Raising Baby T. Rex: Dinos Resist! A Guide to Raising a Little Activist
I started taking Remi to political and activist spaces when she was very small. Partly this is because I work in the often-fraught world of “professional activism,” a.k.a. paid community organizing and legislative advocacy and civil rights nonprofit work. When I went back to work after parental leave, Remi was eight weeks old and it was literally my job to show up to government meetings and community organizing planning sessions and rallies and marches and protests.
In many ways, I’m extremely lucky. I’m living the dream of a lot of y’all: fighting the good fight and getting paid a living wage for it, to boot. In other ways, I’m limited by having to channel my activism through my work, leaving little time for me to pursue things I’m personally passionate about. Or, rather, finding it incredibly hard to extrapolate my personal activism from my work activism because there’s so much overlap. Regardless, activist spaces are just a part of my life out of choice and out of obligation to my job.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BQy5K5FBn96/
It was inevitable that I’d be one of those parents who brings their kids with them. When Remi was very little, she spent half-days at the office with me. I had a whole setup in my office with places for Remi to play and sleep. I’d sometimes hire babysitters to come to my office so I could slip out for a city council meeting or evening training. Other times, I’d strap Remi to me and we’d head out to a rally or meeting or event. Often, I’d schedule meetings at my office so I could let Remi play on the floor while we planned and strategized around campaigns.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BWmlcBFBp-S/
My job responsibilities changed around Remi’s tenth month of life and I’m out in the field less now. It’s honestly a welcome reprieve with a little one around, but it also means I have fewer opportunities to share my work with Remi. I still try to take her to events like lobby days and meetings where I think I’ll be able to provide kid-friendly space.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BgSACMZDRf7/
Before I had kids, I saw parents (usually cis moms) bringing their kids to marches and rallies and meetings and I was so in awe of how they made motherhood/parenting and activism look so seamlessly compatible. If I ever wanted to have kids, I’d wanna be like that, I’d think. I wouldn’t slow down at all. I’d just bring them with me.
Now that I have a toddler, I realize how challenging it is to bring a kid to a lobby day or entertain a kid through a three-hour meeting. Y’all. It’s exhausting. It’s often embarrassing and overwhelming.
Yet I do it anyway — out of necessity when I can’t get a babysitter, usually — but also because I want Remi to have these formative experiences. She doesn’t totally understand what we’re doing yet, but I want advocacy and activism to be a part of her story of growing up. Who knows?
For example, on a recent trip to Albany to see a long, long, long overdue transgender non-discrimination bill pass, I brought Remi into the Senate Gallery with me so I could watch the vote. One of my queer mom friends who used to work on that legislative campaign also brought her kid, who’s younger than Remi. I was very jealous of her ability to nurse her kid through it while mine was yelling, “Baby Shark!” “Yeah!” “Mommy!” during the floor debate. Remi was having a ton of fun, but I eventually had to take her out to the hallway outside the Senate Gallery anyway because she was just too loud and is not yet old enough to sit still and be quiet for more than five minutes at a time. I missed the actual vote because I set up a station for Remi on a bench and didn’t feel like packing up to bring her back in.
http://www.instagram.com/p/Bs03Ej6hxq5/
Later, my boss asked me to speak at a press conference about the bill, which was a really nice thing to ask me to do. However, the press conference went on for hours, Remi got hungry and frustrated, and it was ultimately… very hard for both of us. At one point, Remi just spread out face down on the floor and I let her because, like, I was right there with her and also she wasn’t running around or touching anyone, so it was a better situation IMO.
It was OK, though. I was glad we were there. I’m glad I have these pics to show Remi, that I can tell her she was a part of this historic vote, that she got to see protections enacted that directly impact her family and her dad. It was worth it.
I want Remi to see herself as a member of society with an obligation to helping others. I hope that, in small ways, she is getting that message through osmosis, through coming with me into the “field” and through seeing me working. I feel bad about how much I work and how that takes time away from her, but I also feel proud that she sees me working and will grow up with a sense that activism, hard work, and helping others is important.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BmJUp4OhzPi/
My parents didn’t necessarily try to include me in their activism with intention, I don’t think, but I remember much of it distinctly. They were both involved in their teachers’ union and my dad was the president of the union at their rural school district. I remember stuffing folders for union meetings, cuddling up to my mom in my parents’ bed during my dad’s annual trip to Albany for the union’s lobby day.
I remember watching them plot to systemically take over the local school board and starting their own activist organization in our town to do so, spray-painting lawn signs in a barn with other parents. I often was brought along, probably out of necessity. I didn’t really understand the context for it all and I was often bored and stuck playing with other people’s kids for longer than I would have preferred. Later, as an adult, I realized that my inherently strong moral compass was bolstered, in large part, by seeing my parents affect change in their communities throughout my life.
I want Remi to have that gift and I hope that one day she finds her own way to fight for the causes that are important to her, even if they’re different than my own. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to really understand what I do, what we are doing together, to form her own opinions and ask her own questions about it. I can’t wait to see what gifts Remi brings to the movement.
These days, when I see another parent dragging their kids along to some action or community meeting or what-have-you, I give them a knowing smile. It’s not easy. We’re making it look easy, but it’s all a show. What I’m saying is, if you’re sitting in the Senate Gallery trying to hear the floor debate and someone’s kid starts crying or yelling “Baby Shark!,” please be kind to them. They’re doing their best and that kid is going to be awesome one day very soon.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BpNHqgqHFwn/
Four Queer Parenting Things I’m Currently Over-Processing
1) Four Words, Y’all!
Out of seemingly nowhere last week, Remi started busting out complete sentences and four-word sentences. “I want the apple!” “Get my cup!” “I want to go!” As you can tell, she’s two years old and pretty demanding. Waffle and I were both floored. We were eating breakfast out two weekends ago and she just started saying whole sentences out of the mother f-ing blue!
Language development is so cool and weird! I can’t believe that she’ll be basically talking like an adult in a year.
2. Potty Training Prep
Remi is showing a lot of signs of potty-training readiness. We’ve been talking about the potty, playing with potty toys, reading books about the potty, watching kids’ TV shows about using the potty. We weren’t going to get her a little kid potty. Rather, we planned to just let her use the big potty right away (with a seat insert for little butts) but decided to get her a free-standing little potty after she started showing a genuine interest.
Honestly, we’re both feeling pretty gun-shy. I don’t want to start until Remi can completely remove and put on her pants by herself. She’s close — she’s got the legs and front all figured out — but she’s still learning how to get the pants over her rear end. I also kind of want her to be even more verbal and patient before we start because I don’t want it to go on forever. That said, she understand us and follows directions pretty well already.
I know it’s not a race. I also know that somehow Remi will be potty-training probably before her next birthday. It’s just really hard to imagine. It feels like when we were transitioning her off of bottles or when she started eating real solid food, like… HOW?! I imagine, like those things, it will just happen with some patience and practice. At the moment, it feels impossible that we’ll figure this out in the next few months?
3. Parenting Things I’ve Googled This Week:
- potty training average age
- orange feet toddler cause
- how many words should a 28 month old know
- language development two three years old
- above average language skills toddler
4. Penguins, Attention!
Like the Other Kids
On the last hot day of the summer, I met up with three of my best friends at a nearby playground. Our kids hadn’t seen each other in a while, and we had so much to talk about. Of course, we talked in spurts between our kids’ interruptions, as parents do. As the day got hotter, the kids moved to the splash pad area of the playground. I’m kind of an asshole when it comes to leaving the house prepared, so of course my kid didn’t have a bathing suit.
“Just get wet in your clothes!” I yell to my kid.
“But it will be uncomfortable! Can I take my shirt off like the other kids? Please?”
“No, because those kids are boys, and you are a girl,” I reply in a hushed tone.
“THAT’S SEXIST!” my child rightfully replies, and crumples to the ground.
And here I have come to another parenting crossroads: here I am, enforcing a patriarchal gender binary. Here I am, saying something I would never say to a cisgender girl. But my child is transgender, and I want to to protect her.
All of my friends gathered here were straight, and most of the kids were cisgender boys, with one cisgender girl. They held back offering any opinions because they’re truly lovely and trust my parenting, but I could tell they were shocked. And honestly, so was I. I’m super queer, and my co-parent is a trans woman, and here I am, sounding like some 1950s health class video.
My child came out as transgender when she was in preschool. She’s nine now. During that time, I’ve done my best to help her feel empowered and keep her safe, failing miserably from time to time. I’ve watched her introduce herself with internalized cissexism. “I look like a boy, but I’m really a girl.” She easily passes as a girl, with long hair and the tackiest, glitter- and kitten-covered clothes any one can find; but she’s not sure other people see her as she sees herself in her heart. It breaks my heart to watch her, with her little child voice, preemptively advocate for herself.
As she got older, I saw the gender binary boxes get shored up by the kids around her. Gender roles were much more entrenched in second and third grade. When she told her preschool classmates during her transition, “People thought I was a boy, but in my heart, I’m a girl,” it was met with a shrug. Because she’s really into science, sometimes she would explain her identity as “I’m a girl and I have a y chromosome,” to which the other kids might respond, “I’m a boy and I have an Xbox!” Then they’d run off together to track dragons.
Now, I see children making all sorts of attacks on cisgender kids for not being good at their gender performance. If a cis girl hears “you’re not girly enough,” then that’s really shitty and should be stopped. But if a trans girl hears that, it means something even more awful for her. You’re not really a girl. You’re bad at being a girl. You’re a fake girl. You’re a boy.
On top of how hard it is to be transgender in a cissexist world, it’s also really hard to be a child. It can be hard to have two moms in a heterosexist world. It can be hard to have a transgender mom. Put that all together, and I’m just one giant ball of anxiety who is frequently at a loss for the perfect way to help my child navigate the world. Oh, and I’m a target for heterosexist bullshit, too.
Shitty people “blame” bad parenting for kids being trans all the time, and straight cis parents have to deal with that horribleness, too. But we’ve even had kind of cool people “blame” us for our kid being trans. Obviously, the reasoning goes, we were too proud and weren’t considering what kind of influence we were having on our child, and now she’s forced to be trans. She was never allowed to “explore” if she’s cis. She’s mimicking her trans mama, because we’re way too focused on queer politics to properly raise a cis kid. Of course, these statements could be completely flipped to explain how hard it is to be a queer kid in a homophobic household, and the double standard is offensive enough. But underlying this statement is the implication that we did something bad to our kid; that being trans is bad. Straight parents are told this all the time, that they did something bad and hurt their kids by making them trans. But we in specific are being told our identities are bad, and it’s our identities that hurt our kid.
My child is standing on the shoulders of Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Jazz Jennings, and everyone else that has fought so hard for a world where a preschooler can realize she is transgender, be supported by her school’s policies, and have the resources she needs. However, for so many of us, we realized we were LGBTQ after we are already homophobic, heterosexist, and cissexist. It’s a weird thing to go through, to have to rekindle a love for ourselves while living in a world that hates us, especially after we participated in that hate once, too. We’re doing our best to help our child avoid that particular internalization, but her parents didn’t.
I’ve mostly vanquished that voice in my head that says I’m not good enough because I’m not straight, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. I call her Brenda, after Katya Zamolodchikova’s negative voice. When I talk about my child’s gender to people in her life, Brenda is there with me. As I’m arming her for the world, I’m fighting both cissexism and Brenda. Straight parents need to be just as strong and aware as queer parents when raising a trans child, and they will have to unlearn and grow as a straight and cis ally, but they don’t necessarily have to fight their own internalized hatred of themselves. This experience is even more intense for my co-parent, because she shares a transgender identity with our child.
When my child started kindergarten at her public school, the staff there were really excited to implement their new professional development. They were eager to give my child interventions, such as an in-school therapist. They used all the proper language. They were committed to welcoming my child. And they were all straight as fuck. They were honestly so into themselves and how prepared they were to be an ally to my child that it was hard for me to point out just how wrong they were.
During a talk with the principal, she casually said “All kids mimic their parents, and that’s fine.” Ice ran down my spine; I knew she was revealing that she thinks my kid is only trans because her mama is. I wanted to say “Yeah, by turning a banana into a phone and pretending to make dinner plans with their friends, not by adopting their gender!” But there was Brenda, whispering in the back of my mind that if I counter what the principal thinks, she’ll take away the interventions. The principal isn’t a queer weirdo like me, so I should just let her say whatever she wants.
When I met my child’s first grade teacher, she said that she thinks it’s best to just let my child “be gender neutral” — why make her choose? She went on to explain that she didn’t think such labels were “helpful for childhood development.” My head swirled with this casual condemnation of my parenting and my child’s gender. This teacher had clearly never heard about the struggles agender and genderqueer people go through, either. But instead, I stayed quiet, convinced by Brenda’s voice telling me look! Even my child’s teacher is more radical about gender than me! She knows that I pushed my queer lifestyle onto my child and didn’t work hard enough to let my child feel free. I bit my tongue and didn’t point out just how completely cissexist she was being.
But in the straight, cis echo chamber of my child’s school, this became a progressive idea. I began to hear it from the principal, an administrator, and the other first grade teacher. Now I had to push back on the bullshit that I had allowed to go unchecked. At the next check-in meeting with my child’s teacher, therapist, and administrators, I had to lay out that the idea that transgender kids are “forced to choose” a gender is ridiculous. No one is questioning whether the cis kids are being forced to choose. Additionally, my child’s gender is not a label; it’s an identity. This identity has been forged by badass transgender people before her, and she continues to create her own relationship to her identity as she desires. When people with privilege refer to marginalized identities as “labels,” they are ignoring that these identities are sites of community and struggle for liberation. As an ally, it is their job to accept what queer and transgender people say, not to embellish on it. And THAT is what I should have said from the beginning, right after I told Brenda to shut the hell up.
Like all parents, I have no idea what I’m doing. We all have baggage we’re hopefully working through, and that can get in the way of trusting our parenting choices. I have no clue if I’m making the correct choices. For our family, sometimes gender-neutral parenting can seem like gender-derisive parenting. For our family, when my child says she does something because she is a girl, it’s not appropriate for us to sit down for a talk about breaking down the gender binary. When she says “I wear dresses because I’m a girl,” she’s speaking about her own experiences as a transgender child. “Boys can wear dresses, too, honey,” could seem like I’m saying that wearing dresses isn’t enough for her to be considered a girl. If a cisgender girl says something about her appearance, it can be harmful to continue to focus on that. I really don’t think I would comment on a cisgender girl’s appearance when she points out her clothes. But when my child, who thinks she “looks like a boy,” twirls in her dress, I tell her she looks beautiful. And because I know that my baby’s heart breaks when she is called a boy by other kids on the playground, my daughter wears a shirt in the splash pad.
“Just Treat Me Like Any Other Mother”: What Queer-Affirming Doulas Can Provide New LGBT Parents
Pregnancy and birth occupy a strange place in American culture. On the one hand, pregnancy and birth are seen as natural events that occur in most people’s lives, a given that most feminine-presenting people are expected to want wholeheartedly and without reservation. Those who decide not to have children are still seen as strange, unnatural, and perhaps event deviant. In fact, an entire culture (or perhaps counter culture) has risen up to give voice to this viewpoint, wherein childfree adults assert their right to not do what compulsive heteronormative culture insists we must do, which is grow up, get married, and pop out a couple of bouncing babies in order to live anything resembling a full and meaningful life. This trajectory was described as “straight time” by queer theorist and Columbia University professor Jack Halberstam, a nod to the compulsory aspect of our culture when it comes to idealized relationships between cisgender men and women. For queer folks, however, that trajectory is more complicated. Unlike the scores of cookie cutter rom coms, there are very few representations of queer partnerships that result in children and parenting. Yet pregnancy and birth are most certainly realities for queer folks of all genders, whether we’re represented or not.
“I was creating a queer family, placing a kid in an open adoption with a gay couple, which for me is an extension of my queerness. And literally NOTHING in modern medicine bears this in mind as an option at all.”
This is where doulas come in. For queer couples already facing marginalization in their lives and relationship before making the decision to become pregnant, the presence of a doula can be profound. “I became a doula in order to provide specific support for queer families,” full-spectrum doula Rachel Gellert says. “When I first stepped into the birth work world, I was a bit apprehensive — generally the language I was seeing was very cis and hetero-centric. I wanted to provide services that not only represented, but celebrated queer people and queer families.”
So what does queer-specific doula care entail? According to Rachel, there are a myriad of ways to be a doula that’s inclusive of LGBTQ+ identities and experiences, starting with the terminology included on her paperwork. Never assuming someone’s gender, and making the deliberate choice to include gender-neutral language on intake paperwork is one of the first steps that a doula can take to ensure their practice is queer-affirming. Rachel also makes a point of making space for clients to describe their families in open-ended ways. “I always ask my clients how they define their family!” Rachel says. ‘What do you plan on having your child call you?’ ‘Who is important in your lives?’ ‘Tell me more about your family…’ are some of the questions she asks them early on in the process. “This can be such a joyful conversation and is an important part of my prenatal visits.”
As a queer-affirming doula, Rachel is sometimes present before conception. There are many types of doulas, she says, and a fertility doula in particular might be present at impregnation, or even as a source of support before then. “Many queer folks make the decision that they want to start a family, but after a quick Google search, find themselves extremely overwhelmed and without any idea of where to start!” Rachel says. A queer-affirming doula will be familiar with the process, and can be an invaluable resource in navigating it. “Queer affirming doulas would be able to provide referrals, evidence-based resources, preconception health and wellness education, and, as always, a non-judgmental, supportive space to talk through your options.”
Queer non-binary playwright and life coach Mariah MacCarthy experienced the benefits of doulas services first-hand when they were pregnant. “My unique needs had nothing to do with my sexuality/gender identity (I didn’t know I was non-binary at the time), and everything to do with my being a birth mother,” Mariah says. “At the same time, though, my queerness and my birth motherhood are utterly intertwined; I was creating a queer family, placing a kid in an open adoption with a gay couple, which for me is an extension of my queerness. And literally NOTHING in modern medicine bears this in mind as an option at all.”
“I didn’t want to be treated like an alien,” Mariah says. They described how the nurses on staff were also unfamiliar with a birth mother who wasn’t a teenager navigating an unplanned pregnancy. “There were multiple times when nurses would see on my chart that I was placing the kid for adoption, and they would kinda stare at me like, ‘So, what does this mean?’ and I would have to say, ‘Don’t do anything differently, just treat me like any other mother.’” Mariah wanted to bond with the baby, hold him, nurse him. “I wanted to do all the mom-things, and hey were just very clearly not used to working with someone in my situation,” they recall. For Mariah, the doula they worked with was also a birth mother. “She was probably the first birth mother my own age that I ever met. So I felt comfortable opening up to her about what I was going through in a way I couldn’t with just about anyone else.”
Doulas who work with queer patients also must factor in how things like dysmorphia or dysphoria can impact pregnancy. According to Rachel, just being a safe and knowledgeable person to talk about such feelings can be a helpful part of a queer-affirming doula’s repertoire – doulas or other medical providers who aren’t well-versed in queer health issues perhaps wouldn’t be able to provide the same space for client’s experiencing dysphoria during pregnancy. “A doula is there to validate and listen and make sure that their client has all the external support that they need,” Rachel says. But she adds that it’s important for a queer-affirming doula to know what her limitations are; the role of a doula, after all, is not meant to take the place of a counselor or therapist, as the training and resources are different for both professions. Therefore, it’s important for a queer-affirming doula to know what their resources are, and when to make referrals for clients. Rachel says that she’s also a fan of group therapy or support groups. “What every person needs is going to be different, but having a space to talk to folks with shared experience can be so powerful. Even if there isn’t a band-aid fix, sometimes just having someone listen and say ‘me too’ can make a significant difference. This is why I believe finding queer/trans community through pregnancy and family building is so crucial.”
Another part of queer affirming doula work includes recognizing that the common narratives around pregnancy don’t always fit for everyone – and are perhaps even more likely to be a difficult fit for clients of more marginalized identities in terms of their gender and sexuality. Pregnancy and birth are so often seen as “miraculous,” “joyful,” and “beautiful” experiences, perceptions that often overlook the pain, discomfort, and fear that pregnant people face throughout the process. “It is important to understand that the changing pregnant body will not be a positive experience for everyone. Some people might experience body dysmorphia and/or a wide range of difficult emotions during pregnancy. I’ve had clients share frustrations that just walking around as a queer pregnant person requires them to come out on a daily, if not hourly, basis,” Rachel says.
Similarly, because narratives about pregnancy and birth so often focus on images of a heterosexual family dynamic – a straight, cisgender pregnant woman, and a straight, cisgender male partner – queer clients are often met with scrutiny, disbelief, and rudeness from strangers who feel they have a right to all the information regarding how such an “unusual” pregnancy could possibly take place. “Most pregnant people face a barrage of invasive questions, assumptions, and comments, and for queer, trans, and non-binary pregnant folks these questions are often taken to a whole new level: How did you get pregnant? Why isn’t your partner carrying the child? Whose sperm did you use?” Rachel says. This is the result of the hypervisibility of being both pregnant and visibly queer. It can be experienced as violence or trauma for a pregnant person.
“What every person needs is going to be different, but having a space to talk to folks with shared experience can be so powerful. Even if there isn’t a band-aid fix, sometimes just having someone listen and say ‘me too’ can make a significant difference.”
In some ways, doula work – and obstetrics/gynecology more generally perhaps – is more of an art than a science. After all, as Annemarie Plenert wrote for The Establishment, “The only universal truth about childbirth is that the baby has to come out somehow.” There is a lot of unpredictability in delivering a baby, and part of a doula’s job during labor is to make that unpredictability as easy to navigate for the client as possible. For queer clients, this can mean intervening on their behalf if new and unfamiliar staff is suddenly on call — a not-infrequent occurrence during labor, which can last for several hours or even days. “In a hospital setting, a major difficulty is that you never really know who will be on staff when your client goes into labor. I have seen OB-GYNs, midwifes, and nurses who have provided my queer clients with amazing, loving, affirming, rock solid care,” Rachel says. However, she’s also seen the flip side of that, sometimes when the shift changes and unfamiliar staff are brought in. “Sometimes it’s ‘small’ things like a specific nervousness or an awkwardness in the room – which one of my clients referred to this as ‘homo-timidness.’ Sometimes, unfortunately, there are more harmful challenges, like inappropriate comments, invasive questions around pregnancy, bodies, and sex that are not medically relevant, lack of respect or regard for the couple’s relationship.”
Queer couples, too, have to face challenges that straight couples do not, such as if the non-birthing partner has to file paperwork in order to adopt the baby after the birth. The clients’ sense of safety is of utmost importance, especially during the high-stress, high-adrenaline, and high-stakes nature of labor and delivery for queer parents. “As a doula, it is essential that I am following my client’s lead. My role is to validate my client’s experience, support them in advocating for themselves, and help them pursue follow-up action if they choose.”
So how can clients recognize when a doula they might be interested in working with is specifically queer-affirming? What are some key attributes to be on the look-out for? First, Rachel recommends a face-to-face initial consultation, which some doulas will do for free, and others will charge a small fee for. “A good fit is important,” Rachel stresses. “Trust your gut!” If you get a bad or uncomfortable feeling from someone during your first consultation, she says, you should listen to and honor that voice. “There will be someone who will be a better fit for you.” And when browsing for doulas, make sure you pay attention to the web pages. Are queer couples specifically represented on their website and in their reference material? Are there quotes and testimonies from other queer families they’ve worked with before? Or are their queer-affirming services a throwaway line tacked into a bio without anything to back it up?
It’s important to do your research, and to do your research well; the relationship with a doula takes place over several months, under vulnerable circumstances, and is a very intimate one where you’ll want to have the right person on your side. For queer, trans people of color, this is even more important. For Black women in particular, pregnancy and birth are not so much the “miracles” they’re touted to be in our cultural lexicon, as they are potentially deeply dangerous and risky experiences. Black women are three to four times likelier to die in childbirth than white women. Even famous or wealthy Black women, like Serena Williams, aren’t immune from such risks, and experts say that racism – both systemically (widespread and embedded in U.S. culture), and specifically within the health care industry, is to blame for this shameful statistic. “The rate of maternal mortality for Black women in the United States is consistent across class lines and are a direct result of interpersonal, structural, and institutional racism in our healthcare system,” Rachel says. “But the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, SisterSong, and Ancient Song Doula Services are examples of incredible organizations leading the way” in recognizing and preventing health inequities for Black folks – queer and straight – in the process of family building.
Clearly, working as a doula is emotionally and physically demanding. But, Rachel says, it’s also some of the most beautiful and rewarding work she’s done, especially as a member of the queer community herself. “As a queer doula, I have found my work with queer families to be really healing — maybe part of that’s because I can see a version of what my own future family could look like, an image I definitely did not see as a kid.” In such a compulsively heteronormative world, where there are still so few depictions of queer families and queer love reflected back to us in mainstream media, working with queer people to build their families is a radical and transformative experience, according to Rachel. “I love the intimacy of working with queer couples. I love that I get to witness the strength of queer partnership at such an important moment in my client’s life. I love that I get to be there when a new life is born, but also when new queer parents are born. It is one of the most humbling feelings I have ever experienced. My favorite part of working with queer families is that I can often feel my queer teenage self in the room — as if she is watching and recognizing that queer joy and family is not only possible, but deeply beautiful and real.”
Raising Baby T. Rex: Terrifying Sharks for a Toddler Ocean Explorer
My hand-painted white tee featured a crudely drawn killer whale and the words “Save the Whales,” because it was the 90’s and I was really into Free Willy. I was 10. My career goals included joining Greenpeace and cutting whale nets to free all captive marine life.
The right-side-up killer whale I painted looked more like a breaching blue whale because I used way too much white paint. My overzealous painting resulted in my teacher giving my “Save the Whales” design an award. The t-shirt was displayed in the hallway outside her classroom for a few days of schoolwide recognition.
I was obsessed with animals and the environment as a little kid. My parents got me a subscription to Zoobooks (They’re still in print today!) and I devoured each edition. My favorite show was Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures. I don’t know if the early ’90s were heavily influenced by environmental action or if I was just personally fascinated with it
I vividly remember this one PSA spot that came on PBS in the mornings about conservation. It showed a spunky animated fish tragically losing all the water in his pond because some careless animated child let the water run while brushing his teeth. If you waste even a minute amount of water, you’ll kill a happy fishie! That’s what I took away from the ad. I was always harping on my parents to turn off the lights when they left a room or to cut the soda rings so sea turtles wouldn’t die.
I was earnest AF about my mission: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Save the Whales! (Cue “Will You Be There?”)
My parents encouraged my interests, but they weren’t big on whales and they definitely wouldn’t consider themselves environmentalists. Why did I have such an interest in animals? Later, why did I develop a love of poetry when literally no one in my household read or wrote poetry? As an adoptee, I’ve always wondered about nurture vs. nature. Was one of my biological parents a writer or lover of words? Did I just love animals because my parents had pets? Or was it because of something in my nature?
Remi just celebrated her first Christmas that she actively participated in! Her first Christmas, at three months, she didn’t understand and was mostly just a baby prop to pass around to family members. Last year, at one, she liked her presents but didn’t understand the holidays conceptually. This year, at two, she could point out Santa and say, “Ho ho ho!” when prompted. She unwrapped her own presents (and some of ours) with excitement. She said, “Thank you!” for her gifts and has been sorting and playing with her new toys all week.
Her most favorite toys are definitely the cheap plastic ocean animals Waffle found on Amazon. These are… not attractive ocean animals, but they’re very realistic? Honestly, I think they’re terrifying and monstrous both in design and texture. She LOVES THEM.
Ahhhhhhhhh!
She got quite a few presents that were ocean animal oriented this year. Right now, Remi’s napping and these are the toys she left in her wake from this morning’s play time. All of them were Christmas gifts.
I don’t know why she loves the ocean so much. Some of her other toddler interests are more predictable and we definitely played a part in shaping them. Dinosaurs, for example, were sort of forced upon Remi and, well, it makes sense that she’d be attracted to them since we decorated her room with them and have been talking about them since her fetushood. Books are a constant in our house. She has had them in her play area and as part of her bedtime routine from a very early age.
The ocean, though, is all her.
It must have started with the PBS show Splash and Bubbles when Remi was really little. It definitely got more intense after introducing Finding Dory over the past year. The discovery of Baby Shark sent her into a total frenzy.
Remi’s obsession with ocean life is very specific. For a while, she was just generally into animals, but in the past several months, she’s specifically into aquatic animals above all others. Since she got her ugly, soft, rubbery sharks and sea animals, she hasn’t even taken out her stuffed cat and dog toys. She can name different types of fish like eels, rays, clams, seahorses, octopuses, pufferfish, and sharks.
I don’t know how she even picked up on this, but we were reading Remi a new Splash and Bubbles board book recently and there was one page of the cartoon characters reacting to a plastic bag floating in their reef. Remi got visibly upset, pointed at the illustrated plastic bag and exclaimed, “Oh no! Oh no! Bad!”
Watching Remi become her own person is endearing and unfamiliar. I still wonder about nature vs. nurture. Is her empathy for aquatic life somehow related to my investment in freeing the whales when I was a kid? Do we share some biological need to take care of vulnerable creatures and our natural world? Is there a personality trait, or some random strain of DNA, we share that draws us both toward marine animals? Is her interest in sharks solely because of Baby Shark or is it also because Waffle is obsessed with Shark Week and watches videos about sharks as a hobby? He doesn’t watch them with Remi, though. Did we plant these seeds, either by nature or nurture, without intending to?
I don’t know, but I’m sure that I’m going to watch Free Willy with Remi as soon as she’s old enough to appreciate it.
4 Queer Parenthing Things I’m Currently Overprocessing
1. I’m Baking!
Because we started watching Nailed It: Holiday! Edition on Netflix, Remi’s been especially interested in playing pretend cooking. She gets her play food out and uses a plastic spoon to stir her pots and cups while exclaiming “I baking! I baking!” What a great age to enlist her help in making cut-out sugar cookies for Christmas, I thought! How much fun we will have, I anticipated! Wrong. I was wrong.
For starters, I kicked off this journey by making the very, very, very stupid mistake of touching the blade of my immersion blender while it was plugged in and… immersion blended the tip of my finger. Don’t worry! It was just the one pulse! And a LOT of blood. HAHA. OK. I was using the immersion blender inappropriately to begin with, but that’s a whole other story. (No, my finger probably did not need stitches? Yes, it’s gross and going to take a long time to heal.)
After I had a mini panic over the kitchen sink and decided that a Christmas Eve urgent care trip wasn’t necessary, I finished up the cookie prep. After dinner, I asked Remi if she wanted to help with some baking. She was so excited, ya’ll! She really wanted to help.
What I didn’t anticipate was that she would not be able to press the cookie cutter into the dough by herself, which was fine, except that she really, really wanted to do it by herself, without help. (“No! My turn!”) She also didn’t understand that you have to cook the cookies before you can eat them. Many emotions and a frustrated crying sesh later, we presented her with a star-shaped cut-out fresh from the oven. “I baked it!” she said before taking a dino chomp.
I didn’t take any pics of the cookies or the toddler baking activity. I have deep regrets and you’re just going to have to believe me that it happened.
EDIT: Waffle did take pics after all! Thanks, Waffle!
2. Cativan
Hat tip to our friend who rightly called Waffle out on missing an opportunity to hashtag his post #cativan!
Long story short, after over two years of Jeter making very little progress toward returning to a good quality of life post-baby, our vet offered anxiety meds and we decided to take the plunge. Jeter definitely has higher levels of anxiety than any cat I’ve lived with before. Before we had a kid, though, he’d adapted to our house and he was very social and cuddly and happy in his home.
Since we brought Remi home, he has consistently separated himself from the family and rarely comes downstairs until we put her to bed. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if the meds were the right decision. I didn’t know how he’d react to it, but it’s actually helped a lot! Now I just need Remi to take it down about 10 more notches so Jeter will be inclined to trust her.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bri51-DBNfY/
3. We’re All Doing Our Best OK
I am months behind on putting together a book proposal that my agent wants to get out and the publisher for my first book is interested in seeing. MONTHS BEHIND. I keep thinking I’m going to get it done, but it feels impossible. Sometimes I’m heading into a guilt spiral, but then I remind myself that I’m not pushing it off because I’m lazy. I’m just doing too many things. I know I am. I don’t know where to pull back because I either need to do these things (day job/mom job) or I want to do these things (Autostraddle/teaching) or both. I just want ya’ll to know that I don’t have the answer to work/life balance. I am actively talking myself into believing that my time is valuable when I feel so behind on something so important.
I used to see these badass queer feminist parents out in the world doing activism, doing long hours and important work – traveling around speaking at colleges, writing books, writing blogs. I thought they had it all figured out. I realize now that it’s hard and we pretend it’s not hard because we feel pressure to make it look like we’re killing it. And, like, no one person is “having it all” without also occasionally having a total emotional breakdown.
I know I can look like one of those people. I signed a book deal before my child turned one! I write for this amazing site; I work for a heavy-hitting nonprofit civil liberties defender and I take cute pics of my family for Instagram. I just want you to know that it’s really, really, truly challenging. I couldn’t do most of it without an incredible, supportive co-parent and I constantly feel like I’m disappointing someone.
(Like literally right now Remi woke up from her nap 20 minutes ago and I’m pseudo-ignoring her because I just need to get this piece finished before I make her dinner! She’s fine. She’s singing to herself in her crib, but, it’s definitely not GOLD MEDAL PARENTING.)
4. Still Cute Though
On that note, I thought you might like to see these pics from a mini-session we did with Jessica Stringer, the same photographer who did Remi’s newborn and one year pics. They’re incredibly good considering Remi sat still for exactly zero seconds for during the entire 20-minute session.
I can’t believe we’re those people who pay other people to take pictures of their kids, but HERE WE ARE. What’s next? A minivan?! Please don’t let it be a minivan…
Raising Baby T. Rex: Temper Tantrums and Dinner Dance Parties
Remi is a good listener, 95% of the time. She’s at that developmental stage that happens in the year between two and three, where kids learn to assert their independence. She’s always been stubbornly independent, so combine that with hitting this stage and she’s a volatile little spark of a dino. When she wants to do something, she wants to do it. She wants to put on her shirt by herself and her pants and her shoes.
We let her do it, but she often still needs a little help as she learns how to, you know, get her foot all the way into her pant leg. BECAUSE SHE’S ONLY BEEN ALIVE FOR 26 MONTHS. If she catches us helping her, it’s all over. The pants come all the way off, the whole event must start over and she scolds us with an emphatic, “No! Noooo!”
Still, we can usually get her through it without a total meltdown. I think it says something about this stage of child-rearing that a mini-meltdown feels like a decent, reasonable outcome. Here are some things Remi has shed tears over during a mostly manageable mini-meltdown lately:
- Not wanting to wear any shirt (not even the horsey shirt),
- Not wanting me to change her dirty diaper,
- Wanting me to put her shoes on so she can go outside to play at 10 pm,
- I tried to color with her,
- I put a blanket on her at naptime.
Those were all dealt with fairly quickly. She moved on from the shirt when we went downstairs for breakfast. She thrashed and wailed until she gave up and she let me change her diaper and then I distracted her with a book as she was emotionally recovering. She put the shoes down to watch Moana. I put down the crayon and backed away slowly. I don’t try to cover her at bedtime anymore so she can “cozy” her blankets herself. We worked it out every time.
When she’s overtired, though, it’s a different story. Yesterday, when I arrived to pick her up, the babysitter said, “Guess what we didn’t do today?” and laughed. Remi didn’t take a nap at the babysitters’ house. She wouldn’t go to sleep for them. She was having too much fun playing with the babysitter’s four-year-old kid. She seemed okay when I got there. She was laughing and running around and having a great time.
http://www.instagram.com/p/Bq01fJzhyc4/
That is until I tried to put her jacket on. In a grand combination of not wanting to leave her neighbor friend and demanding to put her winter coat on herself (something she hasn’t quite mastered yet) and us having to leave because the babysitter needed to leave soon… well… I’m sorry to my neighbors who got to hear my barefoot, jacketless child shrieking uncontrollably as we walked across the street to our house.
On a normal day, we could have de-escalated from there. But she wasn’t having a normal day. She didn’t want her shoes off… or on. She starting throwing anything she could get her hands on, which is a no-no for us. (We’re trying to teach her not to deal with her anger in physically aggressive ways.) She kept pulling her jacket down and wailing, “Jacket!” and throwing herself on it. She wouldn’t listen to me and just kept going on her rampage. For an hour and a half.
Dealing with a toddler having a temper tantrum is a lot like putting out a fire. When there is a fire happening, it doesn’t really matter why it’s happening. The cause of the fire becomes completely irrelevant once you’re tasked with putting it out. The fire is ON FIRE. That’s all you can focus on, because once you lose the ability to contain it, it will feed on anything in its path, growing more and more voracious.
How you put the fire out doesn’t matter, either. Throw water on it to shock it into submission. Contain it with sand until it fizzles out. Stop, drop, and roll and roll and roll and roll until it’s pressed out. Just don’t give it more fuel.
I tried all the tools in my parenting toolbox. I sat her down and talked to her calmly about her feelings. I put her in time out for two minutes to cool off. I did some short, stern voice. I did some calm, reassuring voice.
I took some steps I’m not proud of, including a “stern” voice that was more like unhinged angry yelling. Also, trying to forcibly strap her into her booster seat (she usually gets in her seat and straps herself in, but she was refusing dinner) which resulted in her thrashing so hard she fell off the counter-height seat head-first and almost landed on a pile of plastic toys that she’d dumped out in retaliation.
At the worst point of this marathon of tears and rage, the baby was in her 5th time out and I was Googling, “overtired toddler temper tantrum.” Remi was released from time-out after two minutes, but just sitting there still sobbing. I tried a new tactic from the internet: ignore the temper tantrum until it stops? Thank lesbian Jesus that Waffle got home from work at that exact moment.
Usually, Waffle and I work as a team on discipline, but I just wanted Remi’s temper tantrum to stop. I had definitely lost control of the situation. She was crying so hard that she was choking. She was so mad at me that she wouldn’t let me come near her, so I couldn’t pick her up to console her or talk to her. She was also so mad at me that she ran right into Waffle’s arms, snot dripping down her face and her hair slicked to her cheeks with tears. He held her and patted her back and shushed her like she was a little baby, like we did when she was an inconsolable newborn. She nestled her whole face into him and… fell asleep.
We let her sleep for just about 20 minutes because we didn’t want to mess up bedtime, but she needed that power nap. When we woke her up, she groggily decided she was ready for dinner. She ate well. We played and had fun until her actual bedtime and then she went to sleep.
As much as I loathe the temper tantrum stage, I love how aggressively independent Remi is. What if I was as certain of myself and emphatic about my life decisions? What if I could just yell, “No!” the next time a man unnecessarily and impractically holds a door for me and make him close it so I can reopen it myself… instead of walking faster so as to not inconvenience him and mumbling, “Thank you.” What if I stood up in a work meeting and was like, “I do it!” when someone ignored my potential? What if I openly cried when someone hurt my feelings or immediately rallied when someone hurt my pride? What if I actually… took pride in all my accomplishments every day?
I love that Remi is finding her voice and trying things on her own and asserting herself. I also need her to never skip her nap again. And learn how to put on her own jacket, goddammit.
# Queer Parenting Things I’m Currently Overprocessing
1. Oh, Xmas Tree
We’re not Christian or Pagan, but we love a well decorated tree. My mom puts up beautiful trees in her home every year and she uses fake trees, which is what I grew up with, including a huge nine-foot tall faux tree in the family room. Honestly, I always preferred fake plastic trees, until Waffle introduced me to real Xmas trees. I don’t love the extra work of watering a tree or having pine needles everywhere or the risk of bringing a whole spider colony into your home. What won me over is the smell. I love the way a fresh pine tree smells, a bright tingly clear-water smell.
For the last two holiday seasons, we didn’t have any trees up, fake or real. For the first Xmas, we were just barely alive parents of a newborn. Last year, we decided we didn’t want to put up a tree and deal with babyproofing it or watching Remi every second of the day to be sure the tree is safe from being pulled down. We got her a felt tree with little velcro felt decorations to play with instead.
This year, this very weekend, in fact, we’re going to get Remi’s first real tree! I hope she loves it! And doesn’t pull it down or try to climb it!
http://www.instagram.com/p/wSrpOcM7ka
Imagine this situation, but, like, with a toddler making chaos in the foreground.
2. Feline/Baby Watch 2018
Look! This happened! It wasn’t a very long happening, but it did happen so yes that is good.
3. Things I Googled This Week
- two year old temper tantrum
- how long time out toddler
- how to stop a temper tantrum
- how to help overtired toddler
- how to get overtired toddler to sleep
- overtired toddler temper tantrum
4. Mom Bod
I’ve written about my mom bod and how making a baby gave me many feelings about my body in many ways. This past month, I took part in an all-femme naked photo shoot for the Adipositivity project and it was, honestly, one of the most beautiful and empowering things I’ve ever done for myself. Even though I espouse body positivity and try to live it, I was nervous about seeing the photo, what with my body being extra soft and big and shaped a bit different than how I used to be. It’s gorgeous. I don’t want to publish it here without permission, so you can see the photo and Substantia Jones’ other work on her site and order prints, even! If you were looking for a holiday gift that actually a nudie pic of me, well, here ya’ go! You’re welcome!
5. I’m Right Over Here
Remi’s new favorite song. We’re listening to it on repeat right now. Sound on.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqtBTs4Bdad/
Raising Baby T. Rex: How We Learn “Good” and “Bad”
There’s so much bad in the world. I’ve always known it. No, that isn’t true — I learned it. At some point, there was no external good or bad in my world, just my own individual perception of good and bad. Did I feel good? Did I feel bad? There didn’t need to be a carefully curated and readily defended rationale to understand what’s good and what’s bad.
Hungry? Bad.
Full belly? Good.
Feeling scared? Bad.
Feeling safe? Good.
Too cold? Bad.
Warm and cozy? Good.
I don’t want to unknow the complexity of the world. As early as I can remember, I was asking questions about everything around me. I want to be in the world, the gritty, scary world, not safe in someone else’s white-washed tower.
And yet. And yet. As a parent, I want to wrap Remi up in my arms and shield her from the world for as long as I can. She’s two and she’s just beginning to understand empathy for others. Everything in her world revolves around her and her experiences, coupled with two-year-old logic.
Don’t feel like wearing those pants? Bad.
Really wants to wear these pants? Good.
Can’t play with the cat because he’s terrified of me? Bad.
Going to the playground today? Good.
Spinach? Bad.
Strawberries? Good.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BpNHqgqHFwn/
Her life is relatively simple, which is a marker of the privilege we have. She’s never experienced hunger that couldn’t be sated. She’s never been cold in the night or without shoes that fit or experienced anything truly hard. I want to keep it that way as long as possible.
I also know that the bad in the world will come for her eventually and I want her to be prepared, not so closed off from struggle that she’s ill-prepared to survive it. I know she’ll be safe in ways others are not and I want her to have an understanding of that, a sense of self that includes a sense of others without Othering difference.
I spend a lot of time thinking about who Remi will be, the infinite possibilities ahead of her. Her interests range from cars to horses to dolls to dinosaurs. She’s smart and loves to read and loves to dance and throw her balls and take on physical challenges. She could be so many things, choose so many futures.
I’ve started to think more about who I want Remi to be and when and how to have those conversations. For example, as she becomes more verbal, I want to be sure we’re talking more about different kinds of families. Having a “mommy” and a “daddy” has made her emerging family play more gendered and heteronormative than I’d really like. She’ll point to a character on TV and declare them “mommy,” “daddy,” or “baby.” She’s not quite old enough to understand the nuance, but I’ve been trying to talk about and show her more families with same-gender parents or to say that not all kids have a mommy and a daddy. I’m not sure how much she understands.
http://www.instagram.com/p/Bouxx4enHGy/
I was talking to our neighbor who babysits Remi on Thursdays at her home. Remi plays with her kid, who’s a year and a half older than Remi and is also assigned male and identifies as a boy and is white with white parents. Most of Remi’s “friends” which are actually our neighbors and friends with kids are white. The few friends I have who are Korean don’t have kids or have much older kids.
I was talking to our neighbor who babysits Remi and we were talking about policing practices in our city and we were talking about race. It all started as a conversation about Paw Patrol, a popular kids TV show about dogs who are emergency responders. (You read that right. Who pitches these shows?) One of them is a police dog. I was half-joking half-totally-serious sharing that Remi has a Paw Patrol toddler slide and I didn’t want Waffle to put the decorative stickers on it because I felt it was pro-police propaganda. Haha and also, really, though.
She was agreeing that the police in our neighborhood aren’t friendly and don’t care about the people who live here. I was saying I don’t want Remi to fear the police, but that I did want her to understand that Black and brown kids in the city have to fear them, that policing isn’t fair, that they’re not cute altruistic puppy dogs in practice. Then she said that she agreed, but didn’t think she had to talk to her kid (still a toddler) because it wouldn’t affect him. I said I think we do need to talk to white kids and Asian kids. We don’t need to have “the talk,” per se, but they need to understand that their relationship to law enforcement is very different than their peers. We need to talk to them so they know that calling the police on someone can be a life or death situation, so they don’t believe that police protect everyone equally, so they don’t turn into part of the problem.
I’ve been thinking about Danye Jones, the young Black man hanged in his own backyard. He was found by his mother, Ferguson activist Melissa McKinnies, the fourth Black person who seems to have been targeted because of their activist work in Ferguson. (Police are investigating it as a suicide despite evidence to the contrary.) I’ve been thinking about the young girl who died from a respiratory illness she contracted in ICE custody soon after finally being reunited with her family, the other child who died in unsanitary conditions at an ICE detention center in Texas, the many kids who reported sexual and physical and emotional abuse, the children who are still lost in the system maybe forever. I’ve been thinking about the most recent study that shows, again, that suicide rates are highest among trans and non-binary youth.
I’ve been thinking about the bad in the world and, as a parent, it breaks me in a new and more intimate way. I’ve been thinking about who Remi will be. I want to protect my little dino from all the bad that might hurt her individually. Our class privilege and passing privilege with a mostly-white family will protect her. Like my mother didn’t have to, I won’t have to worry about Remi being profiled by police while walking down our street or standing in our backyard. I won’t have to worry about Remi being dragged down into the school-to-prison pipeline because of some small (or even large) dumb kid-logic decision she made.
But I don’t want to protect Remi completely. I want her to know what’s going on outside of her individual experience of the world. I don’t want her to grow up thinking “we’re all the same human race,” or “all lives matter.” I need to talk to Remi about so many things as she grows up. Silence is not an option.
We need to talk to our kids, especially those of us with light or white skin, especially those with class privilege and cis privilege and straight privilege. We need to talk to our kids, especially those who could become part of the problem, especially those who will grow up thinking their experience of “good” and “bad” is a universal experience. They’ll learn about the good and bad of the world on their own, eventually, but we’re responsible for shaping where they see themselves and how they see their role in making a better future.
Trauma? Bad.
Healing? Good.
Taking advantage of? Bad.
Taking action? Good.
Ignoring injustice? Bad.
Fighting for equality? Good. Good. Good.
5 Random Parenting Feelings I’m Currently Over-Processing
1. ECHOLOCATION!
Remi is obsessed with Finding Dory right now and one of her new skills is echolocation. Thanks, Bailey the beluga whale! She’s been doing this for a few weeks, often first thing when she wakes up (and then we wake up) in the morning.
“Echo! …Rainbow! OooooOoooo! OooooOoooo!”
I couldn’t find the clips from the movie on YouTube, so if you don’t know the reference, you’re just going to have to watch the movie. It’s become a family favorite, though I’m perpetually Team Gerald and I DON’T KNOW WHY THEY MADE GERALD THE BUTT OF BULLYING JOKES WHEN LITERALLY THE REST OF THE MOVIE IS ABOUT DIFFERENT ABILITIES BEING A STRENGTH BUT OK. JUST A DISCLAIMER.
2. The Terrible Twos
They’re here. Get used to it! In all honesty, the twos haven’t been the worst, but she’s definitely in her feelings about things. There’s a lot of brain development and self-actualization around this age which results in Remi being like, “TODAY I SHALL NOT WEAR ANY PANTS UNLESS THOSE PANTS HAVE CATS ON THEM!” or “NO, I DO NOT WANT YOU TO READ THAT BOOK. THAT BOOK MAKES ME ANGRY.” or “WHY CAN’T I PET THE CAT INSTEAD OF YOU ATTEMPTING TO CHANGE MY DIAPER? WHY DO YOU HATE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WAAAAAAAAAh!”
3. Grown-Ups Only Halloween
We always say it’ll be our last, but we left our kiddo once again for an adults-only Halloween with friends in NYC.
http://www.instagram.com/p/Bpm6X2pBJRx/
Remi does not care. She is having a BLAST at Gramma’s house. We did buy her a costume. She loved it in the store, but hated it on her actual body. Like, she screamed and cried when we tried to put it on her… twice… then we gave up. We took the tags off already, so not she has a half-limp horse face pillow that she drags around the house.
We did do a family fall weekend a couple weekends ago during which we went pumpkin picking, got cider and donuts, visited a family farm with a petting zoo, and rode on a historic train!
http://www.instagram.com/p/Bo5WQzqHxWJ/
So we’re not the actual worst parents for leaving her behind on Halloween, right? RIGHT?!
4. Sad Sick World
It’s fall. The pumpkin spice is fragrant. The leaves in NY are crunchy and colorful. The air is crisp AF. And the non-stop cold season is upon us. We’ve shared two family colds in the last two weeks, the most recent of which went back-to-back with the first one for Remi.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BpATxxqHFfu/
I’m recovering from the second one. Waffle is just starting to get it. Remi is running around totally wild with her non-stop runny nose and seemed very nonplussed by the whole situation.
5. The Jeter Situation
Some of you have asked for deets on the Remi + cat situation. Jeter is still very annoyed by her, but he’s recently begun coming into the same room as her for periods of time. Waffle instituted a treat for the cat as part of Remi’s bedtime routine, which has helped build their relationship a little, too.
http://www.instagram.com/p/BoyEKIwHeOr/
I’ll be honest that I thought we’d be at a better pace two years and two months into Jeter and Remi’s relationship, so I hope he’ll be around long enough to actually accept her very loud offers of friendship once she’s old enough to chill out a little. I really hope so! I have dreams of cat and baby snuggles at the same time!
Raising Baby T. Rex: The Soft Underbelly of a Hard Femme Mama
I remember one of the first times I recognized an adult’s body. Like, the first time I saw an adult body and really understood it as a body different than mine. I was a little kid. My mom had recently taken a shower and was in the kitchen wearing a towel around her midsection. He hair was wound up in another towel on her head. She was looking for something or messing with something on the kitchen counter when her towel slipped, revealing her back and sides. I think I’d probably seen my mom undressed before. We weren’t particularly reserved about nudity in our family. My mom, sister, and I all shared a bathroom and often used it at the same time. I’m sure I’d seen her drying herself after a shower before or wearing a towel while getting ready in the mirror.
I remember this moment, though, because I really noticed her and how her body was different than my little kid body. What I remember most of all was the curve of her waist and hips. What I remember is that I thought she was so beautiful. Once, in church, I interrupted my mom singing along with a hymn to tell her she was a beautiful singer. She sort of laughed it off and said, “Thank you.” I thought my mom’s body was beautiful in the same way I thought she could be a professional singer, in the way a little kid believes their parents are absolutely perfect.
I’m 14 years old. My two best friends, Heather and Cathy, and I spend every weekend together, rotating between houses from Friday through Sunday. We try on each other’s clothes and take pictures of each other attempting to pose like the models in YM. My friends wear size 5/6 and 7/8. I wear size 11/12 or 13/14.
“I’m so fat,” I whine, pinching my belly fat. “Nothing fits me.”
“But you have such good legs,” Heather reassures me. “I’m so jealous you don’t have any cellulite at all! My legs are gross.”
“I wish I had your thick hair,” Cathy jumps in, touching her own hair.
“You have really pretty hair,” Heather agrees.
Cathy snaps a surprise photo of me as I’m changing into another outfit. I’m wearing a white bra and a red plaid skirt. I yelp and turn my face and body away from the camera as the shutter clicks. I get the photos back a week later and I immediately flip to that photo. All you can see is my back and the side of my head as I’m caught mid-turn. My hands are covering my face. I fixate on the slight line where my bra band digs into my back. My back fat, I would have called it. I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it.
“Your baby lived in here!” I protest. Waffle is telling me I have to throw out my maternity jeans, the ones that I wore all during my pregnancy and that I’m still wearing to chase around a two-year-old. No one makes jeans like this for fat girls. Comfy, soft, intentionally cradling and hugging my roundness and sitting high on my waist, stretching stretching stretching to accommodate all of me. Why don’t they make clothes likes this for my non-pregnant body, clothes that fit a belly, honor it, draw attention to it and celebrate it? I know the answer. I still ask the question.
Wearing my fav maternity pants in this pic. Note the child very much done gestating.
The fabric has been fraying where my thighs meet, threatening to split as the denim wears thinner and thinner. A huge hole inevitably appears one night, stretching across the upper inner thigh.
“It’s time. They have to go,” Waffle says. He goes online and buys me super high waist stretchy non-maternity jeans, which are very comfortable and not quite the same. “Promise me you won’t put them back in the washer,” he says.
Waffle and I tried to do Weight Watchers in the months leading up to our wedding ceremony in 2011. Weight Watchers promised they weren’t a typical diet. It wasn’t about denying yourself. It was a body positive community. Waffle wanted to lose weight. I wanted to feel healthier.
We paid for the monthly subscription. We downloaded the app and tracked our points. I substituted whole pints of applesauce for ice cream, diet soda for sugary lemonade or juice. We both dropped significant weight immediately. I started fitting into size 12 and size 10 again, the first time I’d fit in a 12 since freshmen year of college.
I got so adept at counting points that I didn’t need the app to estimate after the first few weeks. I was just counting them in my head, all the time. I’d be sitting at my desk at work, musing over what to eat for lunch, calculating the points. Always, always, thinking about what I was going to eat and adding and subtracting my daily and weekly allotment. The more you lose on Weight Watchers, the fewer points per day they allow you. I started with 29 points per day. As I lost weight, I got down to 22 points per day and the diet that allowed me to “eat anything I want” started to feel like an old familiar calorie-counting restrictive diet.
It ended when I found myself sitting on the floor crying, because all that negative self-talk I’d untaught myself was overwhelming me. Somewhere along the way, I’d started thinking of food as “good” or “bad” again, as though food could be ranked on some arbitrary binary scale. I’d started ignoring my intuition and drinking diet soda to curb hunger between meals. I wasn’t thinking about being healthy anymore. I was thinking about being thin — thinner, thinner, down one more size.
I thought I’d left that person behind, the one who was obsessed with disappearing, but here she was all along right there just past the curtain into my subconscious mind, ready to shame me into obsessing over every point, sighing in my ear, “You’re going to have to exercise if you eat that 8-point bagel.” “Maybe you should just skip lunch so you have enough points for dinner.” “You’re going to get fat again.”
I quit Weight Watchers.
“You don’t look that much different,” Waffle commented. I was looking at my post-baby body in the full-length hallway mirror. I was trying to remember what I looked like before I was pregnant. I didn’t show right away, but my stomach hardened up and got a little higher and rounder. I’d definitely had a round belly, though, to begin with. I was thick around my waist with small hips, an almost rectangular shape except for my large chest. I’ve always carried my weight in the front and I’d developed vertical stretch marks around my belly button in the year before getting knocked up.
When I first got those new belly stretch marks, I had to consciously force myself to embrace them. “These are fine,” I’d say in my head to myself as I ran my fingers over the red lines. “Lots of people have stretch marks. They’re beautiful.” I didn’t believe it, but I just kept saying it to myself until it became my truth.
I spend a lot of time thinking about my body. Loving my body is a full-time occupation. I need constant reinforcement and reassurance and permission to be kind to myself. The truth of body positivity is that it isn’t a one-stop destination. It goes on and on and on and you are always practicing it and always kind of not quite getting it right, too.
After pregnancy, my tummy was still there. I still carried my weight in the front. The stretch marks faded, but my tummy hasn’t toned back up. The skin was tauter and stretched over my fat before pregnancy, like the cute accent pillows on my couch. Plump and stuffed and fitted just right. Now my belly is more generous like the king-size pillows on my bed, soft and fluffy and pliable, a gentle place for resting. It’s a bit saggier. It hangs a little lower. I have a little crease under my belly that’s more pronounced now. I have belly dimples. My pants can’t sit under my belly anymore without my tummy flopping over the waistband.
I love how soft I am postpartum. It’s a reminder of how my body stretched and grew and changed to grow a tiny human, how it protected Remi for almost 10 months. It’s a reminder of how I howled and rocked and focused completely naked and sweaty and raw for hours and hours to bring her into the world. I didn’t know I could be that strong and that soft simultaneously. I didn’t know my softness could be my strength.
“I’ve got a six-pack under all this fat,” I joke, “because all I ever do is suck in.” I’m always looking for ways to appear slimmer, always holding my stomach in. I automatically inhale when I stand up. I sit on the edge of my seat in class with my shoulders back and my pelvis forward and stomach flexed. I wear body shapers under my prom dress to create a slim waist, so tight I can barely eat my fancy dinner. I wear pantyhose under my pants to slim my thighs. I have a bikini that I only wear for tanning, at home, never in public. My BMI is in the “overweight” category, the gym teacher reminds me every year. I’m stuck at 142 pounds. I can’t get smaller than a size 8 or a size medium. I have this one skirt that’s a size 4 that I can just barely squeeze into and I wear it just because it makes me feel petite. All I want is to be small. Boys would like me if I was small. If I was small, I could be happy.
Remi snuggles into me when she’s in the mood to lounge. In those quiet moments, I love how she rests her hand on my belly or lays with her head across me or leans her whole body into me and relaxes into my softness. It reminds me of how I used to snuggle up to my mom, how it felt so good to be breathing her in all nuzzled up and warm, like slipping into her pocket.
I want Remi to love my body the way I am. I want her to see me as beautiful the way I saw my mom as beautiful, with my short hair and my double chin and my hanging belly. Perfect. It feels so right when she reaches for me and throws her arms around me, when she rests her head on my chest or shoulder, and even when she uses all my bumps and lumps as footholds to scale me like a human playground.
As a queer hard femme, my gender expression is about hard edges more than feminine touches. I like an exaggerated cat eye in a black liquid liner that’s so sharp it could cut you. I like bright red and dark purple and black-blue matte lipstick and glowy silver highlights and dramatic jewelry. A student recently told me I have B.D.E., which I had to ask them to define and then did not completely love the definition of, but I think they meant that my presence commands attention. My femme-ness has never been soft and delicate. I’m scared to be that vulnerable as a woman. My hard edges have been there, in so many ways, to protect my softness.
Being fat and soft with Remi feels different. Being a fat, soft mama makes me feel sturdy, like an immovable mountain or an impenetrable fortress. It’s a strength that would never harm Remi, could never poke her with a hipbone or a hard angle, and could protect her infinitely. My capacity to move for her and make room for her and mold my life to hers is one way to love her, with all of myself.
Remi loves her belly. She really, really loves her belly button. She lifts my shirt to find my belly button and pokes it or kisses it and exclaims, “Boop!” It makes her giggle so hard she has to sit down. She shows her belly off to anyone. She’s so proud of knowing her body.
One day, as much as I try to be her radically soft mama and model body positivity, she’ll wish her belly was small and flat and firm. She’ll want to hide it. She’ll learn to hate her body. I hope my softness shows her how strong soft bodies can be. I hope she never stops loving my softness. I hope it helps her love herself against all odds.
4 Random Parenting Feelings I’m Currently Over-Processing
1. Baby Shark Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo
Ya’ll. I didn’t know about Baby Shark. I didn’t know. I don’t know why this song, specifically, is so endlessly entertaining to kids. I do know it is a very catchy tune that gets stuck in your head. I know putting on this video is a surefire way to distract Remi if I need to get some work done. If you don’t have a child, you may not be aware of this entertainment gold. If you don’t understand the appeal, watch it with a toddler. I am slightly concerned that this is Remi’s first exposure to Korean entertainment, but OK we’ll deal with that later, I guess.
(This is on in the living room right now while I wrap up this column.)
2. Things I’ve Googled This Month
- what age toddler bed
- how many words 2 years old
- counting age normal
- signs ready for toilet training
- why do kids like baby shark
- toddler nightmares
- toddler doesn’t use blanket
3. Late to Bed, Lazy to Rise
Our kiddo has a really late bedtime of somewhere between 10pm-11pm, which we’re kind of embarrassed to admit. She’s never been a long sleeper at night, though, and she sleeps at most 10 hours. Also, we like to sleep in because Waffle works nights, we’ve been able to avoid having to pay for daycare because Waffle watches her during the day, and I don’t need to be to work until 9:30 or 10am most days. So, like, it works for us until she starts school (or daycare — whatever comes first). It’s just a little awkward to talk about because most of our parent friends put their kids to bed at, like, 7pm.
4. Baby Shark Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Part II)
http://www.instagram.com/p/BoL98ALHFmV
“Age-Appropriate” Sex Education Leaves LGBTQ Kids Behind
One of the many perpetual controversies around sexual and reproductive education is the question of what information is “appropriate” to impart to young children. The intensity of this conflict can be witnessed in the virulent comments left after feminist author, Jessica Valenti tweeted a photo of the poster her daughter’s teacher made to educate their class about sexual orientations and gender identities.
The comments below illustrate some of the rage and terror people feel about the possibility of seven-year-olds being educated about sexuality and gender identity.
But what does “age-appropriate” really mean?
Although people clearly have very strong opinions about what is and is not acceptable for children to be taught, very few people can seem to pinpoint what “age-appropriate” actually means. There has been significant research showing that a fundamental awareness of gender and sexuality emerges from ages of 3 to 5. Although this conceptual understanding is present from a very young age, the social lore that has built up around protecting innocence has obscured the innate sense of sex and gender that exists within young kids, and inevitably leads to confusion when it is not addressed in a timely manner. Because of this, the question of what “age-appropriate” actually is, seems unsolvable.
There are many blog posts, articles and op-eds, by parents, teachers, doctors and therapists alike, readily accessible online – all of which have opinions about what you should be teaching your child about sex, and when. Some of them even take a more age-specific approach, and lay out year-by-year guides to raising kids with healthy attitudes toward sex. Some others are so bold as to suggest that sex education starts from birth, with the naming of body parts and the embracing of nudity and appropriate touch.
There is a wide and inconclusive scope of opinions on when to talk to kids about sexuality, ranging from 4 to 12 years old. Even then, many simply suggest that you begin conversations when kids start asking questions. Although this may seem like a good measure of readiness in a curious child, if they are asking questions, they are likely already confused.
How does this impact LGBTIQ children?
One largely unacknowledged impact of the age-appropriate sex education model is its disproportionate consequences for LGBTIQ kids. LGBTIQ issues in education are still deemed inappropriate for younger children, so queer kids are often left knowing even less about their feelings and experiences than others. In many cases, education about LGBTIQ issues and identities is provided retroactively, once a child has already begun struggling to understand themself. The fact that queer children receive so little positive information leaves them to grow up into understandings of themselves that have formed around the hostility they experience in the world. Even indirect hostility is absorbed and has a profound impact. In concrete terms, this often means that young kids are bullied for being “different” before they even know what’s different about them or what it signifies. It means that in the absence of a real education, LGBTIQ kids are instead taught by a creeping sensation of unwelcome that there is something wrong with them and there may not be a place for them.
What does the UN have to say about “age-appropriate” sex education?
(Picture courtesy of UNESCO)
This year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released an updated version of its International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education. It provides a universal guideline for educators teaching school-aged children and young adults about sexuality and reproductive health. The UN’s involvement in creating space for comprehensive sex education also highlights that sex education and sexual health in general are basic human rights. In an attempt to be more inclusive and diverse in the process of updating their guide, UNESCO accepted contributions from OutRight UN Program Coordinator Siri May on how best to incorporate LGBTIQ identities into comprehensive sex education. Although the result is significantly more LGBTIQ-inclusive than the previous version of the UNESCO guide, there are still major flaws.
(Picture courtesy of UNESCO)
The most glaring deficiency is that even within the new guide, which breaks sex education down into age groups, starting at 5 years old, explicit references to LGBTIQ individuals do not appear until the sections for kids aged 9 to 12 years old. This means that although children are receiving instruction about sexuality and relationships starting in kindergarten, the existence and legitimacy of queer experiences may not even be mentioned to them until fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh grade. Even then, although the guide makes mentions of queer issues in sections on parenting, human rights and gender norms, in the sections specifically devoted to understanding sexual behavior, the only explicit mention of LGBTIQ sexuality is a statement asserting that people should not be discriminated against for their same-sex attraction. While this is of course immensely important, the fact that there is no discussion whatsoever of actual queer sexual behavior or pleasure reveals an enormous gap in the inclusivity of UNESCO’s updated guide. Furthermore, there are no explicit mentions of LGBTIQ-specific experiences in the realms of violence (gender-based or otherwise), peer pressure and HIV/AIDS. These are glaring inadequacies. So although UNESCO makes an attempt to concretize age-appropriate sex education, it fails to disrupt prejudice against inclusive instruction, and continues to leave LGBTIQ kids behind.
Does sex ed really hurt young children?
Although this focus on restricting knowledge at young ages is pervasive, proponents of the age-appropriate model ignore the ubiquity of sexuality and gender commentary in input directed at young children in society. As the tweet below points out, we gender and sexualize our children everyday without noticing it:
From the moment kids are born, they are unwittingly gendered by the clothes they are dressed in, the toys they are given to play with, and the way they are socialized to interact with others. Whether we like it or not, their minds are full of notions about sexuality and gender from very young ages just from being in the world. Even some of the blogs linked above, detailing sex education at every age, explicitly state that differentiating between genders is an essential part of the very first stage of sex education. One writer encourages parents of babies and toddlers to “start pointing out the differences between boys and girls – boys have penises and girls have vulvas.”
This is only one of many ways people inadvertently influence their children’s notions of gender and sexuality. But such influences are pervasive. For instance, if you look up “girl boy child” on the internet, most of the first ten pictures that appear are of young children kissing, hugging, or holding hands. The internet is rife with images of toddlers staging mock weddings. This kind of sexualization and gendering of young children is no different from providing concrete sex education. In fact, the existence of these pictures only proves that children need sex ed because they are pushed into these gendered and sexualized roles, and they deserve an explanation.
What can we do about it?
(Picture via Feminism in India)
Despite the prevalence of the age-appropriate model, a handful of LGBTIQ activists and organizations around the world have caught onto this inadequacy in comprehensive sex education, and have slowly begun to try to fill that gap. Instead of merely measuring the appropriateness of material based on age or subject matter, these activists tune into the needs, experiences, and backgrounds of individual groups of kids, in order to make real steps towards improving sex education.
Two such activists, Ericka Hart and Roan Coughtry, travel to give presentations at schools, universities, businesses and other spaces, using their own experiences as queer individuals to help inform a wide variety of people about LGBTIQ lives. As a cancer survivor and person of color, Hart incorporates intersectional understandings of sexuality, gender, and other vectors of oppression into her work. She creates interactive workshops that help participants of all ages learn how to create safe spaces for discourse and diverse experiences. In their seminars with people of all ages, Coughtry encourages participants to develop safe and healthy relationships with their own bodies and experiences, before focusing on interactions between individuals. They also highlight the ways cultural repression causes us to internalize negative messages about sexuality and other identities.
FEMMEPROJECTS is a South African organization devoted to providing comprehensive education on sexual and reproductive health and gender identity and expression to under-resourced communities. FEMMEPROJECTS cofounder Kim Windvogel explains their approach to LGBTIQ-inclusivity and gauging students’ readiness for information, stating:
Working in schools and with kids has taught us that “age-appropriate” is primarily based on location, access, home circumstances, whether there are older siblings, etc. In general it is usually about the environment these kids find themselves in that adds texture to how we speak about certain issues or how much they know and how far they can push the boundary…of what is deemed to be appropriate for them.
Over the last four years I have realized that one can prepare a workshop in an “age-appropriate” manner and still be surprised at the lack of information kids have for their age or be taken aback at the depth of their questions.… Education and the level thereof should be guided by those in your classroom and not by what you think they are ready for based on their age.
Most importantly, Kim stresses that LGBTIQ identities must be discussed in all workshops, no matter the age range, and that “these are topics that should not come after the fact.” While it may be more practical to teach younger children about LGBTIQ issues through playing educational games, rather than having a discussion, there are always ways to educate people of all ages about the issues that matter.
Comprehensive sex education has been proven to make a significant impact on the long term sexual health of young people. By finding ways to have conversations about a diverse range of sexual experiences from a very young age, parents can prepare their children to embrace and understand their own burgeoning identities, and to respect the identities of those they encounter in the world. Taking a fear-based approach to sex education can only mitigate the positive impact of sex ed in the first place. All kids need and deserve access to knowledge and information about their own bodies, and letting go of the fixation on age-appropriate education is an important step in helping children prepare for healthier, safer, more self-assured futures.
You Need Help: Your Christian Family Loves Trump’s Debauchery, Hates Your Gayness
Q:
I grew up in a very Baptist family in South Carolina, they’re still Baptist. They voted for Donald Trump despite the fact that his actions go against basically every teaching of Jesus. They’re still standing behind him no matter how grotesque his behavior gets, and I can’t stop thinking about how supportive they are of this man when they did everything but send me to conversion therapy when I came out to them. I am their child and grandchild and they’ve chastised me for homosexuality for eight years now, but what they feel for a man who assaults women and is blatantly and unabashedly racist is practically worship. I do not stand in opposition to the teachings of Christ. Trump does. Yet I’m the one who’s ostracized. Why are they like this? I’m serious. I think it would help me if I could understand why they’re like this. And, maybe it’s not possible, but do you know how can I ever move past it?
A:
Ah, friend. This is a tough one. I’m going to try to answer both of your questions, but the first thing I want to say is: I’m sorry. And also: I understand. My roots are deep and my experiences are wide in the evangelical Christian world; and I continue to struggle with these questions in my own life.
I’ll try to answer the why first because I think it makes the how a little more manageable.
The thing you have to know about the Southern Baptist Convention — the toxic garden from which all these evangelical leaders and politicians grow — is that it was founded when white southern Baptists split from white northern abolitionist Baptists prior to the Civil War, and they did so to continue to use the Bible to defend slavery. When they lost that fight, they championed Jim Crow laws. And when they lost that fight, they championed banning interracial marriage. It’s a religious movement literally founded on and sustained for a century by pure racism, and when Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater came to the south in the late ’60s to court those white voters by appealing to and validating that racism, by telling them they were right to fear and resent the cultural change caused by the Civil Rights movement, that the liberal elite in the north didn’t understand what it meant to be true patriots, Southern Baptists and the Republican Party became inextricably linked together.
By the mid-90s, the GOP was finding it harder to be as overt in their racism as they had been 30 years earlier. Yes, their policies were still racist, but they had to be more palatably so. In a now infamous interview in 1981, Lee Atwater, a Republican consultant and adviser to Ronald Reagan, explained that the party had to keep finding newer, more subtle ways to appeal to racists: “You start out in 1954 [using racial slurs]. By 1968, you can’t say [racial slurs] — that hurts you, it backfires. So you say stuff like ‘forced busing,’ ‘states’ rights,’ and all that stuff. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.” So the racism remained, but the party needed a new scapegoat they could go after loudly. The Southern Baptist Convention made a deliberate and calculated decision to make that new scapegoat gay people.
It’s a very simple strategy: Baptist pastors convince church members their way of life is under threat by an other, GOP leaders promise to create laws to protect the faithful from the threat, Baptist leaders deliver votes to GOP politicians, GOP politicians craft the laws that validate the threat-rhetoric, the other pushes back and protests, Baptist leaders point to those protests and say, “See? Our way of life is under threat!” The GOP steps in and says, “We’ll save you!” Black people, gay people, immigrants, Muslims, trans people. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The tactic hasn’t changed in 150 years, only the scapegoats and the Bible verses used to justify persecuting them.
Which is why, when Fox News arrived on the scene, it became easy as pie for them to step into the swamp of that propaganda and exploit it. The structure was there; they turned it into a machine. For eight years, a black president occupied the Oval Office, and 24 hours a day, every day, Fox News and the conservative punditry herd doubled down and down, again and again, on the bigotry that’s coded into the very DNA of white evangelical Christianity and therefore the Republican Party.
Donald Trump is the through line, the inevitability of a political party and major religion whose lifeblood is creating imaginary monsters out of smoke and mirrors.
So that’s the world you were born into, friend, and the world your family still lives inside. Do you know cognitive dissonance? It’s the intense psychological stress experienced by a person who tries to hold two contradictory beliefs in their head at the same time. Now, everyone’s number one favorite belief is, “I’m a good person.” And every religious person’s favorite belief adds to that, “And I’m right with God.” For your family’s entire lives, they’ve believed they’re good people and they’re right with God in large part because they’ve “protected” themselves and their community and their faith by voting for Republicans, who are defending them from the others.
You are saying: Look at these facts. Can you not see that Donald Trump is a corrupt, depraved con-man?
They are hearing: Look at these facts. Can you not see that this man you’re defending is racist and xenophobic and transphobic and sexist, and therefore your actions are wrong, and therefore your faith leaders are lost at best or corrupt at worst, and therefore the church and political party you’ve spent a lifetime supporting is not good?
Rather than confronting your facts — which would shake the foundations of their very identities — they turn instinctively back to Fox News where James Dobson is saying it’s okay that Trump is embroiled in perpetual sexual scandal because he’s a “baby Christian.” Where Jerry Falwell Jr. is saying it’s okay that Trump calls POC-populated countries “shitholes” because what that really means is he’s not a “phony.” Where Billy Graham Jr. is saying the proof Trump’s a Christian is in his conservative judicial appointments. Never mind that those transparently dishonest and self-serving sentiments would have Jesus spitting “You snakes! You brood of vipers!” at them. Those words soothe the consciences of your family. Their core belief that they are good people remains in tact.
The hard truth is, humans are narcissists above all else. When you came out to your family, they didn’t ask themselves, “Is she bad?” They asked themselves, “If she’s gay and I’ve been taught gay people are sinners, am I bad? Is my religion bad? Have I devoted my life to a lie?” And rather than wrestling with that, rather than self-interrogating and trying to find grace in nuance and compassion for a person they loved, they settled on, “No, I’m good; she must be bad.”
The next question is much harder: How can you move past it?
I’m sorry to tell you: You can’t. You won’t. You will never forget that your family voted for Donald Trump and you will never forget that they have stood by him through every ugly, outlandish, monstrous thing he’s done. You will never stop mentally juxtaposing the way they treated you when you came out as a lesbian with the way they treated him when he said he grabs women by their pussies. Even if, one day, they realize the way they treated you was wrong, you won’t be able to stop yourself from feeling incandescent rage and despair that they can’t extend that same compassion and logic to the other minorities getting scapegoated and pummeled by this presidency. And honestly, I don’t think you should get over it.
I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to move forward with a clear-eyed understanding of the reasons your family believes what they believe and votes how they vote and defends what they defend. Because if you get that, you can understand that it was never about their love for you (though it should have been) but about the terror of confronting their own wrong and bigoted beliefs, and the way that confrontation would have unraveled their worlds.
And then, with that clear-eyed understanding, you can decide where to go. You can start working from the outside-in to try to help them change. The best thing you can do for them is cut off their access to the propaganda. As long as they’re seeking daily (or hourly!) confirmation bias from the conservative punditry herd, they’re never going to change. If you can pull or push them away from that, you’re on the right track. Or you can keep them at arm’s length and refuse to engage with them if they’re not arguing with you with real facts based in reality in the real world, if they’re just parroting whatever bullshit they heard Rush Limbaugh say the day before. Or you can take some time away from them and heal as you grapple with the myriad ways and reasons they’ve hurt you. Or you can stay close to them and continue to appeal to them on an emotional level by explaining the ways their hypocrisy hurts you; you can even bring Jesus into it. Jesus doesn’t have anything to say about gay people, but he has PLENTY to say about the kinds of religious leaders who support a man like Donald Trump.
I looked a man I’ve loved my entire life in the eyes a few months ago and said, “You’re racist.” That tactic is not supposed to work, but something about the fact that it was me — a little girl he’d spoon-fed and taught to read — shook him in his deepest heart. He turned off Fox News.
Here are three facts:
1) Our families are pawns in a zero-sum propaganda war that’s been funded and fueled by the white evangelical Christian Church and the Republican Party for decades.
2) We can’t side-step our responsibilities as activists.
3) There’s always hope.
And now you get to choose how to engage with those three truths with your eyes wide open!
Raising Baby T-Rex: My Mom Says We’re Exactly The Same
By the time I got around to having my own kid, I’d spent over three decades imagining and actualizing myself as a writer, an activist, a queer feminist, but never as a “mom.” As queer people do, once Waffle and I decided we were going to have a baby, I spent two full years overprocessing everything I could imagine or predict about joining the mommy cult before I even got knocked up.
I kept processing it all during the pregnancy as a queer feminist pregnant hard femme. I documented a lot of that here, on Autostraddle, with all of you. Still, I wasn’t at all prepared for first time parenting. No one is. Some things you just can’t prepare for. The hardcore sleep deprivation, the zero-sum-game of trying to maintain a sense of dignity postpartum, the ritualistic hazing that is trying to force an overtired baby to take a nap, the constant feeding-changing-sleeping-crying routine.
Literally just humble-bragging about how cute we are. Like, we’re really cute. (via our first birthday shoot with Jessica Stringer Photography)
What I wasn’t even remotely prepared for was how parenting would affect me as an adoptee.
I spent some time processing pregnancy as an adoptee, but I didn’t anticipate the feelings I’d have about being adopted and raising a toddler who still isn’t as old as I was when I came to the United States on an airplane. I thought I’d banished those ghosts a long time ago, the questions that I used to ask my mom over breakfast when I was little: “Where am I from?” “Why did they give me up?”
Me annoying one of our family dogs, Molson (named after the Canadian beer, yes, my parents were cool)
Recently, my 16-month-old baby has started to call for me by name in the morning: “Ma! Ma!” I always get up with her, something I resented in those early months but cherish now that we’re both sleeping through the night. (Parenting, like most things in a relationship, is so much playing to each others’ strengths. Waffle is a grouchy bear in the early morning. I can survive on less sleep and I was breastfeeding for the first six months, so I do my part on the wake-up shift. Waffle does his part in many other ways, like doing all the meal planning and grocery shopping.) Remi wakes up every morning knowing I’ll be there because I’ve been there every morning for the past 16 months, almost every single day of her life.
When I was a little over 17-months-old, I was delivered off a plane and placed into my parents’ arms and into my whole existence. Everything before that moment is gone, is vapor, a few translated sentences in my adoption papers. The loss of my history has never struck me the way it does now that I have a baby. I guess I’d always thought of babies as little, nonsensical, silly things. I didn’t know the difference between a one-week-old and a one-year-old until I carried my baby through that first year, from learning to latch to fighting over eating her vegetables.
Remi as a newborn (left) and at 6 months old, learning to sit up (right).
I didn’t comprehend that Little KaeLyn or, rather, Little Eun Jeong, had a whole 17 months of development and language and culture and food and exploration and family in another country halfway around the globe. Who I am was split in two at the moment I got on that plane to meet my new family. It might as well be a different person in a different world who lived my life before I came to the U.S. When I imagine it, it’s like imagining a foreign movie with subtitles or the plot of a book about Korean children, written by a visiting Western author. I will never get it back; even if I go to Korea now, as an adult, I’ll be a visitor. I can never go home to Korea, but Korea was my home. For 17 months, I was someone else. Home was somewhere else.
At 16 months, Remi knows the sound a cow makes (“Muh!”). She can bring me a book or a stuffed animal on request. She signs “more” fervently when she’s hungry and she loves cats (“Kah-Tah” as she says). She’s started sorting objects by type and loves to stomp her feet to music. She expects applause when she puts a ball through her Fisher Price basketball hoop. At 16 months, she knows a dozen baby words and understands more than that. Her favorite movie is Moana and she giggles or shrieks at her favorite parts. When she hears one of us in the bathroom, she runs in and drags her stool up to the bathroom sink to wash her hands. Right now, she’s double-fisting saucy strands of spaghetti and emphatically grunting, “Mmmmm,” between bites. At 16 months, she shows her love for us when she runs to meet Waffle at the door with a “Da! Da!” or when she grabs my neck in a big hug and gives firm, little pats on my arm (pat-pat-pat).
At 16 months, I knew…
At 16 months, I played with…
At 16 months, I said…
At 16 months, I loved…
At 16 months, I woke up and asked for…
Who Remi is, is so clear already. She’s cunning and likes to play little tricks on us. She’s a fearless adventurer who takes calculated risks and hard falls and gets up ready to try again. She is already insistently independent and wants to do everything herself. She’s a fast learner and a fast runner. She’s truly extra in every way and I love that about her.
My mom says we’re “exactly the same.” As she gets older, I definitely agree. Our pictures are almost identical to the untrained eye. But I wonder what I was like before my mom knew me. I wonder what words I said that no one in my American family could understand. I wonder how I interpreted getting on a plane in one world and popping out in another one, a new place where I couldn’t understand a single word and where no one could understand me. Surely, I was talking. Remi talks all day. Where did I think my biological parents went? How did I process moving to a home where nothing was familiar and where no one looked like me?
My adoption photo and my first picture of myself.
My mom and dad say I adapted quickly to my life in the U.S. and wasn’t afraid at all. I went right to them or to any stranger. I didn’t cry. I was a happy baby. I see that tenacity in Remi. She fears nothing. She adjusts quickly when traveling or going to the babysitter’s house or spending the night at Gramma and Grandpa’s house. She never seems to worry that we aren’t coming back. She’s so sure of herself.
Was I ever “just like” someone else? Are personality traits hereditary or chance? It’s hard to say, but I like to think that I’m getting a peek into who I might have been by knowing who Remi is. Her life story will be different than mine, a little more filled out, but it will still have gaps. Gaps in my history, that I can’t pass down to her. Gaps in the donor’s history (though we actually know way more about the donor’s biological family than we do about mine). And gaps where the complexity of being a Korean person in a mostly white family become painfully clear.
I went into parenting ready to reclaim “mommy” and ready to queer momminess. I didn’t expect to reclaim my need to explore my lost ancestry or my identity as Korean-American. I didn’t know that it would open something I thought I’d sealed up inside me a long time ago, the whispers of ancestors I can’t quite hear.
For now, I see parts of myself in my baby and it makes me feel simultaneously a little more empty and a little more whole. When I think about Remi growing up, I think about learning about Korean culture together, learning to cook Korean food for her, and ultimately about going back to Korea together. I just recently let myself say out loud that I’d like to do a birth family search, though I know how improbable is it that I’ll find anything. Anyone.
Remi’s dol-bok (Korean traditional 1st birthday garment) and cake smash, Korean and American first birthday traditions captured by Jessica Stringer Photography
In a couple weeks, she’ll be the same age I was when my plane touched down at JFK airport. I’ll finally be able to put pictures of her and me side-by-side to compare.
Me (left column), first year in the U.S. ages 17 months to 24 months. Remi (right column), first year of life ages 9 months to 12 months.
Y’All Need Help #20: First Admit That You Don’t Know Yet
Q:
My girlfriend and I have been together for about 10 years (met freshman year of college) and have been discussing getting engaged for quite some time (yay!) and I’m about ready to pop the question! In hetero millennial relationships, that would mean that the dude would propose, the girl gets the ring, fbook pics go up and then planning for the rest of their lives begin! However, what would you suggest for a couple where both parties want a ring, want the fbook pics, but still want an element of surprise and want to be considerate of each other.
We’ve already discussed that I want to do some proposing, and that she wants to be proposed to. But even though I’m proposing, I still want a ring. How do we do this? Does she propose to me at a different time after I’ve proposed? Does she just hand me a ring a few days later? We’ve considered waiting until engagement photos, but I don’t want to wait too long to get the ring. We’ve also discussed a time frame in which we are planning on doing our respective purchase (not the engagement, just the purchase) – so at least we know that when the time comes, she won’t need to rush to make a purchase.
It may be strange, and a good thing to need advice for – but what creative suggestions do you have for giving the ring to the proposer that doesn’t feel sorta weird and after the fact?
A:
Further proof that love is in fact not a lie! Hooray! Ok you both already know you want to be proposed to / receive a ring / get married, so the surprise of “wow you love me enough to spend forever together?” has passed. (I mean, this fact alone will continue to surprise you forever, but Now the surprises have to come from other things — like what the ring looks like, how it’ll be given, where you’ll be when you receive it, and what you’ll say to each other — which is great because those are very fun things to get creative with and to show how much you know each other.
If it were me, I’d get together with her and set aside two days (at least, depending on how elaborate your plans are) where neither person has any other obligations, and each of you claim a day to be in charge of. That’s the day you’re going to propose. Plan everything on that day — activities, locations, foods, super specific details that are unique to the other person and your relationship. And yeah she’ll know that on this one Saturday, she’ll be getting a ring, but she doesn’t know anything else, so everything that could be a surprise is a surprise, and you get a whole day to show off what she means to you. (And to take so, so many pictures!)
And then she’d do the same for YOU, planning the day, giving you your ring, doing and saying all the things. Surprises abound! Everyone’s happy! So many photo ops!
I hope this helps! I know the readers will have amazing ideas for you, too. Good luck and congratulations!
Q:
My soon-to-be-husbutch and I are getting married this year and are planning to jump aboard the baby train next year. Exciting times! I’m a pansexual, cisgender high femme and she’s my handsome genderqueer human. We’ve talked a lot about how we’d like to raise our future spawn and agreed on the importance of respecting our children’s genders. Until they start expressing themselves and communicating with us about their genders, we’re planning on giving them non-gendered names, clothing, and toys as much as possible and trying our best to avoid enforcing gender stereotypes and roles. All good! However, my partner asked me the other day whether we could use they/them pronouns for our kids until/unless they specify otherwise. To be honest, I was surprised by her suggestion and have conflicting feelings about this idea. I think I’d be more comfortable with it if my partner used they/them pronouns too – my initial reaction was that I didn’t want our kids to feel alienated by being the only people in our immediate and extended families who use they/them pronouns. I feel like a bad ally and partner for having this reaction, and a little out of my depth. How are other parents, especially those with one or more trans or gender expansive humans, dealing with this? Any help appreciated.
A:
I took your question to Twitter and got some interesting responses! To my knowledge, everyone who replied identifies as cisgender, but it might be reassuring to know that one parent does outreach for an LGBTQ youth center and provides training on gender and identity throughout the country.
Most parents raising their kids gender-neutrally are using gendered pronouns, at least until they hear otherwise from the kids. Lauren explained her decision like this:
My partner and I put a lot of thought into this. For background, we’re both lesbian-identified cis women. In my understanding, “they” is a pronoun we use for people whose gender we don’t know (“oh no, someone left their wallet!”) but also it’s the deliberately chosen pronoun people with a nonbinary identity. Using “they” for our baby felt like it would be trying to choose a nonbinary identity for our baby, not avoiding a choice and staying truly neutral. In the end we decided to use “he” and “him” pronouns for our baby, but try to create an environment that keeps gender-neutral and feminine expression accessible to him. We hope that he approaches gender with a sense of freedom, playfulness, and room for exploration as he grows– whatever his future identity may be.
In Erin’s case, after explaining that each person experiences gender in their own way and that gender can change for some people throughout their lives, her 4 year-old chose “they/them” as their pronouns. Some family members aren’t honoring her kid’s decision — which is an incredibly stupid hill for these family members to decide to die on, but whatever — and Erin and her partner are already coming up against unnecessarily gendered situations at school. They’ve suggested to the school that they try lining the children up by some other kind of binary — like peanut butter and jelly, or who likes cats and who likes dogs — instead of by their gender.
Oh! Everyone who replied is also super serious about making sure their kids have a variety of role models and acquaintances across the gender and presentation spectrum — this was a big deal to all the parents!
For what it’s worth, Lauren also reported being shocked by just how upset their families were when the sex of the baby wasn’t announced during the pregnancy, so that’s something to brace for! Several people also suggested checking out GenderSpectrum.org, specifically their Resources page in the Parenting and Family section.
You’ll make the right decision! And you can absolutely change course if you see that your original ideas need to be rethought. There’ll be so many additional things to worry about getting right, I bet the pronoun situation will feel easy in comparison. Maybe some non-binary readers could share their thoughts in the comments!
Q:
I was engaged in 2014, and then got married in 2016, to someone else. Okay, let’s back up. My 1st fiancee was very young and I was her first girlfriend and it was the first serious relationship she ever had. She was my best friend and greatest love. But I somehow got it in my head that I was being selfish and shouldn’t keep her from experiencing so many things that I knew I had experienced in the span of our age difference. So I ultimately sabotaged that relationship. Cut to a little over a year later when I met someone who I thought I clicked with and would be able to ride out this thing called life with. We got engaged in under a year and married a few months later. But now I feel like she isn’t the person I thought and we don’t really fit that well together, at all. I can’t stop thinking about what I threw away and that I married the wrong person. My wife is kind and I care for her but I’m so unhappy. I don’t even know how to bring all of this up! Help!
A:
Yes let’s please back up. I’m just going to get right to it, so please know before we jump into this deep end that I respect you and wish you nothing but the best in life! Ok! You might have married the wrong person, but that doesn’t mean you threw away your one true love.
A couple of things are going on here.
First of all, it looks like you’re rewriting your history and leaving some things out in order to soothe yourself into believing that you’d still be with your first fiancee if only you hadn’t purposely ruined everything. If she was your best friend and truly your greatest love, why did you not trust her to know what she wanted? You say you somehow got it into your head, but I bet there were some red flags, even if super tiny ones, that helped you know on some level that your relationship with your first fiancee wasn’t going to work out. Something was going on beyond just you knowing what was best for her and pushing her away, because that only happens in soap operas and romantic comedies.
Second but most pressingly, you’re now married to a person who doesn’t feel like the right fit anymore, which is a deeply unsettling situation to find yourself in after just two years. You said she isn’t the person you thought she was, which makes a lot of sense because it’s not really possible to truly know most people after only a handful of months. WAIT HEAR ME OUT there are definitely some wild otherworldly people out there who are so self-aware and so honest that maybe it is possible to know them on a deep personal level after just a little while, maybe, but most people take much longer to figure out. Most people haven’t even figured themselves out yet, so odds are good that whatever we think we know about them is just a version of what they think they know about themselves, which is riddled with inaccuracies and blind spots, AT BEST.
You’ve committed yourself in extremely serious ways to two different people over the span of four years, and I think it’s probably difficult to come to terms with these commitments not lasting, or in the case of your wife, at least not lasting the way you thought it would. It seems like you’re subconsciously searching for a line of reasoning that explains this away, and looking back on the first fiancee as The One You Were Meant to Be With kinda acts as a way to get you (and your wife) off the hook for whatever’s going wrong in this marriage.
Also your wife 100% knows that something’s wrong, even if she’s not acting like it or admitting it to herself. You should talk to each other and to a marriage counselor to see what your next steps might look like.
For the record, it’s ok to have two failed serious relationships! Don’t be afraid to stand up and say Both of These Women Were Wrong Fits for Me, Actually, or hey, maybe even Both of These Women Were Good Fits for a Time, But Then They Weren’t, and then sit with yourself in that honesty while you figure out what it is that you really want and need in this world! I mean, first admit that you don’t know yet, and then start figuring it out. Don’t rush into people — whether it’s your romantic partner or it’s the version of yourself that you see when you’re with them.
And real quick: you didn’t mention this, but just from my own experience and anecdotal situations I feel the need to say that if you find that you’re a different, better, more interesting exciting stable happy person when you’re in a relationship with certain people, unpack that. Figure out why you couldn’t or wouldn’t be that person without them, and if you like that version of you so much, just be it, all on your own. All of you is right there, even the stuff you think only other people can bring out!
So in closing, stop holding a candle for the past, start taking some hard looks at what you’ve got going on right now, and resolve to move forward one way or another.
Y’All Need Help is a biweekly advice column in which I pluck out a couple of questions from the You Need Help inbox and answer them right here, round-up style, quick and dirty! (Except sometimes it’s not quick, but that’s my prerogative, OK?) You can chime in with your own advice in the comments and submit your own quick and dirty questions any time.
Gift Guide: Badass Gifts for Cool, Feminist Babies
Click here for Holigays 2017
Let’s be real. Shopping for baby stuff is fun. The tiny clothing! The colorful board books! The neverending options for toys that light up and play (not-annoying-at-all) music! So fun!
But it’s also a freakin’ minefield of pink and blue and low-key rape culture and snore-inducing gender norms. Like, just UGH. As a queer mama to a little firecracker of a one-year-old, I know how hard it is. So I’ve done the hard work for you of finding some badass gifts for your kids or to scandalize your conservative family at your holiday gathering of choice. Behold!
Statement Onesies for Babies Who DGAF About the Patriarchy
[1] Angry Liberal Feminist Killjoy by Feminist Apparel ($29.95). [2] Cats Against Catcalls by Feminist Apparel ($29.95). [3] Love + Fighter by Wildfang ($28). [4] EatSleepRiotRepeat by UnrulyEmotion ($17). [5] Intersectional Rosie by Feminist Apparel ($29.95). [6] Feminist Fox Doesn’t Care for Your Misogyny by Feminist Apparel ($29.95). [7] I Have No Patience For Your Transphobia by FabulouslyFeminist ($24.99). [8] Gender Traitor by Autostraddle ($25).
The Library is Open for Babies Who Read
[1] This Little Trailblazer: A Girl Power Primer by Joan Holub ($6). [2] Counting on Community by Innosanto Nagara ($10). [3] Skin Again by bell hooks ($11). [4] Introducing Teddy: A gentle story about gender and friendship by Jess Walton ($12). [5] I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark by Debbie Levy ($10). [6] Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison ($10). [7] Worm Loves Worm by J.J. Austrian ($10). [8] Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai ($11).
Seriously, F*ck Your Gender Reveal Party
[1] Gender Self-Determination Print by FabulouslyFeminist ($15.99). [2] Cinnamon Rolls Not Gender Roles T-Shirt by ZealoApparel ($27.24). [3] Gender Roles? I Don’t Give A Fluff Print by FabulouslyFeminist ($15.99). [4] The Future is Fluid Onesie by Wildfang ($28). [5] Stop Equating Genitals With Gender Print by FabulouslyFeminist ($15.99). [6] Rainbow Babe by Feminist Apparel ($29.95).
Badass Toys for Brilliant Little Babes
[1] Frida Kahlo Amigurumi DOll by noraandjune ($50). [2] Ladies of the Supreme Court Finger Puppets by TomboyTogs ($5 each or $20 for the set). [3] Periodic Table Building Blocks by Uncle Goose ($32.95). [4] Produce Play Food Set With Crate by Melissa & Doug ($15.86). [5] DC Comics Wonder Woman Silicone Teether by Bumkins ($6.99). [6] Rainbow Stacking Ring by PlanToys ($18).
Thinking of buying gifts from the Autostraddle Store?
To get your deliveries in time for the holidays make sure to place your order by
Dec 13th—UPS First Class*
Dec 15th—USPS Priority Mail/UPS Ground*
*These dates are for domestic orders–we have no guarantee for international orders, so get ‘em in early heartstrings! ♡
Exploring the Messy, Imperfect Joy of Queer Foster-to-Adopt Parenting
We were supposed to be a one night stand. It was snowing. Kristan was wearing these big pearl earrings and It threw me off. Was she even a little bit queer? I wasn’t sure. Eventually I just went for it, figuring we’d probably never see each other again because she was living in New Jersey and I in Mexico. Six years later, we’re married and raising a kid. Neither of us felt strongly about having a biological connection to our child and ended up creating the docuseries The F Word about our experience adopting through the foster care system. Don’t get me wrong, a little mini Kristan would be the absolute cutest, but that just wasn’t a priority for us. When we started on this adoption journey we didn’t see it reflected anywhere, and we would have taken comfort in hearing other people’s stories, especially other queer people’s. We decided to turn the camera on ourselves in the hopes of filling that void.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZQ0MiKscZw
We signed up to work with an agency that works with foster youth, foster parents and foster parents hoping to adopt. We enrolled in the required P.R.I.D.E. classes (which have nothing to do with LGBTQ issues… I guess they missed the memo that pride belongs to queers). The teaching style was rote and when students answered “correctly” they got a sticker. By the end Kristan had amassed a huge collection of Hello Kitty stickers and my folder was bare, but they passed me anyway. Once we graduated we started in on the stacks and stacks of paperwork: the criminal background checks, the CPR and First Aid training, and probably-for-the-first-time-ever-bought-ourselves renter’s insurance (only because it’s required). We did our best to childproof our place with the help of two small inspectors (who you’ll meet in the series), and settled in to answer awkward personal questions about our lifestyle, our relationship, our family history and our coming out story. (Are straight couples ever asked by the social workers when they knew they were straight?)
Once the home study was done, the real waiting period began. We could go months without hearing anything; we pictured our home study covered in dust in a locked filing cabinet in some abandoned warehouse.
When we finally got the call about J, we thought it was going to be about two siblings we had just asked our social worker about. After waiting for over a year we had just expanded our search to include siblings and children over the age of 4, which seems foolish if you’ve seen the size of the apartment we live in. Our hearts sank when she told us the siblings had been matched with another family. And then she told us there was another child — a baby — at a nearby hospital. Were we interested? We said yes even though we had a thousand questions and just as many concerns (why was he in the hospital? Where were his birth parents? Who was holding him when he cried?).
That baby turned out to be our son.
Throughout the process of making this docu-series we tried to be as honest as possible; it made us feel vulnerable, but the outpouring of support we’ve received from nice people on the internet has been truly overwhelming. Still, we really just represent one voice in the system — the prospective adoptive parent’s voice — and frankly this is the voice that has held the most power historically, and is the voice that’s framed the adoption narrative for so long. On top of that we’re white, as are many (but definitely not all) fost-adopt parents, and our white privilege is part of what enables us to make this creative work in the first place.
There aren’t a lot of platforms for the lesser-heard voices that truly deserve to be amplified — such as foster parents who work to help bio parents reunify with their kids, or who take teens in just to help them prepare for college. Or bio/first/birth parents themselves who have been able to reunify or who have healthy, open adoption arrangements with their child’s adoptive family. We’ve also met social entrepreneurs from Massachusetts to Silicon Valley working to re-envision foster care as we know it so that kids aren’t lost to the system. We want to make space for these narratives and more in the next season of The F Word, and most importantly we’ll be speaking with adoptees and former foster youth themselves. Those are the voices we really need to hear from if we’re going to repair this broken system.
People often want the picture of adoption to be a fairy tale, and the truth is it’s messy. We are very much in the “honeymoon period” with our sweet kid, but we know that adoption stories are rooted in grief and loss, and that should be acknowledged. It does a disservice to everyone when we ignore that. But that’s no reason not to adopt, because it also happens to be profoundly beautiful, deeply meaningful and ultimately, transformative for everyone involved. We’ve found that the foster care system can be incredibly divisive, and the more we open up spaces to hear from voices that are too often silenced (youth who’ve aged out, parents who’ve reunified), the more compassion and empathy we’ll all have for everyone involved. I think adoptive parents need these conversations a lot more than we need strangers telling us we’re heroic. That savior rhetoric can be really damaging to adopted youth, and frankly, it’s just untrue. We are people who want to raise children. People have been doing this since the dawn of time and there’s nothing heroic about it.
As for queers adopting from care, when we were locking picture on the series, South Dakota had just passed a “religious liberty” law (Senate Bill 149) allowing adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples trying to adopt from foster care. Since then it’s ballooned to Alabama, Texas, North Dakota, Virginia, and Mississippi. It was tempting for us to adopt the thinking that “Oh this would never touch California, we live in a gay paradise,” but Prop 8 happened not too long ago; we didn’t think we’d have a racist reality tv star for a president either. Progress can reverse in the blink of an eye, as we’re seeing every day in Trump’s America.
OK, I know what you’re thinking. None of this sounds funny or entertaining. But just trust me, we can do it.
The F Word Season 1 revealed the story of one queer couple adopting from foster care in Oakland, CA. Season 2 will continue our story while amplifying other voices in the foster care world: birth/first families, foster youth, adoptees and social entrepreneurs working to make things better.
If you want to help us make Season Two, we’re crowdfunding on Seed & Spark for the entire month of November, which is Adoption Awareness Month. Please check out our campaign!
Six Places to Shop for Super Cute Gender-Neutral Kids Clothing
There’s a wonderful thing happening in the realm of children’s clothing that is LONG overdue: the realization that toxic gender norms and stereotypes have no place in children’s closets has become more mainstream than ever before. The resulting increase in demand for gender neutral kid’s clothing has allowed small businesses that were already filling this gap to gain traction. It’s also leading major retailers to provide more gender neutral options, making them more accessible both physically and financially to those seeking them. This is a major win for the queer community. We’ve always been at the forefront calling for the creation and inclusion of gender neutral clothing and spaces across age groups, and it seems those calls are finally being answered on a macro level.
I spend a LOT of time shopping for kid’s clothes as I’m solidly in that “all my friends are getting married and starting families” phase. I know all too well how disheartening it is to try to shop for tiny humans and succeed at sorting through all the pink princess dresses and blue truck t-shirts and come out with something that doesn’t say “I bought this to pigeonhole your gender expression into one that fits society’s backwards expectations based on the belief that sex and gender are related.” Given my experiences, I figured it’d be helpful to share a list of stores i’ve come across in my baby shower and birthday gift shopping that are amazing resources for dressing a gender neutral child. Bonus info: aside from the three major retailers (Amazon, Polarn O Pyreet, and Target) all these shops are woman-created and owned. Polarn O Pyreet’s US division CEO is a woman as well.
Amazon.com
Unsurprisingly, given that Amazon has everything ever and will deliver it straight to your doorstep so there’s no real reason to leave home ever again, they also have thousands of gender-neutral clothing items and accessories on their site. They source from lots of smaller sellers so the diversity of styles is pretty amazing and there’s something for just about every personality of child and family. They’ve also got a great selection of gender-neutral room decor and toys, making it the ultimate one-stop shop. The only place Amazon falls a little short is that they have far more options for infants and toddlers than older children.
Gardner and the Gang
This line was started in 2012 by artist Kristen Nystrom and inspired by the birth of her child. She draws all the prints and gives each collection a fun story and cast of characters. Their clothes are organic and comfy but also super trendy and fashionable, so if you’re looking for that LA hipster kid aesthetic, this is the place to go.
The Bunting Tree
The Bunting Tree is a UK-based shop started and run by a mom named Emma. Their items are also organic and ethically made in a small family owned factory in India. All designs are handmade and feature bright bold colors and prints. They use lots of rainbows in their designs, so their clothes are often favorites of queer families!
Polarn O Pyreet
This shop has a pretty badass history. The creators started off opening a drugstore over 100 years ago in Sweden that also sold some clothing and condoms, as they wanted to help Swedes with family planning. They later shifted to selling just clothing and are now one of the most popular retailers for gender-neutral children’s clothing. Their brand values specifically state “we avoid gender stereotypes by using unisex colours and prints.” Navy and red and all things striped are their trademarks and their clothes are a favorite among celebrities. They expanded sales online and in store to the US about three years ago, and are widely available in Europe and the UK!
Target
Between removing “girls” and “boys” labels from their toy section, committing to providing gender neutral restrooms, and now announcing a clothing line in collaboration with Toca Boca that will include genderless options, Target is really trying to win our hearts. They’ve gotten a ton of buzz over the impending release of their line, but even now a quick search on their website for “unisex baby clothes” returns over 800 solid results.
Wynken Kids
Wynken is a unisex kid’s brand created by mother and clothing designer Elbe Lealman and based in London. Their collections are contemporary and modern, yet playful. Comfort and mobility are central to the cuts of their items, so these make great play and activity clothes for energetic little bodies.
You Need Help: Do I Really Have to Go to My Biphobic Brother-in-Law’s Wedding?
Q: Two years ago I came out as bisexual to my husband’s three siblings. My husband had always known I dated women before him, and I felt it was time I wanted to share a piece of who I was with his siblings as they all voiced support of LGBTQ people. One of them took it well and showed support, one was completely ambivalent, and one brother went off on me. He called my mother-in-law, whom I did not plan to be out to anytime soon, and the whole family spent the night on the phone having secret conversations about me. My mother-in-law encouraged my husband to divorce me and try for full custody as I was “not right in the head.” After a few weeks, we came to an understanding. My mother-in-law felt sorry, but she also never wanted to speak of the episode or my bisexuality again. Our relationship continues to be awkward. My brother-in-law is not sorry to this day. He says if I didn’t want everyone to know, I should never have told him; he also blamed me, saying bisexuality was confusing and if I didn’t want him to out me and encourage my husband to leave, I should have better explained it. His other two siblings completely understood. My husband told him that what he did was wrong, but he would not accept it. He continues to bring up my coming out with my husband telling him I ruined their brotherly relationship.
My brother-in-law’s wedding is coming up in a few months. He is inviting me to the wedding out of obligation as my husband and daughter are both in the wedding, but I’d rather he didn’t. Is there any case where it would be okay not to attend? I know it may cause more family problems which I don’t want, but I also don’t know how to face him.
A: Wow, well this guy is a real asshole, huh? I want nothing more than to key his car, drink all the beer in his fridge, and start a group chat with all his exes to plot revenge.
The short answer to your question is, while I am definitely not an etiquette expert, I don’t think you have to go to this dude’s wedding. You said yourself that he only invited you out of obligation; do your really want to travel however far and make conversation with boring people while wearing uncomfortable shoes for some jerk who doesn’t even want you there? Think about how many straight people have skipped their queer friends’ and family’s beautiful weddings and family milestones out of bigotry — think about how self-righteous they feel about doing that! People are out here totally comfortable skipping weddings out of abstract homophobia, and here you are having experienced actual concrete harm from these people; I think it’s more than reasonable to not go.
It’s possible it may ’cause more family problems;’ I get that that’s a real concern. But all the ‘family problems’ so far have been out of your control and against your will — it’s neither fair nor realistic for you to feel like you can or should control how his family is feeling. It also, I would argue, isn’t your job! “Facing him” shouldn’t be on you! Here is where we segue into the longer advice that you may not actually be asking for.
You mentioned that your husband talked to his brother and let him know that what he did was wildly inappropriate, which is great! And it seems like based on the context when you mentioned him knowing you’re bi, he’s been supportive with that too (I hope). These things are solid starts, but to be honest, in terms of how a partner could be supporting you in the midst of a family situation that’s been seriously harmful to you, I think it’s more than fair for him to be doing a lot more. In general, if one person in a partnership has an identity or experience that’s marginalized within the other partner’s family, I think it’s the person’s job whose family it is to work on that and make it safe for their partner to be there — or, if that isn’t possible, to do the work of telling that family why you won’t be spending time with them. This is the work people do both as partners and as allies in general, you know?
It’s great that your husband talked to his brother about what already happened, but at the end of the day, it’s already happened — even if his brother DID accept it, that doesn’t fix things going forward. Can your husband also talk to his brother, his mom, and any other family members who participated in this clusterfuck to set explicit expectations about how they should be treating you from now on, and explaining why and educating them when necessary? Can he sit his brother down and explain not only how he fucked up, but what the consequences are going to be, why he can expect not to see you at the wedding, and what he would need to do to make amends if he wants that to change? To the extent that any of that does cause backlash, can he take on the task of dealing with it and protect and support you through it as much as possible?
I realize it’s possible that the idea of talking about this so directly, or even having your husband do it, is maybe uncomfortable or not what you want. Maybe you just want this all to go away, or to feel like it did at least as much as possible for right now. If that’s where you’re at, that’s where you’re at! But even if what you decide you want to go with is telling your brother-in-law that you have food poisoning and that’s why you’re not there, I still think that ball is squarely in your husband’s court. If that’s not something you feel comfortable with asking of him, that might be something to think about! I feel strongly that bi people dating not-bi people have the right to ask more of our partners than just “being okay with” us, you know? We deserve proactive, concrete support! What would enthusiastic, unconditional support of you look like in this situation? Just something to think about!
In the meantime, I’ll be thinking of you and hoping that your brother-in-law gets salmonella from the fish at his wedding for exactly the length of his honeymoon but that everyone else is totally fine!
Queer Crip Love Fest: Parenting at the Intersections
The conversation around parenting and disability often follows the same tired path: nondisabled parents, disabled child, and a whole lot of “life-changing lessons.” But what about disabled people who decide to have kids? We’re not hearing their stories often enough — to the point that some able people might not realize they’re out there. Fortunately Lala, a 22-year-old nonbinary mother living in Florida, has plenty to say about that.
“I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Type 3. I’m a mother to a two-year-old boy, and I have an amazing and supportive cis male partner. Right now, however, we are fighting to reunify with our son due to a domestic incident. Being disabled is making the battle to get my son back even more difficult.
After I had my son, I got back into reading. Reading helps me cope with the fact that I have limited exposure to the world around me because of my physical disability and mental illnesses. Reading helps me to escape the dark mindset I have, and even helps me to dream peacefully.”
Read on for their insights on parenting while disabled, being out at work, and the importance of a good book.
Let’s start with your fiancé. Where did you meet?
We were part of a mingle group on Facebook — so I guess you could say it was kind of an unconventional way of meeting. But for a lot of disabled people like me, it’s not. It’s more than conventional; it’s perfect. I was actually with my ex at the time, so we were just Facebook friends. And after I went through a bad breakup with that person, he and I started talking seriously.
I was supposed to go to an Orlando meetup, and he was going to come from Miami. But then I got my first job, and thought I was going to be too busy working to make it. And so one day this big group of people, including him, made a surprise visit to my job. This is going to sound so cheesy — I’m not gonna say it was love at first sight — but when we actually met in person, something definitely clicked. It was a pretty fast move, but I felt it was right. We have a son now, our two-year-old.
That’s so great. Do you think it’s more common for disabled people to meet their partners online?
I don’t think it’s specifically about that; there’s a multitude of reasons why someone will befriend someone or meet a partner, and one of them is being disabled. For queer people, too, it’s a lot easier to find like-minded people online. There’s always the chance that we could get bullied, killed, whatever — any of those fears people have about outing themselves.
Even then, I’m afraid to tell some people that I’m disabled, because I don’t know what their reaction will be. Usually, the reaction I get is “Oh, but you don’t look disabled!”
I get that all the time.
Yes. So it made sense for me to find my friends and my fiancé online. It’s been a lot easier for me to be taken seriously online. When people find out how old I am, for example, they’re like “I wouldn’t have guessed! You’re so wise and mature for your age!” But offline, it’s much harder for me to be taken seriously. It’s a lot harder for me to find friends, it’s a lot harder for people who are older to take me seriously unless I’m with him.
I get teased for having a “chipmunk voice.” When I do disclose my disability, some people will really patronize me and treat me like I don’t know what I’m talking about or whatever.
Yes! I’ve always found getting people to take you seriously as an adult is one of the most difficult things. There’s a temptation to treat disabled people as perpetual children.
Once, a woman thought I was my own fiancé’s daughter because I was walking with a limp.
Whoa, what?
Yes. That was kind of embarrassing. I mean, there’s an age difference between us, but we look nothing alike. So… yeah.
You’re actually the first person I’ve talked to for this series who’s a parent. It can be such an emotionally charged thing for disabled people to have children. Talk about not getting taken seriously — parenthood is something people assume we’ll never want or be able to do successfully. What’s your experience been with that?
Before becoming a parent, I looked at parenting through rose-colored glasses — with an able-bodied person’s perspective. It was drilled into my head by other people, well-meaning as they were, that I probably shouldn’t have children. Because “Oh, what if you pass it on to them?” or “Oh, what if it’s too hard on your body to carry the fetus?” “What if you can’t pick up your child?”
Honestly, when I got with my fiancé, I was just like, “fuck it.” My symptoms are debilitating and they’re going to get worse as I age. I’d rather be a mom now than later. And plus, I’m fortunate that I got my diagnosis when I was nine; many, many people who have uteri don’t discover that they have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome until they’re either pregnant, going into pre-term labor, or the baby is older and they’re also having issues.
Parenting while disabled is very interesting. We actually purchased our first baby carrier at Target when our son was about five months old. I only got to wear it one time; we take public transit everywhere, so usually it was Dad always wearing it, or we had the stroller. The one time I got to wear him was in a supermarket. He was so heavy! And I knew I couldn’t walk with him in it, so I sat down in the grocery scooter and strolled around the store carrying him. The looks I got were mixed; there were some, like, “Should she be doing that?” or “Aw, that’s so cute!” but in a very patronizing way. Or “… is that her baby?”
Do you find you have to justify yourself as a parent?
When I take him to doctor’s appointments, for example, I almost always have my fiancé with me. Again, we take public transit, or when we were on Medicaid, we got free transport to and from the appointments. So I didn’t really feel the need to justify myself in that situation. But when I was pregnant, my first OB didn’t take me seriously. I said that due to the nature of my disability, I should be labeled high risk. He didn’t really pay attention to me at all. I kind of felt like I was in a drive-thru: “Lemme see how you’re doing, baby’s good, okay great, get out. Next!”
It’s really hard for me to advocate for myself, and at that point my fiancé didn’t know much about EDS. Now he does; I even have him carrying around a little EDS information thing in his wallet.
If you talk about disability as a family issue, people assume that means the kid has the disability — and also that it’ll be a burden on the family. But it’s so much more complex than that.
That makes me think of something else I’m really hoping to see: more changing tables in gender neutral or men’s restrooms. They’re pretty common here, but this is a major city; if you go further out into smaller towns, they get a lot harder to find. Obviously as my son gets bigger, it’s harder for me to change him. So it’s almost always been my fiancé that has to change him, and some public restrooms just do not have changing tables. It’s unfair and absurd. There are so many reasons why every public restroom should have a changing table!
“We don’t have our own bathroom, we don’t have a kitchen, we don’t have a sink, we don’t have a toilet. Everyone in the building shares one microwave. I’ve noticed that a lot of us in this building have chronic illnesses, disabilities, or mental illnesses. There’s a lot to say about that.”
Do people ever say that it’s “so inspiring” that you have a kid?
To be honest, my fiancé kind of did at first. But he’s really been open to learning and listening to what I have to say. He says I’m inspiring for other reasons. But beyond that, no, I haven’t really been praised for being a parent and being disabled.
That’s surprising in a good way, actually. I would think people would get weird about that.
I’m sure they do. But I have to disclose my disability because I “don’t look like it,” so I’m able to kind of blend in. I’m sure if I used a wheelchair or my scooter full-time and had my son walking around beside me, people would say it’s “such an inspiration.” I wouldn’t be surprised.
Right now my son is in foster care. We’re supposed to be living somewhere that accepts children later this month, so that’s kind of a tight deadline to find a place. And we’re in a hard situation; I just started working my second job ever, and it’s only minimum wage. My fiancé works in IT, and people in that field typically make good money, but it’s been hard to save up for a place. Where we live is pretty much a shit motel. The landlord is overcharging everyone here. We don’t have our own bathroom, we don’t have a kitchen, we don’t have a sink, we don’t have a toilet. Everyone in the building shares one microwave. I’ve noticed that a lot of us in this building have chronic illnesses, disabilities, or mental illnesses. There’s a lot to say about that.
I’ve been having to unpack my own ableist thinking, and nothing’s been more eye-opening than living in this building and talking to the people here. Some people I talk to on a regular basis are the very same people I would have judged, or thought they were weird or odd or peculiar, and just not wanted to associate with whatsoever. But upon knowing who they are and why they’re struggling — often because they’re disabled and can’t find work, since no one wants to hire us — it’s made me reevaluate the way I looked at ableism.
Disability has such a harsh impact on employment and housing. Even though it’s technically illegal not to hire someone because of their disability, there are so many loopholes in the way that law gets applied.
I honestly go into work thinking “Could this be my last day?” Because even though my employer seems very understanding, when I finally disclose my disability, I’m afraid I’m just gonna go in and they’re gonna say “Sorry, we have to let you go.” And I’m not gonna know why, and I can’t prove that they fired me because of it. They can also fire you for being gay here.
So are you out as queer at work?
Several of my coworkers know that I’m bi, but not nonbinary. I still go with she/her pronouns. They already know that I’m disabled, and at least I can kind of present as cishet, but there are things I have to think about. Which would I rather disclose, and which would I rather keep hidden?
How long have you been out as nonbinary?
I’d say a little over a year now. I kind of kept it hidden until the Pulse tragedy, given how close it was to home. I went to an arts school that a lot of queer people tend to flock to, and I was worried, checking on Facebook to see if any of my friends were there. Hearing that it was on a Latinx night, being Latinx, it just made it even worse. I drank a lot the night after it happened, and I was freaking out.
I was staying at my friend’s house at the time, and I came out to my fiancé over Messenger. He told me that he would love me no matter what, and he said he was gonna be there for me until the end and meant it. I don’t mind that he still presents me as his wife, but he definitely recognizes that I’m genderqueer, and he’s been very understanding. I’m kind of hoping that he’ll help me get my first binder, because I really want one.
That would be awesome! It’s great that he’s been understanding. That’s by no means a given.
He was a lot worse when we first started dating; he was definitely more on the privileged side, to the point of not recognizing it. But I’m getting through to him. He’s started to help me pick out my haircuts — like now, I have an undercut, and he helped me pick that out. He gives me tips on how to style it and make it look better. It’s awesome.
There’s been some moments when we’ve really clashed, or he’s made transphobic statements about somebody else. But typically, we’ll have a quick argument, and later on or the next day have a heart-to-heart. And he’s been very understanding and perceptive to what I’m saying. It’s kind of hard for people who have intersecting, marginalized identities to find someone who can be wholly enlightened or totally aware. There’s always going to be those internal biases they don’t know that they have. So I try to think about it as “How can I frame this to help him see that wasn’t okay?”
“I love being able to read something that is fabricated from the author’s imagination. It’s amazing, it’s really a special craft.”
I also want to talk to you about reading. You mentioned that you hadn’t been reading in a while because of school, which is something I definitely relate to, and then you got back into reading after your son was born. Was it because you were reading to him, or just because you realized it was time?
Both. We got word books for him, and I was reading those almost every day. And I was like, “As much as I think these are really cute, I’m getting kind of bored reading the same thing over and over. I should really get back into reading.” So I checked out chapter books for children at the library. The first one I read to him was The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. I love that book. I hadn’t read it since I was in third grade, and it was such a treat reading it to my son. It was also a fantastic choice to get back into reading.
I’ve set reading goals for myself ever since my son was born, and I’m trying to reach those goals by New Year’s Eve. I’m trying to read 52 books, one every week. I’m on track so far.
Media representation of disability, especially disabled queer people and people of color, is sorely lacking. Have you ever read a book that you felt represented you in all of those identities?
I’ve felt I had to pick one identity and sacrifice the others. There are books with disabled protagonists that I might want to read, but they’re not really available in the library. I can’t remember the last time I looked up a book about a disabled character. I’ve kind of given up; it’s disheartening. I don’t tend to see books about characters who use wheelchairs or canes or have hearing aids or anything.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is about a kid who, as he describes it, has water on his brain, and he’s intellectually disabled. Alexie is Native American, and so is the character. So it was very interesting to see those identities intersecting. The character describes how he didn’t feel at home on his own reservation because he was going to a white school, and he didn’t feel like he fit in at school because they were being racist toward him. The kids at home would call him retarded and everything, and it really tore me up, because I know what that’s like.
Ursula Le Guin said that stories are lies that tell the truth, and I think that’s very true. That’s exactly why I read. I love being able to read something that is fabricated from the author’s imagination. It’s amazing, it’s really a special craft. I love being able to see things from different perspectives, which I really think has helped me be more mindful of other people and understand where they’re coming from. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, I think that applies.
Reading has been an amazing way for me to just step outside my world for a second and be able to refresh my perspective. Especially since the election, it’s been helpful.
“I think love, for the marginalized person of intersecting identities, is being able to see past your own biases you’ve internalized to love that person and recognize difference. For a privileged person, it’s to be able to love unconditionally — because they should be loving unconditionally.”
What’s it been like, at the intersection of all of your identities, to live in this political environment so far?
It’s a complicated question, obviously. Because I can’t lie and say I’ve been harassed or discriminated against; I am light-skinned, and that affects things. I haven’t really experienced harassment, and I hope I don’t. I live in Miami, which is a diverse city, but a lot of people still voted for Trump. And even though I haven’t experienced harassment or racism personally, I can’t say that it doesn’t happen. A lot of white people, and even light-skinned people of color, tend to get that wrong about Miami. They think that because Miami has many different cultures and is very diverse, racism is not a thing here. That’s absolutely false.
I’m definitely not oblivious to the things going on in this state. I live right outside what used to be a predominantly black neighborhood, and now all you see are white people. It’s horrible how gentrification took over. They’re trying to convince people that this is the place to be, when there are homeless people sleeping at the foot of all these new paintings and murals and whatever. I experience more direct racism online than I do in my day to day life, but it’s very much alive here.
How can America be great when it was never great for people of color, for disabled people, for the sick, for the poor, for people with uteri? It just never was.
And finally, the big question I ask everyone in this series: what does love mean to you?
That’s honestly a tough question. Because if I say love is unconditional, and then one of the ways I cope is by saying “I hate my oppressors,” people will be like “You need to rise above and be better than that; otherwise, you’re just as bad as they are.” Okay, but there’s a power imbalance, so that’s not really true.
I think love, for the marginalized person of intersecting identities, is being able to see past your own biases you’ve internalized to love that person and recognize difference. For a privileged person, it’s to be able to love unconditionally — because they should be loving unconditionally.
Donald Trump Is President and I’m Adopting My Own Daughter
We thought the world had changed. In 2006, when my wife and I got married, our only option for us was to travel to Canada to get a marriage license. It was eleven years ago, but it feels like another lifetime. A time when states were throwing Defense Against Marriage Acts up as fast as they could, when the only lesbians on TV were talking, laughing, loving, and breathing after 10pm on premium cable.
Things were pretty much the same when we decided to have a baby in 2008. We lived in New Jersey, a state that considered us to be in a civil union, in spite of our legal Canadian marriage. We knew from the moment I got pregnant that we would be doing a second-parent adoption so my wife could have her rights protected as our daughter’s mother. I was a practicing lawyer at the time, so I downloaded some forms, jumped through the hoops, and my wife adopted the daughter she helped conceive on a chilly, sunny Friday morning.
My in-laws came with us to the adoption. We took pictures with the judge and basked in the warmth of the staff. They see some gnarly stuff in family court; a couple of lesbians adopting a baby is a good day. We got some breakfast and I went back to work and my wife went home with our daughter.
Three years later, my wife had gone from medical student to resident and I was at home with our daughter when we decided we were ready for kid number two. My wife, champion that she is, carried this baby through the rigors of overnight calls, insanely long days, and too many hours on her feet. Things felt different, though, because in New Hampshire we were considered married. Our relationship was finally recognized. This meant that my rights as the other mother of our new baby should have been guaranteed from day one. I wasn’t a practicing lawyer anymore. I didn’t have the access or the time to find the forms I needed to fill out to adopt this baby. But it was probably fine now that we were married. And then Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell fell. And DOMA was struck down as the Supreme Court declared marriage a fundamental right. And the White House was lit up like a rainbow during Pride. It seemed unnecessary to second-parent adopt our second child. Gay people had won! We won!
And then the election happened.
Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, with Mike Pence, conversion therapy advocate, as his number two. Oh, and both chambers of Congress have Republican majorities! And, by the way, there’s a vacant seat on the Supreme Court of the United States that these monsters are going to fill!
Suddenly, all those rights we won over decades looked shaky in the hands of a narcissist-in-chief and his band of simpering sycophants in the GOP. Within half an hour of Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn in, the LGBT protections page disappeared from the White House website. Our marriage certificate no longer felt secure. My name being on our daughters’ birth certificates no longer felt like protection against a government that hates LGBTQ people. That New Hampshire deemed me enough of a parent to warrant a space on B’s birth certificate didn’t feel like enough.
I became a lawyer because I believed in the power of the law to change society, and to protect the people. After this election, my wife and I realized we had to use the law to protect my rights as B’s mother. And we had to do it fast.
A little over a week ago, I finally set aside my phone anxiety enough to contact the family court for my county. I found the number for adoptions and called, somewhere between hoping no one answered and wanting to get this phone call over with. All I needed from the court were the forms to file a petition to adopt my daughter. The woman on the other end of the line took down my address, asked me a few questions, and said the forms would be in the mail. I sent my wife a an email to tell her that the woman on the phone was nice.
I have to adopt my five-year-old daughter to be sure that no matter how far down the pit we fall under our new president, no one will try to take my kid away. But, you know, at least the lady on the phone was nice.
This morning, I took the forms out of my bedside table, where we put them to keep our 8-year-old from reading them. What are you worried about your kids finding in your bedside? Not sex toys; government documents.
I starting filling in the easy stuff — names, dates of birth, addresses — and then I had to stop. This form, from the nice lady at the court, exists so I can ask the government if I can be my own daughter’s legal parent. I got so upset I had to put them away.
I’m angry at the injustice. Angry that I, who planned with my wife for our daughter’s conception, went to the doctor with her, smoothed her hair and spoke softly to her when she was scared during her C-section, who spent years caring for both of our children so my wife could complete her residency and fellowship, who changed more diapers than I can count, fed, clothed, rocked, sang to, danced with, read to, and loved and loved and loved this child could be considered a stranger to her in the eyes of the law.
No, she is not my blood. You only have to look at her beautiful face to understand that she is my wife’s brilliant offspring. But she is my child. She belongs to me and I to her as much as I belong to the child I did carry. I’m more than angry. I’m hurt and enraged at a system that will force me to look at my perfect, hilarious, mischievous child and be forced to explain that there are people in the world who don’t understand that I am her Mama. I have been her Mama since the moment she was conceived, from the moment I felt her move in my wife’s belly, and from the moment she emerged into this world.
I’m livid that I have to look at her and explain that Yes, baby. I am your Mama, but we have to do this so no one can say otherwise.
I’m angry at the world, and I am angry at our own stupidity for not doing this when she was a baby. Why did we not spare her, spare us, this conversation? Things had changed. The President of the United States said they had changed.
But there’s a new president now. So, I will do the papers and we will go to court and I will tell B that I have always been her Mama and I will always be her Mama.
And I will tell her something else. Love is something we choose. We choose each other. I choose my wife every single day. I choose these children. And by doing these papers, I hope she will understand that she is my family, not just because I am married to her biological mother, and not just because I was there for every milestone in her young life, but because I choose to be her Mama. I choose her every minute of the day, and I will continue to choose her regardless of what the future brings. I choose her. For her, I will play the game and sign the papers, and ask the court to bless what we know is already true.
It doesn’t matter who is in the White House: She is my child. I am her Mama.
Holigay Gift Guide 2016: New Parents of Human Babies
So I’m a parent now and, as everyone said it would, it’s totally changed my life. My whole schedule now revolves around this tiny person who needs me for literally everything from feeding her face to cleaning her butt.
Holiday shopping with a newborn is a lot less “browsing stores for hours looking for the perfect gift” and a lot more “buying most everything online or shopping with a really specific list and plan.” On the flip, my in-laws want to know what I’d like for Christmas, but there’s not much I need right now other than a few consecutive hours of sleep and maybe some food that I don’t have to make.
New parents of tiny babies are a weird bunch because we’ve become social recluses out of necessity, spend hours each day speaking in baby talk, and have generally lost touch with the outside world. If you have a friend or relative who has a little one, you might be befuddled about what to get them. Diapers? Vodka? More baby clothes? I’ve got you. If anyone wants to buy me these things, I would not be opposed…
Hungry Parents of Hungry Babies
You know what you barely have time for once you’ve got a baby at home? Healthy meals. All our focus is on making sure the baby is eating well and we barely have time to cook for ourselves.
- Take the pressure off of what to make for dinner with a gift subscription to HelloFresh and send all the ingredients for a healthy meal to their doorstep!
- Order healthy and yummy treats for the whole family with a Graze box gift subscription.
- Send something sweet to look forward to after the baby goes to bed, a Cookie Every Night subscription from Mouth.
- No tired parent has the time to hit the liquor store, so treat them to a Gold Medal Wine Club gift subscription.
Baby-Free Date Night
Want to win a new parent over for life? Offer to babysit so they can have a relaxing date night with their significant other or a night of quiet relaxation on their own.
- Book a hotel room close to home with Hotels.com. That way, the parents can get some alone time and some solid sleep time, but still be close enough in case of an emergency (or if they decide they need to come check on the baby).
- Nothing like the best lesbian movie ever made, Carol, to set the mood…
- …and an edible wax candle that turns into massage oil for some solo or partnered relaxation.
Exhausted Parent Pampering
At the end of the day, we could just use some extra comfort. That’s all.
- Every second of sleep counts with a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night. Help a new parent make the most of every moment in their bed with these super warm, super comfy, super sleep-inducing fleece sheets.
- A portable heated back massager will help release the tension at work, at home, or wherever and whenever a free fifteen minutes presents itself.
- I guarantee you new parents don’t have time or resources to buy fancy, yummy bath products, so treat them to a relaxing sensory experience with this coconut body scrup from the Body Shop. The next time they find a hot minute to take a shower, they’ll thank you!
- This is the perfect adult coloring book to blow off some steam after a long day soothing a fussy baby.
Baby Stuff, Duh
We all know what you really want is to spoil our baby with gifts. FINE. At least make it something useful!
- When I was pregnant, one of my friends who has a kid told me to get lots of zip-up sleep’n’plays. We only half-listened. Now, we understand. Zip-up footie sleepers are essential and every parent who has already received way too many gifts of clothing will still appreciate a zip-up sleep’n’play. This cute dinosaur sleeper with dino feet is adorable.
- The VTech Sit-to-Stand Learning Walker is the perfect educational toy to grow with a kiddo from infant to toddler.
- The Bright Starts Around We Go 3-in-1 Activity Center Zippity Zoo is great for a tired parent with an active baby. It lets mobile little feet run around safely and converts to a toddler table when they’re older.
- File this one under weird stuff I didn’t think we’d use, but we can’t live without. The Bath Luve washcloth keeps a newborn baby warm while getting a bath. You could just use a washcloth, but it wouldn’t be as cute nor would it cover their little bodies so perfectly.
VIDEO: “Queer Kid Stuff” Brings More LGBTQ Vids to Kids!
Queer Kid Stuff is an educational webseries geared towards a young audience. Think Mr. Rogers, but with a cute queer woman in a fun button-down shirt instead of a kindly man in a red sweater.
Lindsay Amer created Queer Kid Stuff because she saw a need for age-appropriate and affirming LGBTQ educational content geared towards young children. She and her best stuffed friend, Teddy, star in the series. The first video “What Does Gay Mean?” was released last spring and the rest of Series One is slated to be released this fall.
You can watch the first six episodes in the ten episode series right now, covering everything from gender to homophobia to cartoons. Share them with a young person in your life and subscribe to get notifications about new episodes!
Episode 1: What Does Gay Mean?
Episode 2: What is Gender?
Episode 3: What Does Queer Mean?
Episode 4: What is Marriage Equality?
Episode 5: Let’s Talk About Homophobia
Episode 6: Steven Universe Popsicle Puppets
You can support Queer Kid Stuff by donating to their Patreon. Read more of Amer‘s thoughts on queer kids at The Parents Project.
Team Pick: “Queer Kid Stuff” Brings Fun LGBTQ Videos to Preschool Children
Lindsay Amer is the creator of Queer Kid Stuff, a webseries starring Amer and her best stuffed friend, Teddy. Amer created the series to fill the gap in LGBTQ educational content geared towards young children. The idea came to her while searching for basic educational info for kids online.
Amer says, “I remember sitting down one day and just Googling ‘What does gay mean?’ and I was really surprised at the results that came up. Just a dictionary definition and a few resources for parents/teachers on how to explain it to kids, but there was nothing that was actually meant for kids.”
Queer representation for teens has improved somewhat and we are constantly discussing and critiquing LGBTQIA representation in popular media for adults, but there is still very little media or info for young kids. Kids’ media content is being generated all the time. Whole TV channels and a massive merchandising industry are dedicated to it. But all-ages LGBTQ representation, particularly geared towards young kids, is something that’s still lacking.
According to Amer, “Kids are the future, plain and simple. If we want to create a more diverse and inclusive world for ourselves and generations to come, we need to educate young people properly to de-stigmatize LGBTQ+ identities.”
“On a more personal note, I grew up in NYC, arguably one of the most diverse places in the world. I am also quite privileged as a white, cisgender, currently able, queer woman, and despite all of that, I had a difficult time coming out. I think a huge part of that was the fact that I never saw LGBTQ+ folks in the media I consumed as a kid. I want to help create more diverse content for kids by representing voices and telling stories that rarely find representation.”
The pilot episode, “What Does Gay Mean?” is online, along with a colorful, printable activity sheet for parents or adults to complete with kids after watching the video together.
It’s pretty adorable, from the stop-animation opening song to the friendly playroom-styled set to Amer’s delivery of educational content in a fun, accessible way with chalkboard illustrations. There’s even a clever joke about bears! For the webseries, Amer says she is “really looking to approach the topics I’m dealing with from the child’s perspective.” She wants to create content that adults and educators could use with kids, but that kids could also find and watch on their own, “tak[ing] the gatekeeper out of the equation.” Season One of Queer Kid Stuff will be released in fall 2016 as a 10-episode series.
Amer is collaborating with a friend who works for the Education Department at a large theater company on the webseries. She hopes to cover topics across the LGBTQ spectrum from understanding gender and gender identity to defining “queer” to marriage equality. Says Amer, “the hardest part is narrowing it down to the next 9 episodes.”
Want to support Queer Kid Stuff? Consider donating to the Queer Kid Stuff Patreon page! Or email queerkidstuff [at] gmail [dot] com if you’re interested in joining a focus group, providing feedback, or collaborating on future episodes.