Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir of Growing Up, Coming Out, and Changing America's Schools

by Kevin Jennings

Book Overview

Long before Kevin Jennings began advocating to end anti-LGBT bias in schools, he was a victim of it. In Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, Jennings traces the roots of his activism to his elementary school days in the conservative South, where "faggot" became more familiar to him than his own name. Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son is that rare memoir that is both a riveting personal story and an inside account of a critical chapter in our recent...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807071471
• ISBN13: 9780807071472
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A must read

I could not put this book down. It held my interest and the writer displayed a unique ability to pull you into his life no matter if he was in his childhood or enjoying his mature successful adulthood. This book should required reading in High Schools everywhere. There would be less bullying and harrassment in our schools. Any parent who thinks they may have a Gay or Lesbian child needs to read this.

An Extraordinary Life

One might expect the life of a gay son of a Southern minister to be miserable and brief, but this one is truly inspirational, both because of the quality of the son, and of the extraordinary tenacity of his uneducated but street-smart mother. Jennings has a memory for and eye for detail that is astonishing. Anyone who believes that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice" should be convinced otherwise by this memoir, though some will be troubled by Jennings' brazen attitude during his Harvard years. My experience with teaching at a "private school" paralleled his -- not the place for a liberal-minded person with an independent streak. One has to admire the man Jennings became and appreciate the strength required to get there.

This one's a keeper

Rarely have I had a book move me like this one. I spent the last fifty pages outside reading with tears streaming down my face. I wish I had the courage of Kevin Jennings. I was raised in the south, also the son of a southern baptist minister. While not from the same socio-economic class as the author, I know the religious doctrine of which he writes. It scares me now to look back and think of what I went through in my mind all those years. Jennings clearly tells his story. Particularly poignant is the reconciliation he makes with his mom. I came out to my mom two years ago, and while she hasn't started a PFLAG group, she is supportive, loving, and is really starting to understand what I went through growing up. She feels bad that I had to do it alone, but she now understands that it was the church's fault. The teachings there are so un-Christ like it is frightening. If you are trying to understand homosexuality, are interested in how societal institutions influence individuals, or enjoy seeing how someone makes good from their suffering, then this is a great read. I am requiring it for my rhetoric class at the university next term. Should provide quite interesting discussion and, hopefully, will change some minds.

profound effect

This book is incredible and really displays the obstacles that many people have to overcome just to be an individual in this country. LOVED IT!

He is out of there as fast as he can

I was eagerly awaiting this book. Kevin Jennin's career began as a teacher, and soon he realized his mission was to save every child who, like him, suffered the confusion and the fear of being being gay. His "Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay & Lesbian History for High School & College Students" is a must-read for every teacher and every parent and every student, gay or not. This and his other books, "One Teacher in Ten", etc., are excellent guides for all, and teachers in particular, to use in teaching the children in their care about sexual orientation, respect and acceptance. In Jennings' new "Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son", he cried and laughed - and I with him - emerging slowly but surely as the Phoenix of myth. The improbable rise from what he lived and knew as a child and his ever-present instrospection were what really had me glued to the book, page after page. Funny, self-deprecating, angry, driven, but always heartfelt and insightful, he writes about the maze of conflicting emotions through which he needed to navigate, trying to figure them out; the secrets he must keep, the dychotomy of feeling that yes, he deserved what others had and took for granted, but at the same time having the conviction that while he took, he also must give. His conflicts go beyond his sexuality, extending to the strict religious teachings of a father who could not find a steady job and moved his family often, as he preached the Bible and provided very little stability for them. The telling of his sudden death on Kevin's 8th birthday made me feel this son's dispair, his guilt, and again his anger and confusion. His beloved and admired mother, having gone only through sixth grade, knew that Kevin's door out of that life and toward success was higher education. Reading about how she set about awakening his hunger for knowledge is inspirational. For Kevin this meant a hard personal road, the scary road of the gay child: the terror, the loneliness, the feelings of rejection and the danger. It was also the difficult road of the poor, the child who knows he has to leave, he has to run as fast and as soon as he can. Fortunately for Kevin, his mother knew how to raise him and how to love him. Fortunately for Kevin, he has been gifted with a sense of purpose and unusual intelligence. Fortunately for the rest of us, his life of service is changing the world and the lives of gay and straight people alike in his quest for equality and justice. A book rich in anecdotes and written from the heart, this is as much a tribute to his roots and his mother as it is Kevin's -the innate teacher- ultimate and perfect lesson plan. May we all learn from it.