#and elucubrare correctly suggested i bring him clothes shopping and let him pick whatever appeals to him

[youcanthandelthetruth]

so what gets me about those ~sweet~ coming out stories where the kid gets up the courage to tell their parents and "oh yeah we've known since you were five" or whatever

is like if you knew. all that time. why would you have done nothing to make sure your kid knew it was okay? like go get yourself some gay friends or openly support gay rights or whatever or just say directly hey if you were gay that would be cool with us. why would you leave that a subject of doubt and fear for your kid? like I get that the format of the story, the emotional hook, is that it feels scary to come out but then everything was fine and they loved us anyway and nothing about our relationship to our family has to change, yay! but then you take a step back and the question is just there, if you knew this about your kid and loved them anyway this whole time why didn't you do anything to let them know?

(anyway i'm saying gay because i'm yelling at the emotions bait coming out acceptance stories that were everywhere 5-7 years ago but it goes for all queer identities)