More than four million America children under the age of eighteen are homeless. A huge number of them were abandoned by parents who could not abide it when their children identified themselves as part of the LGBTQ community. In this week's commentary Salvation South Editor Chuck Reece shares the story of one such Southerner, whose upcoming memoir is called "No Son of Mine."

Author Jonathan Corcoran

Jonathan Corcoran is the author of the book "No Son of Mine."

Credit: File

TRANSCRIPT: 

When I was 11 years old, I lost my mother to cancer.

The pain of losing a parent when you’re young is almost indescribable. If you’ve been through it, you know. And if you haven’t, it’s not that hard to imagine. The shock of the abandonment never seems to go completely away, even though you know your parent did not choose to leave.

But I can imagine a pain that would be even worse: to be abandoned by a living parent. Far too often in the American South — and across the whole nation — parents look kids in the face and tell them to get out, to leave and not come back. And that happens most often when kids tell their parents they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

The National Network for Youth, which works to prevent youth homelessness in America, reports that an LGBTQ person age 18 or younger has a chance of becoming homeless that is a hundred-and-twenty percent higher than their heterosexual and cisgendered counterparts.

A writer named Jonathan Corcoran from West Virginia has a book coming out soon called No Son of Mine. The magazine I edit, Salvation South, was given permission to print an excerpt from it before it was published.

No Son of Mine is a memoir of Jonathan’s youth, leading up to the moment when his mother threw him out to fend for himself. And it’s about his struggle to come to terms with that memory after she died 20 years later. Today, he lives in New York City while his two sisters remain in West Virginia.

Before he came out, Jonathan writes, “I was her golden child, and she was my mother.” But after he did, his mother, whose name was Patty, disowned him.

Learning about Jonathan’s story, I was touched by how he described the love for Patty that he could never get rid of. He said this to our contributing writer Delaney McLemore:

My mother was many things to many people. She was a really good friend, a great neighbor, and was deeply loved by many, many people. The version of my mother that my sisters knew and understood is not the same version that I knew and understood, and I have to accept that those two versions of her can exist side by side.

I find it difficult to believe that any prejudice — any belief — would drive a mother to abandon a child. I know my mom would have done anything not to have to leave me. But this kind of thing happens every day in America.

We were happy to tell Jonathan’s story in our magazine, and you can read Delaney’s profile of him — and an excerpt from No Son of Mine — at SalvationSouth.com.

Salvation South editor Chuck Reece comments on Southern culture and values in a weekly segment that airs Fridays at 7:45 a.m. during Morning Edition and 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered on GPB Radio. Salvation South Deluxe is a series of longer Salvation South episodes which tell deeper stories of the Southern experience through the unique voices that live it. You can also find them here at GPB.org/Salvation-South and wherever you get your podcasts.