ParentDishhttp://www.parentdish.comParentDishhttp://www.parentdish.com/media/feedlogo.gifParentDishhttp://www.parentdish.comen-usCopyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/Al Franken Rebukes Conservative Group for Definition of 'Nuclear Family'http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/22/al-franken-rebukes-conservative-group-for-definition-of-nuclear/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/22/al-franken-rebukes-conservative-group-for-definition-of-nuclear/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/22/al-franken-rebukes-conservative-group-for-definition-of-nuclear/#commentsFiled under: ,

al franken

Sen. Al Franken. Credit: AP

Children are better off and generally healthier when raised in nuclear families, according to a study published by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department last year.

So there you have it. The federal government said it. Gay parents are bad. Case closed. End of discu ...

Just a minute. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has an objection.

"I frankly don't really know how we can trust the rest of your testimony if you are reading studies these ways," he told Thomas Minnery of Focus on the Family July 20.

Where, in his imaginative reading of the report, did Minnery see "nuclear family" as excluding gay parents?

Focus on the Family is a conservative organization that opposes gay marriage, and Franken says it's entitled to its own opinions. The group is not, however, entitled to its own facts.

And the fact is the authors of the study don't say anything about gay parents.

"Sen. Franken is right," Debra L. Blackwell, lead author of the study, tells the website Politico. The survey did not exclude same-sex couples, nor did it exclude them from the "nuclear family" category provided their family met the study's definition.

The study defines a nuclear family as "One or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents of all the children in the family."

Franken is a co-sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Senate Judiciary Committee, including Franken and Feinstein, heard testimony on the bill this week.

"I checked the study out," Franken told Minnery, "and I would like to enter it into the record, if I may, that it actually doesn't say what you said it says.

"Isn't it true, Mr. Minnery, that a married, same-sex couple that has had or adopted kids would fall under the definition of a nuclear family in the study that you cite?" Franken added.

"I would think that the study when it cites nuclear family would mean by a family headed by husband and wife," Minnery said.

"It doesn't," Franken responded as the audience laughed.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>al frankenfocus on the familygay parentingnuclear family studyrepsect marriage actTom HendersonFri, 22 Jul 2011 10:00:00 ESTThe Gay Genealogist: Creating a Modern Family Treehttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/20/the-gay-genealogist-creating-a-modern-family-tree/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/20/the-gay-genealogist-creating-a-modern-family-tree/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/20/the-gay-genealogist-creating-a-modern-family-tree/#commentsFiled under: , ,

As hobbies go, genealogical research is not exactly on par with snowboarding -- it ranks right up there with stamp collecting in its total lack of "cool" factor. Does anything really say "geek" more than an obsession with family trees?

But that's me -- genealogy freak (and geek). Even as a kid, I was fascinated by charts that showed relationships and family lineage and my great sea of cousins and second cousins, most of whom I would never meet.

I was obsessed with the grandparents who'd come from Ireland as very young adults (some still teenagers), never to see their own parents again. I felt their loss as my own, in that my family history seemed to begin with their immigration. Somewhere between Ireland and New York I found a hard line of mystery: I knew nothing of my great-grandparents, and I felt cut off from my own ancestry.

As an adult, my obsession became more intense -- and more professional -- as hand-drawn trees were replaced by a full binder of documents culled from my research. Real, primary sources replaced family lore, and the Internet made a new wealth of documents available to me. I now have copies of Ellis Island ship manifests, U.S. and Irish census forms, draft registration cards, marriage certificates and all sorts of other material that have helped me create life stories for ancestors I've never met.

Looking at any of those documents, I can't help but think of the young immigrants, brides and grooms and prospective soldiers who filled them out. Did their nervous hands shake a little as they signed their names, or did they dash off their signatures with the rash confidence of youth? One thing I'm pretty sure of is that they weren't thinking about me, the 21st century genealogical researcher. I'm sure they never imagined someone using a laptop in 2011 to look at those signatures, tracing a family's path back to 1920s New York tenements and 1880s Irish farms.

But I spend a lot of time thinking about that 22nd century researcher who may someday be looking for me. As I've signed my official documents -- New York City domestic partnership agreement, New York State second-parent adoption forms, California wedding license, name change form -- I can't help but think about how being gay complicates things.

Will my searching descendants think to look in California for my marriage license, when I lived in New York at the time? Will they be looking for a 2008 document at all, when we'd been together since 1993, bought our house in 1999, and started our family in 2004? Will they have that "aha!" moment when they realize same-sex marriage was (briefly) legal in California that summer, when it still wasn't sanctioned in New York?

I also recognize what an odd hobby this is for any adoptive parent. After all, I've created my little clan based on the absolute belief that your family is what you say it is, not what biology mandates for you. How do I reconcile that with my obsession with finding my own biological lineage?

As a child, I was fascinated by my dad's mother. He'd only been 12 years old when she died, so he had a limited number of childhood stories that included her. Since I was only 17 when he died, I never got the chance to press him for more memories of his mother. I felt a real affinity to her, since I had her name, but she was always the mystery grandmother to me. What was she like? Did I have her hair, her eyes, her sense of humor? It frustrated me that I could never know those answers.

My kids often ask about their own grandparents, none of whom they'll ever really know. Both Em* and I had lost our dads before we became parents, and Em's mother died just a few years ago. Ann* will remember her, vaguely, but Mary* probably won't. My own mother is lost in the fog of Alzheimer's, so she is also "gone" to her grandchildren. But are any of these even the "right" grandparents to talk about with our girls?

In the largest sense, of course, they are. They made Em and me who we are today, and, like all parents, we want to tell our kids stories from our own childhoods -- and the kids want to hear them. They want to know what we were like as little girls, what we wore, what games we played, what tricks we played on our moms, what kinds of things got us into hot water. Those tales are filled with stories of our parents and grandparents, and our kids eat them up.

But our girls also ask about their birth parents, and those questions are just as important, although they're different. Where did my blond hair come from? How tall will I be? Why do I have brown eyes? We can't answer all of them as completely as we'd like, since we just don't know. (We tried an international birth parent search for both girls, but came up empty.)

I can trace my family's trademark ski nose back three generations -- I've actually seen it on Irish cousins -- but I can't tell my daughter where she got her cute little button nose. That hurts me now, and I'm pretty sure it will hurt her later.

We're at least a year away from the inevitable family tree project at school, but I'm thinking about it already. I know it will be a tough one. I don't think there's a good model for an adopted child in a gay family. We've read articles about how to help, like creating a fluffy family "shrub" showing the complicated bunch we are instead of the traditional straight-line tree with roots and branches. That's one approach, I guess, but I know I would have found it unsatisfying as the geeky kid I was. I drew my tree to help me understand where I came from, and find my place in the family -- will a shrub do the same for my kids?

I worry that my children will come to see their adoption by American parents as the same mysterious hard line I found with my grandparents' immigration. Will they end up feeling like pioneers, first-generation Americans with no connection to the country and lineage they left behind? Or will they embrace Em's and my family trees as their own, and find satisfaction in knowing their place in their adoptive family?

I hope they come to understand that they have two separate trees, one born of biology and the other from love, now forever entwined. I hope they learn to appreciate both for what they have to offer, and I hope they someday have the tools to find out more about their own biology if they want to. Just as the Internet opened up vast treasures that weren't available to me as a child, maybe someday another new technology, undreamed of today, will help them find the genetic histories that are currently out of their reach.

Or maybe I'll get lucky and they'll both just take up snowboarding instead.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy

Veronica Rhodes writes about gay parenting under this pen name; read her blog on RedRoom. She and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>adoptionfamily treesgay parentinggenealogysame sex marriagesame sex parentingVeronica RhodesWed, 20 Jul 2011 11:00:00 ESTGay Parents Fight to Get Both Their Names on Son's Birth Certificatehttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/13/gay-parents-birth-certificate/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/13/gay-parents-birth-certificate/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/13/gay-parents-birth-certificate/#commentsFiled under: , ,

supreme court

Fathers want to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Credit: Karen Bleier, Getty Images

A gay couple in California wants both their names to appear on their son's birth certificate as his adopted parents.

However, their 5-year-old son was born in Louisiana, a state that frowns upon adoption by same-sex couples. State law only allows one name.

So, CNN reports, the couple wants the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and decide the constitutionality of the Louisiana law.

Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith argue that same-sex parents have a right to due process and should therefore be listed on amended birth certificates as joint custodial parents. A federal appeals court has already ruled against them.

The next step is the Supreme Court.

That could be a good thing or bad thing for gay parents. Gay marriage and parental rights are currently defined by each state. If the court takes their case and supports Adar and Smith, it would mean rights must honored across state lines.

But the reverse is also true. If the court rules against Adar and Smith, it would chisel a precedent in stone that would toss gay rights issues back to the states.

"Obtaining an amended birth certificate that accurately identifies both parents of an adopted child is vitally important for multiple purposes, including determining the parents' and child's right to make medical decisions for other family members at the necessary moments [and] determining custody, care and support of the child in the event of a separation or divorce between the parents," CNN quotes a brief submitted by the gay rights advocacy group Lambda Legal.

The 16-member 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against Adar and Smith in April. "Adoption is not a fundamental right," the appeals court wrote in its decision.

"Louisiana has a legitimate interest in encouraging a stable and nurturing environment for the education and socialization of its adopted children," reads the ruling. "Louisiana may rationally conclude that having parenthood focused on a married couple or single individual -- not on the freely severable relationship of unmarried partners -- furthers the interests of adopted children."

CNN reports Supreme Court justices area likely to decide in late September whether to accept the case for review.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>adoptiongay parentingsame sex parentssupreme courtTom HendersonWed, 13 Jul 2011 14:30:00 ESTItsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie: Papa and the Small Bikinihttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/13/itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie-papa-and-the-small-bikini/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/13/itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie-papa-and-the-small-bikini/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/13/itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie-papa-and-the-small-bikini/#commentsFiled under: , ,

When did I become such a prude? This was the question when Diva and I opened the box of summer clothes sent by a relative -- and I saw the teenie weenie bikini. A napkin's worth of hot pink and orange fabric, its arrival sent my 6-year-old into paroxysms of delight. She squealed; I reeled.

It was just a bathing suit and not even her first two-piece, but this was the real deal -- not a tankini, not a shorts-and-top set, but a bikini with a low rise and a string tie bandeau. She immediately declared that this was a "big kid" suit, unwittingly putting her finger on the very reason her dads were not over the moon about this outfit.

As she wriggled into it, her long and lean build presented a challenge: The suit might scream "big kid" but it sure didn't say "tall girl." The top was a few inches wide at best, which meant it just barely covered her nipples. The bottom had such a narrow rise that you could see the top of her hip sockets.

According to the label, this tiny ensemble was actually a size too big for her. I had to wonder: What exactly did the smaller versions look like? Color-coordinated Band-Aids and dental floss?

The timing couldn't have been more perfect for Diva: This was was the first day hot enough to use our new blow-up pool. Not surprisingly, she wanted to wear her new bikini, and I told her she could, but I only said yes because we were staying at home.

As she splashed around in the water, the picture of exuberant near nakedness, I couldn't help but be glad that we weren't at a beach with crowds of strangers seeing, well, so much Diva.

My visceral response to the bikini prompted a little soul-searching. If I was visiting a country in Scandinavia or Europe where women swim topless, or pausing by a pond in Germany where skinny-dipping was all the rage, I wouldn't find anything particularly scandalous about nudity. And there is nothing inherently provocative about Diva's body, which is that of a child, just a long rubber band in motion. So it wasn't the flesh that bothered me -- it was the bikini itself. And what sense did that make?

When I was in eighth grade, a special meeting was called for the parents of students at the church school I attended. The subject was the dress code, which already prohibited blue jeans and miniskirts. But a new trend had caught on among the girls: sheer tops made of floral-printed gauze, worn with a camisole underneath for modesty.

Some of the men in the church found this look upsetting enough to complain to the principal. At the resulting community meeting, one burly contractor barked, "You can see right through to the bra!" Another man groused, "They're advertising something whether they know it or not."

But my friends -- and my friends were all girls -- didn't take this lying down. A pair of bold sisters turned the tables, one rebuking the adult men for revealing their dirty minds. Her sibling added sharply, "I see flowers here. You see what you want." I cheered them on from my pew, in perhaps the first "You go, girl" moment of my life.

Now, I am the one in the hot seat, the dad who can't appreciate the flowers for the flesh underneath. (Apparently the answer to my original question is that I became a prude when I became a parent.) But it's not a dirty mind that has landed me here. It's that I know too much about our culture and, specifically, the way many men see girls and women, especially ones they don't actually know. And bikinis are part of the equation.

A girl in a bikini is the media's default appeal to straight men, a come-on accepted by manufacturers and consumers alike for decades. From hot rods to razors, if a product can help a dude define his manliness, it is likely to be advertised with the aid of a bikini-clad babe. There's no better proof of this association than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which brings in more than $35 million a year. (And, trust me, no one buys that issue for the NHL standings.)

I try to remind myself that these associations don't have to hold. For instance, the bikinis worn by the U.S. women's beach volleyball team will never diminish the players' strengths and skills. But then you see a 5-year-old model dolled up like Jon Benet, standing in a pageant swimsuit pose -- on a parenting website, no less -- while wearing a bikini the site describes as exuding "pin-up girl glam." Talking about a kindergartner as a pin-up? Creepy.

That's the problem. Too many bikinis don't just say "big girl" -- they say "adult woman." They're designed for a woman's curves, emphasizing body parts a child doesn't yet have. Little triangles where breasts would be, deep curves outlining a booty that doesn't exist, packaging for a product meant for adults.

Not every bikini says "va-va-voom," of course, but the basic design tells a whole story about a bias in our culture: Society tells a girl that, to be modest, she must cover up certain body parts, and then steers her toward options small enough to remind guys exactly what they're missing.

Diva will own plenty of bikinis in her lifetime, and it won't be that long before she gets final say for herself. But, for now, she's only 6 and a 6-year-old girl shouldn't have to be thinking about the way grown men will respond to the placement of a few ounces of fabric. But her dads are, and we're not alone in this concern. We went to the beach yesterday, joining thousands of strangers on sun-warmed sand, and, in the span of four hours, I saw exactly two bikinis on girls younger than 12.

Actually, it was the same bikini, twice: a pink polka-dotted affair worn by twin babies not old enough to walk. They looked innocent, adorable and untroubled -- just as girls at the beach should be.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>bikinigirls bikinisexualizing girlsDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 13 Jul 2011 11:00:00 ESTPicture Daze: How Too Much Comes to Mean Nothinghttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/06/picture-daze-how-too-much-comes-to-mean-nothing/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/06/picture-daze-how-too-much-comes-to-mean-nothing/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/06/picture-daze-how-too-much-comes-to-mean-nothing/#commentsFiled under: ,

I think it was the dance recital portrait offer that put me over the edge. For a mere $70, a photographer would take a picture of my 5-year-old in her tap costume, providing makeup and styling services along with the snap of the shutter.

Total number of prints included in the package: zero. The photographer would provide a CD of the images, and we could either print them ourselves or negotiate print prices.

I decided to pass. Understand that this is monumental -- I never pass up the opportunity to take or order pictures of my kids. But this year, especially, photos have come to represent everything Americans have done wrong in the last half-century. I've come to the conclusion that, in our age of plenty, we've devalued everything.

Here's the background: Last November, we got the usual notice of picture day at school. I always used to love picture day -- I would think hard about what my kids would wear, and I'd get up early to do their hair, eagerly anticipating the arrival of the prints to see how history would record them that year.

But a couple of years ago, we started getting picture day fliers in the spring, too. Now we'd have twice-yearly chances to record our children's progress through the school year. And, of course, it immediately doubles the school's photographic fund-raising opportunities.

My kids play soccer in the fall, so we also have picture day for sports portraits -- individual and team. It's baseball in the spring, meaning individual and team photos then, too. Packages come with 5x7s and wallets, with offers for trading cards, magnets, bookmarks, mouse pads and coffee mugs, all emblazoned with their smiling faces.

I can't say no to picture day -- how can you tell your child you don't want her photo? And I used to find it hard to say no when they wanted a magnet or trading card with their stats on it.

But that's four photos a year of each child, assuming we just get two school pictures and their two sport photos. Our older daughter also made her First Communion this year, which meant a photo in her finery to enclose with thank you notes. But seriously, what do you actually do with four or five 5x7 portraits of your child in a year? Not to mention all those wallets -- does anyone, in any family, love their nieces, nephews and grandchildren enough to welcome nine new wallet-sized images of them a year?

So, when I received the flier from dancing school, I lost it. The fact that the fee did not even include prints (which you might think would be a blessed relief) was the final straw.

I think I flipped because it's such a symptom of our excesses. I probably have 50 or so total pictures of my childhood, including all those years of annual school portraits, and they're really precious to me. I've been a parent for seven years now, and I would guess I have about 10,000 photos of my kids. But I suspect those photos won't mean much to them. I know the magnets and bookmarks don't, because I'm more likely to find them under a bed, or on the floor, than saved carefully in an album.

It's no-brainer: The more you have of everything, the less you value anything.

It's not just photos. I clearly remember the handful of special toys I loved as a child, because they were just a handful. In just seven years, my two kids have already received more toys than my family of four did in our collective childhoods. In fact, they probably have more "stuff" than our whole block did 40 years ago.

It keeps coming, too, even after we decided to be more discriminating parents and stop the deluge. Stuff rains down on our kids from all directions, not just from us. A visit to the dentist earns a token to put in a machine that spits out a small toy. The woman who cuts their hair lets them pick a toy as a reward for sitting still. Invite 10 or 12 kids to their birthday parties and they get 10 or 12 new toys. They even get gifts for other kids' birthdays, which now seem to require "goodie bags" for all. We refer to those goodies as "LPCs," or "little pieces of crap."

We try to imagine the resources consumed to create these LPCs -- the design, manufacturing, shipment from a third-world nation, delivery to a retailer -- for the nanosecond of use they get before they're discarded. Sometimes I think they should just start a landfill right next to the factory, and skip the middlemen entirely. Because a kid who gets a new LPC every other day learns that they have no value at all.

What I don't understand is why they still want these trinkets. Wouldn't you think at some point even a child would groan at the prospect of another little paper-parachute soldier, or a pair of clacking plastic hands? But, instead, their appetite for these items only increases -- they're the nonfood equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, where each sip or bite just fuels the desire for the next.

So, effective immediately, my kids are on the "stuff" equivalent of the South Beach Diet -- no more. In a weird twist of fate, just as I came to this conclusion, my camera took a nose dive off the desk and went to its final reward. I guess I'm starting on South Beach, too.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy

Veronica Rhodes writes about gay parenting under this pen name; read her blog on RedRoom. She and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>excessgay parentingpicture daytoo many toystoo much stuffVeronica RhodesWed, 06 Jul 2011 11:00:00 ESTIt's Not You, It's Us: Breaking Up With Other Parentshttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/29/breaking-up-with-other-parents/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/29/breaking-up-with-other-parents/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/29/breaking-up-with-other-parents/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

Remember dating? And that most awkward of moments, the end of an evening when it was clear not everyone had enjoyed the experience equally?

Your date would ask the question, "What are you doing next weekend?" And, instead of saying "avoiding you," you'd stay pleasantly vague. "Ooh, sorry. I think I'm busy." For that matter, you'd be busy the weekend after that, too. Suddenly, your calendar was just packed.

Marriage is supposed to put all that behind you, right? Not if you have children. For every time your kid makes a new friend, you end up doing the getting-to-know-you-waltz all over again with a new set of parents. It's a little like having a 40-inch yenta stubbornly pushing you toward an endless series of blind dates. And if you think chemistry is hard to predict between two people, just try making it work with four.

One mom we met seemed to like us well enough, but in a very distant way; she would spend entire playdates at our house staring at the grass or looking past our shoulders at some far away thing we couldn't see. Conversation always involved long stretches of cricket-begging silence and we decided she must be shy.

Both of the children loved these meet-ups, nonetheless, so we kept at them for a while, but we did notice we were never invited to the other family's house in return. And then the mom started taking longer and longer to return our calls. Eventually, we got the message: She just wasn't that into us.

We could hardly throw stones; there are plenty of perfectly well-intended parents we haven't exactly developed crushes on ourselves. There was the mom who detailed her sexual history 10 minutes into the first playdate; the dad who yanked out his daughter's not-actually-loose tooth so that she could keep up with her tooth-losing friends; and the mom who treated us like Encyclopedia Homosexualis, lobbing blunt questions our way as if we somehow spoke for the entire species.

All our parent friends have their own similar tales from the grown-up dating trenches. One couple we know had never met the parents of their daughter's best friend in preschool, so they were delighted when the other family suggested they should all spend a day together. This seemed ideal -- at least until the inviting parents planned themselves a getaway for that same weekend, leaving my friends to entertain their child and her nanny for them.

A couple with two boys told us how thrilled they'd been when they'd learned that a new family would be moving to their street with three sons younger than 6. Our friends could just imagine all the years of play ahead, when the boys were all old enough to run from house to house. But that kind liberty started a little too early.

While the new family was still doing major construction on their enormous mansion-to-be, they left their kids (one still in diapers!) completely unsupervised, free to wander among the equipment around the site and toddle off into the road, which is where our friends found them. All visions of bonding between the families evaporated.

If you met someone who bothered you this much in a dating context, you wouldn't hesitate to just ditch the bozo and stop returning his calls or texts. Parent "break-ups" are a little trickier because you know your kids will see their kids in school for, oh, a decade or so, which means a little finesse and tact might be prudent.

But make no mistake: Job number one is keeping your child safe -- not sparing the feelings of other parents whose values put them at risk.

There is no easy exit line in situations like these. We all know that the old chestnut, "It's not you, it's me," actually means "It's me disapproving of you." So The Hubby and I fall back on the kinder, gentler dodge: Suddenly, our weekends are full -- and, depending on who's asking -- they will be for a long, long time.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>break upsgay parentingother parentsplay datesplaydatesDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 29 Jun 2011 11:00:00 ESTDress Blues: Gay Moms Learn a Lesson On Gender Normshttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/22/gay-moms-learn-a-lesson-on-gender-norms/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/22/gay-moms-learn-a-lesson-on-gender-norms/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/22/gay-moms-learn-a-lesson-on-gender-norms/#commentsFiled under:

"You have got to support me on this one," Em* told me in no uncertain terms. "She has to wear the dress."

Em doesn't put her foot down very often, so when she tells me something is important to her, I listen. Problem was, my other easy-going girl was putting her foot down, as well.

"Mom, you've got to tell them," Ann* begged tearfully during one of our bedtime talks. "You've got to tell them I can't wear a dress."

So there I was, between a rock and a hard place, with the line drawn in the sand. Over a dress, of all things.

Of course, this wasn't just any dress. This was THE dress, one of the dresses a girl is supposed to fantasize about, one that would take its place in the pantheon of dream dresses, along with the Sweet Sixteen dress, the prom dress and the Big Kahuna of dresses, the wedding gown. This was the First Communion dress, the first of a girl's Big Fancy Dresses.

And Ann was having none of it.

This was a kid who hadn't worn a dress since she was 5 years old -- and even that was a negotiated dress, for her moms' wedding. Her well-established disdain for anything frilly was certainly fine with us -- Em and I are not the lipstick variety of lesbian, and you're more likely to find us in jeans or khakis than skirts or dresses. If Ann were more comfortable in pants, who cared?

But sometimes a dress is not just a dress. We've known for a couple of years now that Ann's no-frill clothing choices are a part of something bigger than just her wardrobe. There was no sudden shock -- it was more of a growing awareness -- that there was something different about her.

In pretend games with her sister or with her friends, we could hear Ann choosing a male persona for herself ("I'm the dad" or "I'm the big brother"). When we played the game of Life, Ann chose a little blue stick figure, not a pink one, to represent her.

Ann plays Little League baseball, where she's always the only girl on her team, but she disdains the very concept of girls' softball. She quit gymnastics rather than accede to the coach's demand that she stop running and vaulting and tumbling with the boys' group, and instead take her place with the girls on the balance beam -- in a leotard and tights.

We haven't shopped in the girls' department for two or three years now; the three-piece suit I once agreed to buy her for dress-up has turned into a full-blown boy's wardrobe. Ann wears her hair chin length, in a vague style that could pass for either a boy's long cut or a girl's short one. With her unisex hair and boy's clothes, she's routinely mistaken for a boy -- and she likes it.

We've negotiated every step of the way: Yes to the boy's parka, no to the buzz cut. Yes to wearing the suit to Easter dinner, no to wearing it to the school play. We're in uncharted waters here, and we're doing the best we can to avoid the rocks under the surface.

One family member opined that it was psychological, that Ann was trying to fill in for the man who was missing in our lives. A friend and neighbor -- a smart guy, a Ph.D -- saw her in her suit and wisecracked, "You guys are starting her a little early, don't you think?"

Both comments stung, and badly, although I know they're both wrong. This is who Ann is, it's not about Em and me, or about a "missing" man. And I love my child, no matter who she is. Of course, I worry about other kids teasing her, but I don't particularly care one way or the other what clothes she wears, or how she wears her hair. Except ...

Except that every time she'd put on a suit, I felt myself wanting to explain it to people. Nobody ever asked about it, and Ann didn't bring it up, so why did I always need to mention it? I told myself I was giving people permission to ask about it, to make it clear that we broad-minded moms had no problem with this. But was this mom protesting too much? Was I falling victim to what lots of other parents have worried about -- that something I'd done is "making" Ann this way?

I think I wanted it to be clear that my being gay doesn't have anything to do with what's going on here -- this is about Ann. I know from the very depths of my soul that this child is who she is, and that Em and I are not driving her to be something she isn't. So why did I care what people thought?

I never thought I'd have sympathy for Angelina Jolie, but I do. I really feel for the public criticism she's taken for letting her child be her own person. I feel for any moms as they confront public pressure against their kids, even as they must do whatever they can to help their children emerge into a fully realized adulthood.

I'd spent so much time thinking about what was going on with Ann, it was time to confront what was going on with me. I certainly wasn't nursing any grief over the loss of some fantasy girl-child. I hadn't spent my life dreaming of dressing up my baby girl like the dolls of my own childhood. I absolutely believed what I told Ann, that there were lots of ways to be a girl and that I loved her no matter what kind of girl she was. So why did this bother me so much? Was it possible I was projecting my own insecurities onto Ann?

Here's what I concluded: It's much easier now than it was 20 years ago to be gay, but easier doesn't mean easy. There's awkwardness and embarrassment and, yes, sometimes even pain. We gay folk listen to the radio and read those online comments, you know. We hear and see how some people talk about us. We know they're ignorant and unworthy of our attention, but, I assure you, it still hurts. And if those goons can still hurt me, can still prick at my own sense of self-worth, what will they do to this beautiful child of mine?

To be a parent is to love another human being so much that you can hardly stand it. The thought of anyone hurting my girl is simply unbearable. But being gay has taught me that failure to conform to social expectations is a surefire way to bring on scorn, and I know what may be in store for Ann. She'll march to her own beat, and the world just might make her pay for that.

I know my job is to help her build the confidence she'll need to withstand the pressure to conform. The world will always want her to get on the balance beam, to play girls' softball instead of Little League, and to say yes to the dress. I so want her to withstand it, because the only thing more painful than the thought of anyone hurting her is the thought of anyone making her change. She's fabulous just the way she is.

If "the boy thing" turns out to be a passing phase, I'll be right there beside her as she changes and grows. I'd be delighted to help her pick out her prom dress (although I can't offer much in terms of fashion sense). But I want her changes to come from within, not from any outside pressure to conform. And if she doesn't change, if she continues down her gender-noncompliant path, well, that's OK, too. I can help her choose a tux if that's what she wants.

So, we worked out a compromise for the Communion, with the help of the director of religious education. Say what you want about the Catholic Church (and I've said a few things, myself), but we could not have scripted this woman a better answer if we'd written it ourselves.

"This is about a sacrament," she said, "not about clothes. Be respectful of the setting, but let her wear what she wants."

I'm not about to convert back or anything, but I'll be forever grateful to our little island of progressive Catholicism.

Ann took her place in the girls' line for the ceremony, wearing white pants and a little white tank top covered by a short white girls' bolero jacket, with a simple headband topping it all off. For her party, she changed into her dress shirt, bow tie and suit jacket the first minute she could. She looked adorable in both outfits and nobody fainted, the church walls did not collapse. If the neighbors (or our families) talked about it behind our backs, well, at least Ann didn't hear it.

After it was all over, Ann and I had another one of our bedtime talks. I reminded her that for more than a year those talks had been difficult, sometimes teary. They always seemed to be negotiations about her hair, her clothes or The Dress. But ever since we settled the Communion question, bedtime had been less stressed. These days, we mostly talked about baseball or Pokémon or our upcoming trip to the beach to celebrate the end of school. Did that mean everything was better now?

She nodded happily and snuggled down next to me. "I'm fine, Mom," she said.

And nobody knows that better than I do.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy

Veronica Rhodes writes about gay parenting under this pen name; read her blog on RedRoom. She and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>bullyingcommunion-dressesCommunionDaydiversitygaygendergender diversitygender normsVeronica RhodesWed, 22 Jun 2011 11:00:00 ESTCelebrating Fathers' Day, Pluralhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/15/celebrating-fathers-day-plural/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/15/celebrating-fathers-day-plural/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/15/celebrating-fathers-day-plural/#commentsFiled under: , ,

On Sunday, my household will observe a holiday that is somehow universal and statistically rare all at once: Fathers' Day. Note the location of the apostrophe, indicating the plural possessive form, which is to say two dads but only one day.

We've been celebrating (and punctuating) this way for six years now, since Diva was a peanut small enough to rest comfortably in the space between my palm and elbow. In the years since, we've gotten quite an education about what society thinks a father is and is not. Based on my not-especially-scientific reading of all the relevant cultural indicators -- commercials, sitcoms, and the greeting card aisle at CVS -- we've become aware of the following definitions.

Father (noun, singular)

1. Parent who does all or most of the following: throws a ball; plays golf; farts copiously; watches sports; thinks he's a stud if he can make pancakes; uses tools to fix (or claim to fix) broken things; buys women jewelry at the last second before a birthday, anniversary or holiday; and says "ask your mother" without interrupting what he is doing.

2. Parent who cannot do any of the following: sew; dance without embarrassing all parties present; cook a meal not involving pancakes; choose a decent outfit from the current decade to save his life; please the woman he bought the jewelry for; or understand why he has not pleased that same woman.

By this definition, Diva might as well be fatherless. While I am a former Little League outfielder who does sometimes toss a ball with her, and I can make dazzling Mickey Mouse pancakes with chocolate chip eyes, that's still less than half of the required behaviors from the list above.

Worse, there are so many strikes against me (sewing, dancing, cooking, matching my own clothes), that I end up not just getting a zero on the fatherhood scale, but owing points! (The hubby just barely fares better, though only by being a copious farter. Sorry, dear.)

When Diva was little, her day care didn't know quite what to do with dads who came as a set when the June holiday rolled around, but they meant well. That year's gift was a photo of Diva wearing a hard hat and pretend tool belt, along with a picture frame made entirely of nuts and bolts.

This was designed with seriously Old School dads in mind (you could almost smell the Right Guard), but Diva's teachers tried to adapt the gift for the new reality in the only way they could think of: They sent home two of the exact same thing, so we could each have our own butch present.

As Diva has gotten older, more gay dads have appeared in the public eye, from theater ("25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee") to television ("Modern Family") to the pages of glossy tabloids (Neil Patrick Harris, Ricky Martin and even Elton John, parenting at the age most fellas are sizing up Depends).

Happily for us, their lives have been educational, so that a steadily increasing number of people are now aware of our presence. But if you base gay parenting on this small sampling, we should have a Tony, Emmy, Grammy or Oscar lying around, and I am 99 percent certain we do not. (I can't say that with 100 percent certainty, because it would require me to look underneath all the American Girl doll clothes taking over Diva's room.)

I'm joking, of course, but it is true that limited, silly notions of how men parent are still pervasive. And gay dads aren't the only ones who mind. A friend of ours in Los Angeles recently vented on Facebook that none of the greeting cards she found resembled her husband (a film buff who collects watches), either.

But I have to believe this is going to change; bit by bit, the fathers in this generation are writing new definitions with their lives. Straight dads who know the names of all the My Little Ponies ... Gay dads who coach their kid's hockey teams ... Hugh Jackman ... The world is chock full of exceptional dads.

To my fellow dads of every stripe, let your freak flags fly. And, since we're in this together, why not join me in a little plural action here: Happy Fathers' Day to us all.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>fathers daygay dadsgay parentsDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 15 Jun 2011 12:30:00 ESTOh, Behave: The Word 'Gay' Does Not Equal 'Stupid'http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/08/words-matter-gay/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/08/words-matter-gay/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/08/words-matter-gay/#commentsFiled under:

I thought my nephew was a linguistic genius when he said he was "being have." His mother had admonished him about something, and she'd told him to "behave." His indignant response was, "I am being have."

Genius, I thought. Be good, be quiet, behave -- they all sound exactly the same to 4-year-old ears. I am being good, I am being quiet, I am being have. The boy's destined to be a linguist, I thought.

I soon discovered John's error was a childhood classic, not a sign of genius. Generations of children have made the same leap of grammatical construction, because it's so completely logical. Language may not be logical, but the people who use it can be.

But I did think my daughter Mary* was really on to something new recently, when she referred to competing against her sister in a Wii game as "versing." Progressing through a series of screen options, you see Mario vs. Luigi, Red Team vs. Blue Team, etc. Not being big consumers of legal documents, video games are how kids get exposed to "versus." And it's easy to hear how, to a child, "Mario vs. Luigi" could be understood as Mario doing this new verb, "versing," to his sidekick.

So, in our house, Mary's excited reports -- "I was versing Ann at tennis, and I won!" -- seemed like an inside joke to us. We even used it ourselves, the way some families continue to intentionally mispronounce a name that a toddler once mangled.

But then we were handed Mary's pee-wee baseball schedule for the year, and there it was: The chart had columns for date, time, field location, snack parent and, yes, the last column was headed "versing" and contained the name of the team we would play in that game.

It sent me straight to Google, where I discovered this oddball verb has been around for quite a few years. Its derivation is -- I was right! -- the "versus" construction in video games and sports, so it makes sense that the 30-something baseball dad who made up the pee-wee schedule would use it so naturally.

Now, the reason I find this so interesting is that words really matter to me. Stumbling across a new word, or uncovering a new meaning, is genuinely something I find exciting. When my nutritionally deprived, vitamin D-deficient daughter finally started to walk, I watched those little matchstick legs wobbling under her and suddenly understood what it really meant to be "rickety." Moments like that truly delight my language-loving soul (even as that particular one broke my adoptive mom heart).

On the other hand, people who use "that's so gay" or "that's retarded" as a generic insult really get under my skin. In conversation one day with someone on this very subject, I said I was deeply offended when I hear "gay" as a replacement for "stupid" or "lame." My companion laughed at my own use of the word "lame" to mean "stupid," and I had a moment of revelation (and contrition) about what it means to be lame.

If I had a child (or parent, or horse) with a bum leg, maybe I'd have been more sensitive to that one. But the point is, words matter most when you use them thoughtlessly. I shouldn't need an example of actual lameness in my own family to know better than to co-opt the term to use as an insult.

My own sister once defended herself for allowing the use of the word "fag" in her home, saying it didn't mean "gay," it meant "nerdy." Ahh, I thought, so if you just skip the middleman it's OK. It's not necessarily that fag equals gay, and gay equals nerdy. It's just that to be a fag is to be nerdy. It's not about us gay people at all. Oh, yes, that makes it fine.

There are people on both sides of this argument -- there are those who object to using "gay" to mean "stupid" and who understand why using "Geronimo" as the battle cry for capturing Osama bin Laden might have offended some people. And there are those who find this approach to an evolving language to be ridiculous, overly sensitive and inflexible.

You can guess where I stand on this one: Words matter. When you use certain words to describe me, and then turn around and use those same words thoughtlessly, carelessly, to mean something else, then, yes, I take that personally. And when I use an expression thoughtlessly and am called on it, I learn. I respect language, and I assure you I don't use "lame" to mean "stupid" anymore.

In the same vein, there are die-hard traditionalists who decry the use of "versing" as being a harbinger of the death of the English language. Others applaud its evolution as being proof of the life of English. I'm not sure yet where I stand on this one -- it doesn't make my skin crawl the way "liase" does as a verb, but it seems so ... unnecessary. The Mets are versing the Braves this weekend? Why not just say the Mets are playing the Braves? Why invent a new usage where none is needed?

I guess it goes without saying that the opposing sides will no doubt continue to verse each other in these debates. I just hope everyone remembers to behave, and to keep the discourse civil.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy

Veronica Rhodes writes about gay parenting under this pen name; read her blog on RedRoom. She and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday. Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>gaylinguisticsversingwords matterVeronica RhodesWed, 08 Jun 2011 11:00:00 ESTMeant to Be: A Letter to My Daughter on Her Birthdayhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/01/meant-to-be-a-letter-to-my-daughter-on-her-birthday/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/01/meant-to-be-a-letter-to-my-daughter-on-her-birthday/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/06/01/meant-to-be-a-letter-to-my-daughter-on-her-birthday/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Long ago, before there was you, when Daddy was not yet Daddy and I was not yet Papa, he and I promised each other that someday we would be parents. We had a wedding and bought a house, but then let more than a decade pass while we waited to be "ready" for a child. (We didn't realize there is no ready, only willing.)

In the early fall of our 11th year together, Daddy's beloved Nana passed away, one week after deciding it was her time to go. But first, she'd called her children and their children to her bedside, sharing her love one last time and commanding us all to live full, happy lives.

When Nana died, Daddy and I both felt something stirring inside, a clear impulse that it was time to move forward with our plans to adopt a baby, adding a new life to the now smaller family. Many of the people who would become your relatives, godmothers and aunties were thrilled when we announced this decision.

But my own mother didn't think God approved of two men raising a child, an opinion also shared by the governor of our home state and some of the most prominent men in the land. The doubters didn't stop us: Our course was set.

It was almost spring when Daddy and I filled out the paperwork to start the adoption process. We were told it would take 18 months or even longer for us to become parents, and we believed that would be true -- until the first surprise of many came our way. Your birth mom picked us to be your dads a mere eight weeks later, just weeks before her due date.

Everyone involved was amazed; the process never happened that fast. Moreover, there was a coincidence we couldn't ignore: We learned that you had been conceived the week that Nana died. Destiny.

Then, to our great sadness, things fell through. The agency told us to try and forget it, to move on -- such a speedy match was a fluke, after all. But every night of the week we'd been told you were due, I went to bed imagining a baby out there somewhere, and thinking that maybe, just maybe, it would all still work out. I dreamed of you, not yet knowing who -- or if -- you were.

The next week, your birth mom called us from the hospital, still wanting us to be your dads, after all. We heard your voice for the first time, a distant cry that tethered you to us for good, even across the miles. In the thrill of our connection that morning, we almost missed an impossibly wonderful detail: arriving five days late, you had been born on Nana's birthday.

How could you be any child but ours? Even my mother, who had been praying to understand what God wanted, had to agree: It seemed miraculous. If her Creator was strong enough to command a universe into being, He could certainly have disrupted one small adoption, but had not chosen to. She changed her prayer, instead asking God to watch over us as we flew across the country to her new granddaughter.

There were a couple of twists still lying ahead in the road that brought us to you, but they fade in memory next to the sun-soaked summer morning I held you in my arms for the first time. So tiny, a fluttering thing, a bird. We passed you back and forth, terrified and in love, and began to earn the names you call us: Daddy and Papa. There are no words, written or spoken, for what that moment meant (and means) to me.

Today, you are 6. You are too young to care what so many politicians and pundits are still saying about families like ours, but I know someday you will hear and understand their callous words, the harsh proclamations they utter without regard for their effect on children like you. I am sure those comments will sting when they land, but when that happens, I want you to remember this story.

I am not a mystical person, but there was a kind of magic in the making of our family. Nana somehow knew this; in her last night on earth, she told the granddaughter at her side that a baby was coming, that there was a little girl on the way to the family. Nana was right, for here you are.

As you celebrate your birthday -- and hers -- you're exactly where you are meant to be.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>adoptiongay parentingDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 01 Jun 2011 11:00:00 ESTParenting On Demand: How Do You Tell the Difference Between a Child's Wants and Needs?http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/25/parenting-on-demand/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/25/parenting-on-demand/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/25/parenting-on-demand/#commentsFiled under: ,

I'm hungry. Can I have some pancakes? Will you help me go to the bathroom? Can I have a playdate after school today? I want to watch "Scooby-Doo" on TV later. Can you please come downstairs and make me breakfast now? I'm hungry!

This is within the first 45 seconds of Mary's* waking up in the morning. I suspect she spends her 10 hours of sleep each night coming up with her list of demands for the following day.

I need some water. Can you get me a tissue? Can I have cookies for snack today? Can we go out to dinner tonight? Can I watch TV after school? Could I ride my bike to school? I need more syrup. Can I have some more pancakes, please?

She's not even through breakfast yet.

I think of how Em* and I spent five years preparing for parenthood, how we read and talked and processed and listened and learned. We discussed the various ways we might form a family, what kind of parents we'd be, what issues we might face raising children who'd spent their early months in an orphanage.

My hands are sticky, can you clean them? Can you help me brush my teeth? I don't want you to comb my hair, I want to do it myself. I want to wear my baseball jacket, not my raincoat. I don't want to ride my bike -- can we drive to school? For my birthday, can we go to Chuck E. Cheese's?

We attended a six-week-long discussion group for lesbians considering motherhood. We went to seminars on adoptive parenting and listened to lectures on the medical and emotional issues faced by children adopted internationally. We learned that a child who hadn't experienced love in her first year might not know how to accept it from her adoptive parents, and talked about how we'd deal with that.

So when our first child, Ann*, came home to us, we were ready. We charged into Early Intervention to help her overcome her developmental delays. We researched feeding techniques to help her catch up on the growth charts. We were delighted that she was a veritable love sponge -- this child had no problem accepting affection and soaked it up as fast as we could deliver it.

Can I watch TV now? How come Ann is getting a play date but I'm not? Could I play Wii? I don't want to pick up the toys. Can I have ice cream? When I'm 10, can I have a TV in my room? Can we go to Build-a-Bear this Saturday? Can you snuggle me?

I had always known that I wanted more than one child, and I was ready to start the paperwork for No. 2 before the ink was dry on Ann's immigration papers. Em wasn't so sure, so we agreed to wait until Ann had been home a year before we made the decision.

Over the course of that year, Ann thrived -- she grew, gained weight and began to walk and talk. We had a great kid, and we were doing a great job. Everybody told us so, and we believed it. Ann was doing so well, and was such a sunny, easygoing child, that we had the hubris to think we were pretty awesome parents. So we began the paper chase again, and spent a year assembling the dossier we needed for baby No. 2.

And then came Mary.

I don't want fish for dinner, I want chicken nuggets. Can I have a napkin? Can you pour me some seltzer, please? Can I have a treat? Can I watch TV after dinner? When it's Halloween, can I be a Power Ranger? Can I be excused?

From the first meeting it was clear she was the exact opposite of Ann. In coloring, body type, everything, they were completely different. But Mary seemed like a happy, placid baby who would be the perfect second child and fit right in to our family.

The placid part lasted a few weeks, before Mary seemed to realize her world had changed and she had some control over her life now. For months before she could talk she could make her demands known. They were myriad -- and constant.

She wanted to be picked up, she wanted to be put down. She wanted to eat, she wanted to play. She wanted to go for a walk, she wanted out of the car seat. She wanted a new diaper, but she did not want anyone to change her.

She wore us out with her wants, and we realized our awesome parenting had a lot more to do with how easy Ann had been, not so much about our own imagined awesomeness.

I remembered something I'd read or heard from somebody along the way -- I don't know who or where, who could remember anything anymore? -- that your job as a parent, simply put, is to meet your child's needs. You don't have to give them everything they want, but you do need to give them everything they need. The tricky part is knowing the difference.

Let me tell you, that is some trick, and, in five years, it hasn't gotten much easier. With every demand Mary makes, we over-think it -- does she just want more pancakes, or does she need them as proof that we'll always provide for her? Does she want to go to Build-a-Bear because she likes it, or is it because Ann went there and Mary needs to know she'll get her equal share?

I want a bath, not a shower. Can I have the ducky towel, not the fish towel? Can you help me brush my teeth? Can you read me a book?

I find myself in an ongoing defensive posture against the demands, ready to be Judge Judy at a moment's notice: Was that a want or a need? She's 5-and-a-half years old, do I really have to pick her up and carry her when we're in line at the bank? Is she just being whiny and cranky because she's tired, or is she feeling anxious about something and in need of a little reassurance?

Is either one of those reason enough to pick her up for a quick cuddle, even though I'm tired and cranky, myself, and she's been at it all day and I really need for her to just stand still for another two minutes and then we'll be out of here? I love to snuggle her, but doesn't she need to learn to wait, to keep herself occupied and well-behaved for a bit -- isn't that a skill she needs to practice?

Can I have some water? I want to wear my Scooby-Doo pajamas. Can you read me another story? Can I sleep in your bed tonight? Can I have a playdate tomorrow?

I guess I won't know until she's all grown up and can tell me exactly how I failed her -- as she no doubt will -- whether I was too hard on her, or not hard enough. If she doesn't learn to delay gratification, to wait, to be still, will it be my fault because I didn't set my expectations high enough for her to develop the maturity and independence she'll need?

Or, if she grows up with an adopted child's tiny seed of doubt about where she belongs, about whether or not she's really loved, will it be my fault for not picking her up in the bank or taking her to Chuck E. Cheese's?

If we go to Chuck E. Cheese's, can I have a drink? And no, this paragraph is not supposed to be in italics.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy

Veronica Rhodes writes about gay parenting under this pen name; read her blog on RedRoom. She and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>gay parentinglesbian parentsparentingparenting on demandVeronica RhodesWed, 25 May 2011 11:00:00 ESTA Piece of Unsolicited Parenting Advice: Don't Offer Anyhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/18/unsolicited-parenting-advice/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/18/unsolicited-parenting-advice/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/18/unsolicited-parenting-advice/#commentsFiled under: ,

My friend Gwen was taking a stroll, her sleeping 1-year-old daughter Lola pressed to her chest in a baby sling. It was a lovely day, the nicest so far in a too-late spring, and Gwen was thrilled to be out of the house. A Friendly Stranger rolled up alongside her on his bicycle, cooing over Lola before asking, "How old is she?"

When Gwen answered, Friendly Stranger asked if he could "say something." He was already "saying something," so the phrase was just a euphemism for his real intention. Like a preacher at a revival, he lectured Gwen.

"Your problem is that your daughter is facing the wrong way. She has to face out at this age."

Until that moment, Gwen had been unaware that she had any "problem" or that this wasn't a casual chat. But she played it cool.

"Lola likes to sleep this way."

The cyclist's voice rose. "But she's too OLD! You CAN'T let her do that any more!"

Gwen's a writer and a lawyer -- she could have verbally sliced up the Less-Friendly Stranger, but instead she tried to de-escalate the situation.

"I'm aware there are a lot of opinions on this, but I'm comfortable that she'll be fine."

"You're going to DEFORM her! Her neck will be TWISTED!"

Gwen's jaw tightened. "OK. You've shared your opinion. Move along."

The decidedly Un-Friendly Stranger did roll off, but not before shouting: "This is ABUSE! They should TAKE THAT CHILD AWAY FROM YOU." And thus ended Gwen's lovely morning.

Is there anything your average parent wants less than unsolicited advice? And, yet, we all get it, in brief comments or lengthy diatribes, always from someone claiming to have the best interest of the child at heart.

It's clear in these exchanges that if we are "good" parents, we'll absorb this information and do one of three things: 1) Immediately leap into action, proving to the speaker that we have learned from them; 2) Nod thoughtfully and promise to do better in the future; or 3) Redden with shame at our exposed failures.

The option that many of us take -- 4) Say thanks and leave it there -- seems entirely unwelcome. Because sages like that cyclist crave visual evidence that they've bettered the world, noncommittal responses make them crazy. I think many advice-givers even prefer to be told in no uncertain terms where they can stick their suggestions. At least then they know they've made an impression.

Granted, there are situations that truly merit offering advice to someone you don't know and who hasn't asked. If a child bursts into flames and his oblivious parents are sitting nearby on a bench made of fire extinguishers, that would count. Or, maybe Grandma is letting the kiddos eat ice cream sundaes using razor blades or live cobras instead of spoons -- sure, intercede.

However, the way my daughter's hair is done, where she goes in flip-flops, whether she goes up the slide instead of down -- none of these things warrant your direct intervention. (And, if, as dozens of readers suggested after my previous column, your big advice is that gay people shouldn't have kids, well, too bad: The cow has already left that barn.)

Yes, you might well have a firm opinion you're dying to share, but ask yourself how crucial it is that you do so -- and what else you really mean deep down. When you say "my daughter always wears leggings under her skirt on chilly days like this," the (unspoken) rest of your speech is loud and clear: "I am innately superior to you in wisdom. I truly believe you've never given any thought at all to your child's attire. And I don't remotely care if the fight you had with your 5-year-old this morning ended with 'if your legs get cold now, next time you'll know better.' "

When a stranger approaches with unsolicited advice, maybe it should become a teaching moment in reverse. Cheerfully reply, "You can give me one piece of advice, if I can give you one back." Then, offer your own hastily-considered opinion about some surface detail that you can only judge on sight. Note a distinct body odor, comment on a frightening hairdo, marvel at a startlingly inept fashion choice -- whatever your opinion, it should be shallow, context-free and completely ignorant about every day of that person's life leading up to this one interaction. (I didn't say it would be a nice teaching moment.)

Call it the Golden Rule of Stranger Advice: Dis unto others, as they've just dissed unto you. Is that noble? No. Is it instructive? Perhaps. Is it an effective way to make sure at least one person is reluctant to foist an unwanted commentary on you ever again? Absolutely.

Of course, that's just my opinion -- and it's not like you asked.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>gay parentingunsolicited adviceunwanted adviceDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 18 May 2011 13:00:00 ESTTeaching Moments: Mystery Moms and the 'Interrupting Chicken'http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/11/teaching-moments-mystery-moms-and-the-interrupting-chicken/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/11/teaching-moments-mystery-moms-and-the-interrupting-chicken/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/11/teaching-moments-mystery-moms-and-the-interrupting-chicken/#commentsFiled under: , ,

the interrupting chicken book

"The Interrupting Chicken" by David Ezra Stein


For most of this past year, I had a very intense, life-consuming job that cost me a lot of the smaller moments in my children's lives. I still tried to be home for dinner (even if it meant the kids had a delayed bedtime) and I tried hard not to spend too many weekend hours catching up on work I hadn't finished during the week.

But the little "extras" -- the bake sales, the class trips -- were not to be. Until now, that is. A new, less insane job has freed up more hours in my week and made me available for some of those moments.

That's why I really wanted to be a "mystery reader" in my 5-year-old's kindergarten class this month. Every Friday, someone shows up at school to read a story to the class -- it could be a mom or dad, an older sibling, anyone special to one of the students. It's a 10-minute appearance that the kids look forward to all week, as they wonder who this week's mystery reader will be.

The teacher, of course, spends a fair amount of time arranging these appearances, so it's no mystery to her who's coming in. Em* had put herself on the schedule for a Friday in April, and had told the teacher that I was hoping to do it, but that she'd appear in my place if I couldn't make it.

Then, one night Em was reading Mary* a book called "Interrupting Chicken," in which a papa chicken tries hard to read a bedtime story to his little girl, who repeatedly breaks in to put her own ending on the tales.

It occurred to me that it might be fun for us to be a mystery reader duet, with one of us reading the part of the little interrupting chicken. We practiced reading upside down (how do kindergarten teachers do that?) and alternating lines, so we were ready to perform when we knocked on the door of the classroom.

We could hear the teacher wonder aloud "Who's our mystery reader today?" as she opened the door, then exclaim in mock surprise that there were two of us.

Turns out, the surprise was on us. As bad as I'd felt about not having gotten to know Mary's classmates this year, I hadn't thought about how they hadn't gotten to know me, either. Or about me, even.

So, as we were taking our seats in front of the reading rug, we could hear the conversation going on in back. "Who's that other lady?" "That's my other mom," Mary was explaining. "You have two moms?" "Do you have a dad?" "Which one is your real mom?"

Mary answered that last one perfectly: "They're both real." But the questions continued: "But which one did you come out of?"

Now, Em has never been entirely comfortable answering unexpected questions like these, and I could see she wasn't thrilled with the way things were going.

"That's for another day," she said, and the teacher quickly jumped in to add "Yes, children, let's start our story!"

But I was, after all, the interrupting chicken. And if there's one thing I've realized about having kids, it's that you should answer their questions as they arise. Take the opportunity to explain something in a way they can understand, and they're satisfied (at least for a little while). Don't leave them wondering, and on this topic, especially, don't make them think there's something to hide.

So, I said, "Well, I think we can answer those questions before we read our story." (I could sense the murderous twitch of Em's hands even without turning my head.) In about 30 seconds flat, I explained that Mary had been born in Russia, just like her older sister, and that they'd come to America as babies to join us, and that's how we became a family. And that was that -- asked and answered, and we went on to read our story aloud. Mary was thrilled, the children went back to their tables, and the mystery readers left the building.

Our post-mortem lasted a little longer than story time had. Em's take on it was that Mary's adoption story is hers to tell or not tell, and that by talking about it we'd intruded on her privacy. What if Mary doesn't want her classmates to know she was adopted? We can't unring this bell -- the information is out there now, like it or not.

I disagreed (obviously). There are details of both our children's adoption stories that we have not shared with anyone, not even aunts and uncles -- those particulars do belong to them, I think, and they can decide someday whom to tell, and how much. But the fact that they were adopted? To me, that needs to be out there, to be matter-of-fact, to be simple.

And, come on, now, we're both women -- people will want to know how we came to have a child, since we're clearly missing an ingredient for creating one. Why make a mystery out of it?

Em and I will continue to disagree on this one, I'm sure. If she gets questions when she's alone she'll handle them her own way (which may mean dodging them). But when the interrupting chicken is on hand, you can be sure I'll take advantage of the teaching moments and squawk away. Which is why Em just might find herself feeling a little nostalgic for my previous job, after all.

As for me, I can't wait for the next bake sale.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy

Veronica Rhodes writes about gay parenting under this pen name; read her blog on RedRoom. She and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>adoptiongay parentinggay parentsinterrupting chickenVeronica RhodesWed, 11 May 2011 13:00:00 EST'Modern Family' and Me: The Men in the Mirrorhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/04/modern-family/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/04/modern-family/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/04/modern-family/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Question: Where can I find the following family?

Two gay dads -- one slender and uncomfortable offering public displays of affection, the other hefty and prone to flamboyant gestures. Add one adopted daughter of another race, the youngest member of an extended family whose senior patriarch is remarried to a younger woman, which makes him now the parent of a child close in age to his grandchildren. Need a hint? Their wacky adventures are broadcast on Wednesday nights.

Answer: I just have to look in the mirror.

I've just described my family, whose adventures I chronicle here at ParentDish. But you can be forgiven if you mistakenly thought I was referring to "Modern Family," the ABC comedy. In fact, you wouldn't be alone -- our own relatives might have answered that question the same way.

Ever since the very first episode aired last year, our families, friends, co-workers and even a few casual strangers have noticed our resemblance to the sitcom's Cameron, Mitchell and Lily.

modern family

My own "Modern Family." Credit: David Valdes Greenwood

I'm the Cam in our house, the zaftig brunette who once was a clown and still loves costumes; my husband's the Mitch, the skinny guy with the gray beard who rolls his eyes at my exuberance when I'm not looking (and sometimes when I am). Our daughter, who I always nickname Diva in my writing (for obvious temperamental reasons), is actually named -- wait for it -- Lily.

So, while we were thrilled when "Modern Family" made history by showing a family like our own, it's been unsettling how eerily exact the portrait is.

Maybe it's just that I'm not sure how I feel about my personal doppelganger. When my own mother-in-law said Cam was just like me, it gave me pause: Do I really whinny that much? Are my hand motions that ridiculously expressive? Have I ever dressed Diva up like a character from a Broadway musical? (Maybe, yes and no.)

It's easy for my mother-in-law to enjoy the similarities because her counterpart is Sofia Vergara -- and who wouldn't like that? But mine is the campy dude who shops at the Big 'n Tall. Am I the only person ever to watch a sitcom and wonder, "Does this TV show make me look fat?" (Actually, life does that just fine.)

Don't get me wrong: We're hooked on the show, which makes us laugh every time, if sometimes uneasily. When Cam has an emotional outburst, or Mitchell gets all prickly, or they compete to see which husband some cutie is flirting with, it feels a little like reality TV -- as if our lives have been edited down to their most exaggerated moments for an audience of millions.

Of course, it isn't our actual reality: Our condo would fit into a wee corner of Mitch and Cam's vast mansion; our house is strewn with doll parts and laundry like a child actually lives there; and we don't have gay friends with campy names like Longinous and Crispin and Pepper.

Even so, the overlap is strong enough that each episode is accompanied by the same soundtrack in our house: snicker, snicker, wince; snicker, snicker, wince.

Maybe the show hits a little too close to home sometimes, but that's a nice problem to have. Let's face it: TV has never depicted families like mine in this way before. For all its zany exaggerations as befitting a sitcom, the show is a gift and not just to us. As our culture grows and adapts to new realities, the show is a reminder that while some family structures might seem new, the real challenges, pleasures and rewards we share are as old as time.

When "Modern Family" airs its season finale on May 25, The Hubby and I will be sure to gather in front of the HD mirror in our living room to see how we look. I just hope Cam wears something slimming.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>gay adoptionGay parentshumormodern familyModern Family season 2 finalesofia vergaraDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 04 May 2011 11:00:00 ESTWomen's Work: Divvying Up the Chores in an All-Girl Householdhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/04/27/chores-in-an-all-girl-household/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/04/27/chores-in-an-all-girl-household/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/04/27/chores-in-an-all-girl-household/#commentsFiled under: ,

The little girl tilted her head to one side and thought a minute.

"You do?" she asked.

"Nope," I replied. "Em does."

The girl shook her head sadly -- she wasn't very good at this game at all.

It had started a few minutes earlier, when our young neighbor stopped by to watch me pulling weeds in the garden. Joanie* was about 8 years old, and had known us since she was a toddler, when Em* and I had moved in two doors down from her family.

Funny thing about toddlers -- whatever their normal is, is normal. So, for years it hadn't struck her as strange at all that two ladies lived in that corner house, instead of a man and a woman.

But now that she was in second grade, she clearly knew we were different from other neighbors, and you could almost watch her little mental gears turning. Many times, when she stopped by to chat (and this kid was quite the chatter), the subject of two women sharing a house would come up. Today's topic: Who did what? Who did the laundry? Who killed the bugs? Who cooked?

Joanie probably wasn't conscious of it, but she was clearly trying to figure out which of us was the "man" and which was the "woman" based on what jobs we did in the house. Even though she knew we were both women, she just had to fit us into gender roles somehow.

If we lived together and ran a home together, surely we divvied up the chores the way her own parents did, the way couples did on every sitcom she saw on TV, the way she expected everyone to. And, from that, she'd be able to figure out which of us was which. But I was confounding her.

Em did the cooking in our house, but she also killed the bugs. I mowed the lawn, but I also did the laundry. Neither of us changed the oil in the car -- yuck! -- there are service stations for that. So this whole line of questioning was going nowhere for this kid, although I was rather enjoying it myself.

In our house, gender couldn't play any role in our chores. We had developed a very egalitarian system in which each of us did the chores we actually enjoyed (or disliked less), and it all worked just fine.

And then something funny happened: Em got laid off. It wasn't so funny at the time, of course -- we had two small children, and our finances were still in recovery from a couple of years' worth of staggering adoption expenses.

We'd spent our first 10 years together as DINKS, a double-income, no-kids couple with discretionary income that supported a very nice lifestyle; then we'd had a couple of years as two overstressed, time-strapped, guilt-ridden working parents paying an expensive nanny to take our place during the day.

Now, we faced a fork in the road, and we decided to use the layoff as an opportunity for Em to become a stay-at-home mom by day and grad student at night as she prepared for a career change.

We knew that decision would affect our budget -- but the restaurants we couldn't afford to patronize any more were no fun with kids in tow, anyway. And, it turned out, we liked our little family beach vacations just as much as we'd loved our European cycling trips. My income was enough to support us nicely -- not lavishly, but we didn't want for anything. (Not having to pay a nanny helped a lot.)

It also turns out that it's nice, and I mean really nice, to have an adult in the house all the time. Even with two active children, our lives calmed down tremendously. No longer were our weekends crammed with errands and chores we had no time for during the work week. No longer did we turn down party invitations so we could do the grocery shopping, get to the dry cleaners and mow the lawn. We actually had something of a life.

But here's what we didn't expect: Splitting up into breadwinner and stay-at-home mom also split our chores up along frighteningly predictable gender lines. The reason we didn't have to run all those errands on Saturday was because Em was doing them during the week.

The grocery shopping that we used to do together was now done while I worked, the fridge miraculously restocked each week with no effort from me at all. Phone calls to the cable company, the summer camps, the dentist -- all taken care of without my having to squeeze them in between meetings at the office.

I even ceded the laundry, since Em could get it done during the week instead of having it consume my Saturdays. (I'm still smarting from that one ... I had a system for the laundry!)

All I have to do is go to work every day -- and I've been doing that practically my whole life, so there's no great sacrifice there -- and I come home every night to a home-cooked meal, with food in the fridge and clean laundry in the dressers. It's kind of a beautiful thing.

It's also a very weird thing for me. Here I am, a woman, playing the Rob Petrie role -- working all day and coming home to Laura every night for my dinner. Em and the kids have developed a separate life -- playdates with kids I don't know, hours spent without me in playgrounds and in our own backyard, creating routines and memories that I'm not a part of at all.

I know it's good for the kids to have a mom who can be there for special events during the school day, but I'm never the mom who gets to do that. I'm pretty much ... the dad.

Joanie's now in high school, but if she were to stop by again today with her questions, she'd get much more predictable answers than I gave her when she was 8.

There are a lot of up-sides to this arrangement, not the least of which is that, to our girls at least, there are no gender roles at home. They may see Em doing some chores and me doing others, but they still see women doing it all. Women in our house not only cook and do laundry, they also kill bugs, shovel snow, take out trash, unclog overflowing toilets, hang holiday lights, earn a living and everything else that needs to be done in a family.

There's no such thing as women's work in our house -- it's all just work.

Our girls help with small chores now, and, when they're bigger, they'll get their share of large tasks. Maybe someday they'll find themselves married or partnered with someone who'll kill the bugs for them, take out the trash, cook or do the laundry. Who knows, maybe even change the oil.

I think they'll be better prepared for adult life, with all the many jobs they'll need to do in a day, than young Joanie will be. After a lifetime of our teaching them they can do anything, I hope they don't sit around waiting for a guy to come running with the plunger when the water's rising.

A girl can find herself in a mess of trouble that way.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy

Veronica Rhodes writes about gay parenting under this pen name; read her blog on RedRoom. She and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>gay parentinghousehold choreswomens workVeronica RhodesWed, 27 Apr 2011 10:30:00 ESTOut In Left Fieldhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/04/06/out-in-left-field/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/04/06/out-in-left-field/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/04/06/out-in-left-field/#commentsFiled under: ,

Baseball season is here, and, like millions of parents nationwide, I have Little League anxiety this week. But unlike most parents, my angst comes with a gay twist.

This is our fourth year of Little League -- and the fourth consecutive year Ann* is the only girl on the team. It's the first year on the field with Mary*, who's starting her rookie (aka Pee-Wee) year after three seasons of watching Ann play.

Being the parents of the only girl on the team, we'd probably stand out a bit, anyway. Being the two moms with the only girl on the team, we stand out just a little bit more. So, after the first practice, we don't really need to introduce ourselves.

Now, I'm not terribly sociable by nature -- I'm perfectly friendly, mind you, but I tend not to seek out conversation with strangers. Given a choice, I'd rather spend the hour waiting out a dancing class or baseball practice with my nose in the Kindle. But when it comes to my kids, I have no choice -- I have to overcome my wallflower inclinations and chat up the other parents.

The first conversation is pretty easy. Watching the kids taking their turns during practice, you only have to say to ask, "Which one is yours?" to get things started. And I've gotten pretty good at keeping that first conversation going. How long has he been playing? He's got such a good swing. Things like that.

All I have to say is, mine is the girl. That's good for a few more minutes of how she's always been the only girl on the team, and, no, she doesn't mind it a bit, and, yes, she really has a good arm.

When appropriate, I try to work in a reference to the Other Mom, figuring I may as well get it over with early, so we don't surprise anyone later. If we're alternating practices, it usually comes up at the second one. (You're the mom? There was some other woman here last week. I thought that was the mom.)

So, by the third practice, there's no doubt in anyone's mind who we are. Unfortunately, I have no idea who they are. You see, all these little boys look kind of alike to me -- they're all major league cute, and, at this age, they're still not jaded. They don't have to play it cool. Their excitement at playing ball still shines through, and it's so wonderfully innocent and heartwarming that I get a little teary-eyed just watching them.

But, seriously, I can't tell them apart. So, how do I start a conversation with a mom I talked to at last week's practice, when I can't use my "which one is yours" opener? She told me who he was, just last week. Now, was that Jimmy, or one of the Matthews or Tommy?

At every practice, though, and every game, I screw up my courage and talk to someone -- because I don't want to be the one who's standoffish, who's not friendly, who's not part of the team. I'm not giving anyone the slightest reason not to like us or our daughter. We bring snacks, we volunteer to help out, we make sure we're on time to practices and games. We're going to be the Perfect Baseball Family -- even if we are the two moms with the only girl on the team.

I don't say this to Ann, but I know she's going to have to be better than average to be part of the team. To be accepted, she can't strike out or let the grounders get by her too often. Little League Baseball rules say girls can play, but that doesn't mean anyone really wants them there. So she's going to have to prove her value to the team every week. Like it or not, she'll be held to a slightly higher standard than her boy teammates.

Everyone in our league has been completely nice and supportive of Ann, and I have no complaints at all at how she's been treated. But I can see that baseball is not about girls. They're an afterthought -- tolerated, certainly; accepted, mostly; welcomed, sometimes. But always outside the mainstream, always a little different. Not really the focus of the game. A little bit like being gay, actually.

So, we'll do absolutely everything we can to help her -- from working on her fielding between practices to bringing the best treats when we're the Snack Family to, yes, talking to other parents and trying to tell one cute little boy from another.

And, when Mary starts her baseball career this week, we'll gear up our best social skills for her, too. Because for our kids, we know we need to step up to the plate -- and we do.

*All names have been changed to protect my family's privacy.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>baseballgay parentinggirls baseballVeronica RhodesWed, 06 Apr 2011 12:00:00 ESTChildrenfreude: Why I Take Pleasure in Other Parents' Pain - and You Should, Too!http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/30/childrenfreude-why-i-take-pleasure-in-other-parents-pain-and/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/30/childrenfreude-why-i-take-pleasure-in-other-parents-pain-and/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/30/childrenfreude-why-i-take-pleasure-in-other-parents-pain-and/#commentsFiled under: , ,

My daughter, Diva, and I were at a friend's house for a playdate and Rose, her buddy, was in fine form. Just before we got there, Rose's mom had given her one explicit instruction: Stay out of the hair care products in the bathroom, which Rose had been treating like playthings.

Naturally, Rose disappeared with Diva the instant we arrived, returning moments later to show that they had frozen their tresses into sticky Aquanet sculptures. This set the tone for a day which included explicit disobedience, tantrum-throwing, a bold-face lie or two and weeping when criticized for any of the above.

I have to admit my immediate reaction was this: Oh, thank God! My daughter's not the only one! Indeed, the whole thing warmed my heart with what I'll call childrenfreude: the secret pleasure of watching bad kids happen to good parents.

Let me be clear: I'm not usually one who gloats in the face of another's pain. Yes, if a real jerk gets his comeuppance, I might feel a little twinge of satisfaction. And, if a politician who has made hay decrying the existence of my family is caught with his pants literally down, I'll think he deserves all the mockery he gets. Yet, even then, I feel badly for his poor family, forced to endure his shame, as well.

On this playdate, I truly sympathized with Rose's mom, who was clearly stunned by her daughter's behavior. Like any other kid, Rose can be willful and grumpy by spells, but most of the time she listens to her parents, does her part to help with her two younger sisters and is a joy to be around. This saucy, downright confrontational Rose was new, partly the product of a weekend spent with older cousins whose independence she wanted to mimic.

But her actions also reflected her age: Between 5 and 6, a lot of kids end up questioning why it is that they have to follow so many seemingly arbitrary rules on command.

Seeing my friend confront this exaggerated version of her daughter was encouraging to me because I'd lately witnessed so many similar scenes in my own house. Diva -- a girl mostly good about sharing her toys, playing with others and listening to her dads -- has been going through spells of behavior that can only be described as bratty.

She'll look us in the eyes and say, "I won't ever do that. You can't make me." She's gotten eye-rolling down to a science and has added little raspberry sounds of disgust to the routine. Some days, the shrieking chorus to every song is "Bad Papa!" or "Bad Daddy!" It's maddening enough at home; when such stunts happen in public, I worry my head might explode.

I admit, as a gay dad, there's an added pressure to these moments. Because my family configuration is so rare, and so many people are happy to use our existence as proof of their beliefs (for good or ill), every public success or failure takes on added meaning. And no one -- gay or straight -- likes to parent under a microscope.

That's why I couldn't stop smiling at Rose's house. It's not that I didn't feel my friend's pain, but that I understood it so exactly. And, as the parent whose child was not acting up in the moment, I could better see Rose's behaviors for what they were: irritating and obviously crafted to get a response, but completely transient.

From my safe remove, I could see that these meltdowns weren't the end of the world -- they just felt that way to the mom who had to endure them.

I think we parents all need to witness each other's worst days just to get through our own. For me, it's not really so much pleasure as relief in knowing that no matter what insane-making thing my child does, I'm not the first to live through it.

In future playdates between Rose and Diva, there will be ample opportunities for Diva to show off her she-demon side. And when Rose's mom can't help but laugh, I promise not to hold it against her.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>gay dadsgay parentingsame sex parentsDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 30 Mar 2011 13:00:00 ESTComing Out Again and Againhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/23/coming-out/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/23/coming-out/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/23/coming-out/#commentsFiled under: ,

To be gay is to have a coming out story -- that day when we finally confided in a friend, confessed to a crush, told the family or found ourselves accidentally outed on Facebook.

Together, these transitional moments moved us from life before to life after, and they deliver us to our new identities -- as members of a despised minority. Hooray!

But unlike other outcasts, we have our secret weapon called "passing." I don't wear man-style clothing or sport a butch buzz cut, so I'm contentedly, anonymously gay when I want to be. I can ride safely on a subway car filled with homophobes any time I want, assuming I don't wear my "Nobody knows I'm a lesbian" T-shirt.

And, for 10 years after I came out, I had the choice of revealing myself or not, as I saw fit. My family and friends knew I was gay, as did most of my coworkers and my closest neighbors. But to the dry cleaner, the crossing guard, the guy at the corner store who sold me milk at midnight, I was just another customer -- no personal details needed, thank you very much.

And then I became a mom.

The minute Em* and I started walking around the neighborhood pushing a stroller, we may as well have had that T-shirt slogan tattooed on our foreheads. At first, there were the double-takes and the cautious questions -- they were actually kind of funny to me (less so to Em, who found them excruciating).

You could practically see the thought bubbles over people's heads: Just where did that baby come from? Whose is it? Are those two women, um, you know?

And we were determinedly matter-of-fact about it. The baby had been born in Russia, and we had recently adopted her. Yes, together.

But that was nothing compared to what followed in the next few years. Once we had Ann*, and then Mary*, there was no more passing -- we were and are out every day. Every stinking day, like it or not, we are out.

We've outed ourselves to potential baby-sitters, to the pediatrician, to the preschool. We've done it in words ("Ann and Mary have two moms") and in deed (as we crossed out the "father" line on emergency contact sheets and Little League registration forms and wrote in "mother" again). We helped one elderly neighbor figure it out ("Are you the mom?" "Yes, I'm the mom." "I thought that other lady was the mom?" "We're both the moms." Pause. "Ohhhhhhhhhh ...")

Sometimes it's easy, and, if I'm in the right mood, it can even be fun. The dry cleaner was fun, to me at least, when he assumed Em (who is younger than I am) was our daughters' grandmother. I got less of a kick out of the mom at the schoolyard who visibly blanched when I introduced myself as Ann's other mom.

Some outings are really hard from the get-go, but surprise us on the other side. After a decade of solo membership in our local church, Em had to walk into the parish office to make arrangements for Ann's baptism, which just may have been the bravest thing she's ever done.

A few weeks later, we went to church together with our 18-month-old baby and 50 of our closest friends, along with half-a-dozen straight couples and their newborns. To our joy, the church was open to naming two lesbians as the parents on the baptismal certificate, but declined to include our choice of godmother because she's a Quaker. We do live in funny times.

We couldn't have "passed" that day in church, but we've had our opportunities and we deliberately don't take them. We know this is for our girls' sake -- if we act embarrassed or ashamed of our family, what message do we give them?

Only if we are matter-of-fact about our family structure will we convey our pride in who we are, absent any labels anyone puts on us. So, we make damned sure everyone knows: the school principal, the baseball coach, everyone. Even the lady in front of us at the checkout line who made a rude comment about Ellen DeGeneres's wedding photo on the cover of a tabloid -- she knows now, too (whoever she was). If I let my kids hear her kind of bigoted remark go unchallenged, what am I telling them about our family?

But, still, I cringed a little inside at that incident. Couldn't I just buy the dang groceries without having to do this again? "I think it's great," I said with a smile I hope she didn't know was forced. "My family is gay, too." I scored points for visibility, and for family pride, but they didn't come easy.

And, so, we out ourselves, or our kids out us, every day. Some days we do it proudly, others we wish maybe, just this once, we could pull the covers back up and not have to say it again. But we know we're doing the right thing.

One recent morning, when a scheduling problem had me doing the school drop-off rather than running for my early train, my kindergartner dragged me up the steps announcing to everyone that this mommy is taking me to school today because my regular mommy is busy. I've never felt quite so regular as I did at that moment.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>coming outComingOutgay parentingGayParentingVeronica RhodesWed, 23 Mar 2011 12:00:00 ESTIndependent Spunk Vs. Pretty Princess: A Dad's Lesson in Trusting Positive Parentinghttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/16/independent-spunk-vs-pretty-princess-a-dads-lesson-in-trustin/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/16/independent-spunk-vs-pretty-princess-a-dads-lesson-in-trustin/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/16/independent-spunk-vs-pretty-princess-a-dads-lesson-in-trustin/#commentsFiled under: ,

When my daughter was not quite 3, she told my husband and me that she wanted to be a chicken for an upcoming costume party.

We thought this was hilarious and I found myself snootily proud of her choice. See, my kid's no joiner. Let every other girl be Cinderella; mine is going to be a chicken.

I did what any self-respecting gay dad would do next: I bought feathers -- lots of them -- and began sewing the bantam costume of her dreams. But then, the unthinkable happened: She came home the next day saying she wanted to be a princess, instead. How did this happen?!

She'd gotten the idea from day care, though it was never clear whether the mastermind had been a teacher or playmate -- toddlers can be so vague! Either way, I was outraged and disappointed that she'd been led away from her perfectly original first idea and steered down the conformist path. So, as excited as she was about her new choice, I didn't exactly run to a fabric store to make her a fabulous ball gown.

We live in the liberal Northeast and move in circles where princess culture is viewed with deep suspicion, as the embodiment of old school sexism mixed with naked consumerism. My husband and I boasted that our daughter wouldn't be the princess type -- we were raising a strong girl with independence and spunk, not a damsel in distress waiting to be saved.

So, I put off her costume request, hoping it would go the way of the chicken, soon replaced by something else. Instead, she dug in deeper -- and so did I.

My husband broke the stalemate. He pointed out that if we'd had a son who wanted to dress like a princess, we'd have said yes in a heartbeat, proud of ourselves for supporting his self-expression. Yet, we had trouble supporting a girl who wanted the very same thing. What sense did it make for gay dads to tell their daughter she couldn't be whatever she wanted?

When I was her age, I hated being told what toys I should play with. I waged a two-year battle to get a baby doll before my religious grandmother finally, reluctantly, gave in. The year I wanted to be Wonder Woman for Halloween, that wish was granted, too, but only after days of heated arguments and compromise from all sides.

Though I outgrew dolls, and drag never became a hobby, I still classify those childhood moments as victories -- times when my family accepted me as the child I was, not the child they wished for.

Resisting my daughter's princess wish would have been just as closed-minded as my grandmother's battle to butch up her grandson. I decided to trust that, as long we keep offering positive messages about strong women for balance, a little tulle and glitter won't forever ruin our daughter's future.

I put the feathers away and switched over to sequins -- I was thrilled when she announced she wanted her dress to be blue, not pink. The unexpected color seemed like a subtly rebellious choice to me, at least until she tried it on and sighed, "Oh, Papa, now I look like Cinderella!"

I bit my lip to keep from starting a lecture, and just let her have her moment -- swirling around the living room -- totally a princess.

Veronica Rhodes and David Valdes Greenwood alternate weeks writing the Family Gaytriarchs. Look for them on ParentDish every Wednesday.

David Valdes Greenwood has written about marriage and parenting for the Boston Globe and in his first book "Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage." The author of three nonfiction books and the creator of the blog "Diva Has Two Daddies," he also finds time to be a kindergarten room parent and Barbie pretend play expert. Read his blog on Red Room.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>gaygay parentingGayParentingprincessprincess culturePrincessCultureDavid Valdes GreenwoodWed, 16 Mar 2011 12:00:00 ESTAussie Lesbian Couple Gives Birth to Quintuplets Without IVFhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/14/aussie-lesbian-couple-gives-birth-to-quintuplets-without-ivf/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/14/aussie-lesbian-couple-gives-birth-to-quintuplets-without-ivf/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/03/14/aussie-lesbian-couple-gives-birth-to-quintuplets-without-ivf/#commentsFiled under: ,

pregnant stomach woman picture

Five babies equal one big belly. Credit: jupiterimages

The odds of having quintuplets are a staggering one in 60 million, but a lesbian couple from Down Under conceived five babies without IVF.

Melissa Keevers, 27, delivered boys Noah, Charlie and girls Eireann, Evie and Abby at a Brisbane hospital on Jan. 2 at 26 weeks, Australian Woman's Day magazine reports.

The preemies, who ranged in weight from just more than 1.8 pounds to just under 2 pounds, were delivered by a team of 25 doctors and nurses, joined Lily, their 18-month-old big sister. Keevers and her partner, Rosemary Nolan, 22, tell the magazine they were very teary-eyed when the babies were born.

"It was such a journey before they arrived that when we actually met them we realized what it was all for," Nolan tells Woman's Day.

The couple was not able to hold the babies for the first week, the magazine reports, as the quintuplets were in intensive care.

"After just having five babies it's hard to only be able to visit them and touch them through a hole in the crib," Keevers tells Woman's Day, adding that when they finally were allowed to give them a cuddle "you can't put into words what it's like to finally hold them."

The babies are thriving, according to the magazine, having put on weight, and Noah, the oldest and heaviest, is out of the incubator and being breast-fed, although doctors have still not said when the children can go home.

The babies' father is a 27-year-old U.S. law student who is also the biological father of Lily, Woman's Day reports, adding that the couple met him through an Internet fertility company and he apparently has signed away all rights.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]>lesbian couplelesbian quintupletsLesbianCoupleLesbianQuintupletsquinupletssame sex coupleSameSexCouplesperm donorSpermDonorNicki GostinMon, 14 Mar 2011 16:00:00 EST