ownership if I had to start from square one and relearn everything I picked up from my dad on my own.
Lol your points are very reasonable, but that part about gay dudes not being familiar with home improvement is pretty goofy/baseless. I’m not mad, just acknowledging the outdated stereotype. Gay kids learn from their fathers same as you.
A lot of them absolutely do learn those skills the same way I did
But for a lot of parent/child relationships, being gay can still be a pretty big stumbling block. If your dad is rejecting you, doesn’t want anything to do with you, maybe even kicking you out of his house, you’re not going to be able to learn anything from him. If he’s overall supportive but worried about not wanting to push you into traditional gender roles and ideas of masculinity and such that you may not identify with, he may not try hard enough to pass those skills on. If a kid coming to terms with his sexual orientation feels pressured to act a certain way because of pressure from his peers or society, he may push back against his parents trying to teach him those skills, etc.
It’s not unique to being the father of a gay son, lots of parents struggle to find ways to bond with their kids who have different personalities, interests, opinions, etc. than they do, but being gay can throw an extra level of complications into the mix and so I suspect you’d see it at least somewhat more among gay guys than otherwise comparable straight guys.