HUMANS 101

Parenting in the Age of Sexual Fluidity

The key is to support your kids as they figure out who they are, without backing them into a corner

Illustration: Natalia Vetrova/Getty Images

I was unprepared when my 12-year-old daughter told me she might be bisexual. We were on a hike, and she confided that she “knew she liked boys but also found girls in the locker room very pretty.”

My daughter and I have always been close, and I was probably overeager to show her my support for her sexual orientation. Over the next few months, I would occasionally ask if she had crushes on any boys or girls. I think I overdid it a bit. About two years later, she started dating a girl and told my wife, “Don’t tell Dad. He’ll make too big a deal of it. He’s way too interested in who I go out with.”

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