Real Housewives of Orange County stars Dr. Terry Dubrow and his wife Heather Dubrow share four children, all of them unique individuals.
19-year-old daughter Max is bisexual, 16-year-old daughter Kat is a lesbian, and 12-year-old son Ace is transgender. As three of their four children have come out to their parents, Terry and Heather have faced the situation the same way. “Don’t judge, listen,” Terry explains in an exclusive interview with E! News. “Don’t talk.”
Most important of all, Terry says, is to be sure the family residence is always a “warm home environment that’s accepting and loving and supportive.”
There’s a lot of hate out there
Sadly, not everyone shares the Dubrows’ attitude of love and acceptance. “You’ve got to be very careful because there’s a lot of hate out there,” admits Terry. “So you have to be very careful to envelop them in love and support.”
“We hope that the message … we put out with our family helps those who are struggling in families that aren’t so supportive,” adds the Botched star. “Particularly in parts of the country where there’s a lot of pushback on living a person’s real life.”
Singer Rihanna is a big fan of the Dubrows’ parenting style. In fact, when she was pregnant with her first child in 2022, she was asked which Housewives mom she wanted to emulate, and she chose the RHOC star. “Heather Dubrow is so chic while being a mom,” she said. “[I] just love the way that she just allows her kids to be who they are.”
Heather, who says she was raised by 1950s parents that “talked about nothing,” has had to learn on the job. “Even if she doesn’t understand something, my mom tries very hard,” says daughter Max. “She learns and teaches herself, and she grows with us.”
Middle child Kat agrees. “She’s asked me trillions of questions that really show she cares. She’s asked me about my pronouns, [and] it’s really easy to talk to her. It’s not like I have to build up courage if I have something to tell her.”
Dealing with homophobia
Though she gets nothing but love and acceptance at home, school can be another story for Kat. She shared on RHOC about dealing “with a lot of homophobia” after coming out. “I had issues with people at school,” she says, “who were saying the f-slur around me and who were just not very respectful of the LGBTQ+ community.” Hopefully, those hateful people are in the minority because, for the most part, Terry believes his children encounter far more love than hate.
“The kids look at social media differently than we do,” the plastic surgeon observes. “So the stuff that we all have access to, they’re not seeing a lot of it, fortunately … I think it would be much more difficult if they [could] see it.”
“But they don’t follow the stuff that we follow,” Terry adds. “So the hate that’s out there — [which] hopefully, will ultimately evolve and go away — is not really in their world.”
TELL US – WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE WAY THE DUBROWS ARE RAISING THEIR CHILDREN? DO YOU ADMIRE THE LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE THEY SHOW THEIR KIDS?
This story originally appeared on Realitytea
