A woman who is gay lives about an hour away from her mother. Yet she only visits her mother every seven years. The mother never mentions her daughters wife, whom she has never acknowledged as her daughter-in-law. There are no holiday gifts for the wife, and the mother never asks about their adopted child. Yet, the woman still feels obligated to make those distressing visits to her mother. Although this extreme a reaction is not typical of parents of gay married children, Deborah M. Merrill, a sociology professor at Clark University, says most of them have initial difficulties when told about upcoming nuptials. (Worcester Telegram & Gazette, March 13, 2016)