Win a New Tablet With Your Unstoppably Extraordinary Lesbian Mom Story

My mom is my hero. She’s truly the most extraordinary person in the world. She’s always been a total dynamo, from the time she talked my 6th grade math teacher out of failing me (undeservedly, I promise!) to the time I called her after I got hit by a car and she showed up at the scene with the store’s phone still in her hand. Seriously, the woman was an EMT when she was pregnant with me and still answers the phone when I call her at 3am. She has worked countless hours to give her children a better life and has never once complained about it. My mom’s unstoppable. I hope I someday I’m half as amazing as my mother was.

(via craftedbylindy.blogspot.com)

When I tell people about my mom, they usually have similar stories. Mothers are incredible people, and they’re usually the last person to ever admit it. In fact, my mom always says, “Just doing what I had to” if you ever give her a compliment about her actions. Well, it’s about time credit is given where it is so rightly deserved — and we wanna hear it straight from the source!

True Stories from Unstoppably Extraordinary Lesbian Moms: Essay Contest

Are you a lesbian mom? We want to hear about how incredible you are, too! We think it’s time you step up and toot your own horn. No need to be humble, we already know you’re awesome and it’s time everyone else did, too.

an example of an incredible mom (via catmeow.com)

We’re looking for first-person story submissions from lesbian moms about when you faced a challenge and triumphed through it — a time when you were or felt unstoppable.

Did you once kill a wasp with your bare hands so it wouldn’t sting your daughter? Have you driven all night so you could be with your son after his dog died? Did you recover smoothly from a divorce or breakup that threatened to weaken your family bonds? Did you raise a thriving family in a homophobic community? Was there some seemingly insignificant moment that was anything but which made you realize that you were unstoppable in your own unique way? We want to hear about it!

Winning submissions will be featured and published on Autostraddle.com (articles sponsored by MOTRIN®) and perhaps best of all: you’ll be the happy winner of a new tablet provided to you by the makers of MOTRIN®!

We’re also excited just to hear stories from the many mothers in our community — perhaps this contest will enable our family to grow a little too. We wanna listen to your voice!

Official Contest Rules
No purchase necessary. To enter, send your typed, double-spaced essay (between 800 and 3,000 words, .doc or .docx format) to laneia [at] autostraddle [dot] com by Wednesday, January 1st at 12pm pst. Please include “Unstoppable Mom” in your subject line. Contest begins Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 10am pst and runs through Wednesday, January 1, 2014 at 12pm pst. Only one entry per person, please. Open to legal residents of the United States 18 and older. Void where prohibited by law. All entries will be judged by Autostraddle senior editors based on originality, creativity, use of language, and adherence to contest theme. Submitted essays must be original, nonfiction works. Incomplete, inaccurate, and invalid entries are subject to disqualification. Decisions made by judges are final and binding. Winner will be notified by email on or about Tuesday, January 7, 2014.

We’ll announce the lucky winner on or about Wednesday, January 8, 2014!

Happy writing!

How My Motherhood Made My Mother Accept My Lesbianism

Motrin^®‘s mission is to create solutions that stop pain from stopping you. Motrin^® does this by effectively treating at the source of pain, allowing you to stay extraordinary and granting “unstoppable power.” Also unstoppably powerful? Moms. Of course around here, when we talk about Moms we’re talking about queer Moms. Lesbian Moms face unique challenges on the road to extraordinariness, and thus Autostraddle and Motrin^® are proud to bring you “True Stories of Unstoppably Extraordinary Lesbian Moms,” an essay series featuring some of our favorite “mommy bloggers” telling stories of challenges faced and tackled.

Our second piece in this series is from Vikki Reich, Managing Editor for VillageQ, a site that gives voice to the experience of LGBTQ parents.

I came out to my mother when I was 20 and it didn’t go as I had expected. Meaning, she did not say “I have suspected this for years and I still love you.” It went more like a Scared Straight kind of thing but instead of scaring me about drugs and a life of crime, she wanted to scare me straight, straight. “Just Say No to Lesbianism” straight.

“Have you ever seen a lesbian, Vikki?”

I was about to answer but it turned out to be a rhetorical question.

“There’s a lesbian that lives down the road and she wears overalls and drives a tractor. You cannot be a lesbian.”

Given my aversion to hard labor and dirt, I could see why my mother couldn’t picture me as a tractor-driving lesbian, so I tried to explain that there were other kinds of lesbians. But she wouldn’t listen.

See, we lived in a small town in Southern Missouri called Climax Springs (ironic, really) and in Climax Springs, there was only one kind of lesbian and that lesbian was a farmer, and since my mother deemed me incapable of farming, clearly I was not a lesbian.

If there was a “Scared Straight Straight” manual, my mother skipped right to the last chapter and threatened to disown me. “When you walk out of this house at the end of the summer, you will no longer be my daughter.” I suggested that perhaps I should spend my summer vacation somewhere else and she said, “No. We’ll suffer through these last three months and then say our goodbyes.” It was the making of the worst “What I Did On Summer Vacation” essay ever.

The days passed and we barely spoke to each other, each of us biding our time until the summer would end and I could return to Grinnell College which churned out lesbians at a delightful rate.

Then one morning, I came out of my bedroom where I’d been hiding – playing the guitar and pining for my girlfriend who was in Vermont – and my mom announced that she’d be digging up the septic tank “by hand” and thought maybe I could help her.

My first thought was that no one digs up their septic tank by hand so I told her that she should hire somebody with an appropriately large piece of machinery to come do it. She explained that the ground was too soft to get a backhoe down there and I took her word for it because I didn’t know what a backhoe was and then declined her invitation.

Instead, I watched her from the upstairs window as she sat herself on the ground with her small spade and set to digging up the earth. She’d had a triple bypass the summer before and I noticed that her shovel-wielding strength wasn’t what it had been in the days of old. So I stewed in my own anger and frustration for a few minutes before finally storming outside, announcing “This is completely ridiculous!” and then grabbing a shovel from the garage and joining her Septic Tank Digging Project.

We dug and we dug and before long a funny thing started happening — we began to talk. We talked tentatively at first – about the dirt and the rocks and the blisters forming on our hands – and then we talked more openly – about how she felt weak, about aging, about my friends at school and then she asked about “the girl”. There were no big revelations, just simple conversation and some laughs. We dug, we took breaks, we drank cheap beer that went down like water, dug some more, talked a little, and then dug some more until all the digging had been done.

When we finally stopped towards the end of the day, we each opened another beer sat on the patio. I looked at my mom and she nodded her head towards the front yard. There was an enormous hole in the yard and I realized that we had, much to my surprise, dug up the entire septic tank by hand. It took the entire day and a twelve pack of beer but we did it.

Then she said, “It’s going to take me some time.” She wasn’t talking about the septic tank, of course, she was talking about the one thing we hadn’t talked about all day — or ever, really. Acceptance would take time. I sipped my beer and said, “That’s ok.”

My mother didn’t disown me after all. I returned to college and she occasionally called to try another chapter from her Scared Straight Straight manual and I sighed a lot. She threatened to skip my graduation but she didn’t, instead she showed up and stood stiffly beside me in pictures. She told me she came to “keep up appearances” but I knew that even my lesbianism couldn’t overshadow the fact that I was the first woman in my family to graduate from college, and that she was proud of me for that.

Over the next few years, our relationship improved. She met my partner and she came to help us work on our first house and she settled into a quiet acceptance. But even though she’d given up trying to change my lady-loving ways, there was one thing on which she refused to budge: she was adamant that I not bring a child into my “lifestyle.” She argued that if we had a boy, he would never learn to pee standing up and, if we had a girl, we wouldn’t know how to do her hair.

Given arguments with such substantial merit, it’s amazing that we had the courage to persevere.

I took advantage of every opportunity to remind her that we were planning to have kids because I didn’t want her lulled into thinking that we had changed our minds.

If we were at a restaurant and saw a couple with a baby, I’d say, “We’re going to have a baby someday.”

If we were watching TV and a commercial for Pampers came on, I’d say, “We’re going to have a baby someday.”

When I ran across a candy conversation heart that said “baby” on it, I told her about it and claimed it was a sign.

It became a game – “Ways to Remind Mom We Intend to Have Kids,” which was a lot like a competitive family game show but heavy on the “feud” part and light on the cheering.

Each time I brought it up, she’d simply purse her lips, close her eyes and shake her head. When I finally did get pregnant, I called her up to share the good news.

“You remember two weeks ago when I said we were going to have kids?”
“Yes.”
“Well…I’m pregnant.”

She was absolutely silent – no sighing, no audible pursing of the lips. For a brief moment, I thought we’d lost our connection and was about to launch into the requisite and repeated “Hello?” when she finally responded.

“What do you want me to say?”

I suggested that most people go with “Congratulations” but she went a different direction – “You’re going to be a horrible mother.” I should have been hurt but maybe I’m a little broken because I just gave a short laugh at the irony of her words.

Over the next nine months, she made it clear that she believed what many people believe – living as an out lesbian is a choice and it shouldn’t be forced on children. I made it very clear that she was casting a shadow on my pregnancy glow.

She didn’t want to hear about my pregnancy and I didn’t want to hear about her bigotry so, for the last three months of my pregnancy, we talked only about the weather. We talked about the changing of the seasons, the humidity of summer, the state of my lawn, weeds and the success of her tomato plants. Our conversations had about as much emotional and personal flair as weather forecasts.

Then, in July of 2001, my son was born. Everyone talks about the magic of that moment, about looking into that innocent face and knowing you’d do anything for that little person. I’m sure I felt that but I also thought, “Oh my god! I don’t know how to do this!” followed a couple of days later by “They aren’t really going to let us take him home, are they?!”

I remember very little from the first week. It was all laughter, tears and breast milk. When my mother came to visit, I remember strapping my wobbly-headed baby into his car seat and driving from Minneapolis to her hotel in Burnsville, hoping the visit would be less painful than the name of the suburb implied. I had two thoughts – I hope the baby’s neck doesn’t snap and I hope I don’t cry when I see her.

I knocked and she ushered me in and immediately started unbuckling my son from his car seat. She sat on a chair, her elbows on her thighs and my son’s head in her cupped hands with his body running the length of her arms. She held him and just smiled. Her face was pure joy and something in that moment righted us both. Four years later, she held my newborn daughter the same way and she smiled that same smile and moved us forward once again.

After our children had been born, my mother never once mentioned the impact having two moms might have on them. She judged us for our fondness of tofu and our aversion to toys with lights and sounds and our reluctance to raise our voices but nothing more. Maybe she found my children irresistibly adorable. Maybe she got tired of arguing with me. Or maybe, she realized that we were just a couple of people raising a family.

There were, however, things about my life as a parent that I did not or could not share with my mother.

I didn’t tell her about the preschool teacher who responded to our daughter’s question, “Where’s my daddy?” with “He’s at work.” I didn’t tell her about meeting with the preschool administrator and the teacher, didn’t tell her that we donated several children’s books to the school – not just books about gay families but families raised by grandparents and single parents as well.

I didn’t tell her about the camp counselor who threatened to call my son’s father when he didn’t follow the rules. That time, we got away with an educational phone call.

My mother died at 72 when my kids were 7 and 3. She was already gone when my son got into a heated argument on the school playground after another kid used an anti-gay slur, when the marriage equality fight finally did arrive in Minnesota and I had to prepare my kids for what they might hear about families like ours.

It was better this way – better that I kept those struggles to myself, better that she never knew – because she was able to simply see me as a mother.

She watched me balance work and family. She looked on in amusement as we set limits with our children and doled out consequences when the kids ignored them. She watched us deal with sibling rivalry and playdates and soccer schedules and “Oh my god, would you just brush your teeth well the first time?!” and really, those are our primary struggles, the ones that consume our day-to-day. The political conflicts are big, of course, but we spend a lot more time dealing with homework than we do talking about DOMA.

One night, shortly before her death, I was talking to my mother on the phone and she said, “You have two great kids.” She was never one to give compliments and I must have been stunned because I didn’t respond with sarcasm or a joke to steer things into less vulnerable territory, “I don’t know, mom. I feel like I’m making so many mistakes.” I expected her to agree with me, to tell me that she always knew I wouldn’t be able to pull off this mothering thing but she said, “You are doing the best that you can. You are doing much better than I did.”

I needed to make peace with my mother and I did.

I’ve also had to make peace with myself.

Before having kids, I imagined I would be a perfect mother. I wouldn’t make the same mistakes my mother made. I would love my children unconditionally. I would never raise my voice or lose my patience. But raising hypothetical children is so much easier than raising actual children and I have made many mistakes, including some of the same ones my mother made.

There are only a few things about which I am certain but I know that, someday, our children will sit down with their friends, share a bottle of wine and malign us. They will tell stories about our quirks and their friends will laugh. They will list their grievances and their friends will shake their heads in sympathy.

Most of those stories will have little to do with the fact that we are lesbians. Though that defines us to the rest of the world, it doesn’t define us to our children.

We are just their parents.

We embarrass them at soccer games and school plays by cheering too loudly. We nag them about homework and brushing their unruly hair and making their beds. We argue with them about the appropriateness of movies and music. We raise our voices and lose our patience. We expect too much of them and are not always adept at hiding our disappointment.

Hopefully, they’ll eventually learn what I have – we’re all imperfect people just doing the best we can — but if you dig a little deeper, you might be surprised by what you find.

Vikki Reich writes about the intersection of contemporary lesbian life and parenthood at her personal blog Up Popped A Fox and is a Managing Editor for VillageQ, a site that gives voice to the experience of LGBTQ parents. She is also the co-director of Listen To Your Mother Twin Cities. In 2013, she completed the Foreword Writing Apprenticeship in Creative Nonfiction at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and is a 2013 recipient of the Beyond the Pure Fellowship for writers.

Comments have been disabled for this post citing FDA standards. But you can always tweet her up!

6 Kids’ Clothing Lines That Know Your Daughter is More Than Just a Pink Princess Glitterbomb Who Can’t Do Math

Each year without fail, some ‘witty’ designers decide that the girls section needs some punching up. “I think girls are really into pink this year,” one might say. “Oh and princesses,” chimes in another. “No wait, let’s just sell them the same crap because girls are dumb! Haha, this is so meta.” This year’s fashion dunce cap went to The Children’s Place for their shirt, but retailers like Gymboree have made the same mistakes year after year without ever learning a lesson themselves. Because while corporations are (finally) universally panned when they imply girls are lacking in the math department, they still get a pass for telling girls they just need to be easy on the eyes. (If you can figure out how to get a PhD in cuteness, more power to you).

It irks me that big businesses think they can get away with things like, “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” Groups like Pink Stinks try to hold them accountable and let them know that this ‘I’m sorry you were offended’ attitude doesn’t fly. (Surprise surprise! We’re smarter than that.) The UK-based group wants to give girls the chance to say that there’s more than one way to be a girl by campaigning against overly gendered clothing, costumes or cosmetics that tell a girl she is (or should) be anything less than herself.

It’s hard to get away from the idea of The Girl Section and The Boy Section despite the relatively few differences in prepubescent bodies. Progressively-minded parents can still be thwarted by school bullies and gender-policing fitting room attendants if they shop from the “wrong” section. Even when fellow parents give great advice on finding gender-neutral togs in the boys’s section, it doesn’t really help that they follow up with tips on girlifying it. Shouldn’t retailers think, “Hey! Let’s let these kids figure themselves out.” Because no matter where your child falls on the gender gradient, they can usually agree with the label “kid.”

“When I grow up I’m going to own a feminist magazine. But for now, I just want ice cream.” -Autostraddle founder and CEO Riese posing in a spiffy tank top and shorts (Also I want that romper in the back)

Where can you shop for clothing without being bludgeoned by a Rainbow Glitter Magic Wand that only extols the virtues of being pretty, pink and purchased? The web of course! If navigating the great land of webstores didn’t leave you feeling too great, you can always look to Etsy or any of these designers that think outside of the toybox.

1. Girls Will Be

Launched this summer, this clothing line strives for “girl clothes without the girly.” Created by Sharon Burns Choski, she wanted a clothing line that challenged her mall’s offerings. Following her simple rules of letting girls be kids, while staying away from pink, girly embellishments and stereotypical imagery, she ended up with a line that appeals to adults, tomboys and any girl that doesn’t hanker for magenta. As soon as you step away from the status quo, you get neat tees like Girls Will Be So Many Things and effing sharks. When was the last time you could gift your niece a hammerhead?

2. A Mighty Girl

If you just want a resource on how to raise a strong woman, you’ll find it at A Mighty Girl, which collects everything that “smart, confident, and courageous girls” could want. Checklists of our actual talents? Female superhero undies? Medical scrubs/onesies for that genius newborn? Caped WonderWoman socks? They’ve even got presents for you! Like a graphic T section of your favourite childhood books!

3. IndiKidual

If money is burning a hole through your pocket and you want your kid to be a fashion plate, look no further. Organized just as tops and bottoms, these fun prints are easily wearable by any type of kid. Their monster Ts, tuxedo jackets and astronaut onesies bare a simple message: “only to be worn by indikiduals.”

4. Hei Moose

Sparkles! Glitter! Random holographic things. Who doesn’t like fun things? Certainly not kids! This Nordic clothing line embraces the belief that kids should all get to play in brightly patterned clothing, including the boys! Although some of their pink items are still labeled for girls  as you can tell, (the gender-neutral shopping task was harder than I imagined) you still have offerings that won’t leave either sibling feeling left out.

5. PigTail Pals

This line (along with Ballcap Buddies) just reminds kids to be kids. It just strives to  remind girls (and boys) that they can be whatever they want to be. There’s no such thing as male or female professions any more than there are girl or boy colours.

6. Because I Am A Girl

If she likes pink she can wear pink, because she can do anything. Plan Canada isn’t just thinking about your youngster, but also about all of the girls around the world that simply need the opportunity to make something of themselves. So if your kiddo decides they love all things Magenta, remind them that it’s their decision and buy a shirt that’ll help another kid get to make their own choices.

There’s nothing wrong with liking pink. Or unicorns. Or glitter. If you were to ask a bunch of our queer, feminist writers how their current wardrobe compared to that of their childhood, I’m sure a lot of them would say, “similar, but adult-sized.”

Then: Floral Dress, Frilly Socks and Disney Watch. Now: Floral Dress, Pink Nails and a Pink Solo. Always a fly as fuck feminist.

No part of feminism says that certain colours or motifs are off limits. While forcing a hue upon our daughters, sisters and ourselves is ass backwards, so is denying it from its enthusiasts. So if your mini decides that they want to be a princess, you don’t need to deny their fun, just remind them they can be whatever type of princess they want. Including a self-rescuing one.

Defining For My Own “Right” Way To Be A Mom

Motrin®‘s mission is to create solutions that stop pain from stopping you. Motrin® does this by effectively treating at the source of pain, allowing you to stay extraordinary and granting “unstoppable power.” Also unstoppably powerful? Moms. Of course around here, when we talk about Moms we’re talking about queer Moms. Lesbian Moms face unique challenges on the road to extraordinariness, and thus Autostraddle and Motrin® are proud to bring you “True Stories of Unstoppably Extraordinary Lesbian Moms,” an essay series featuring some of our favorite “mommy bloggers” telling stories of challenges faced and tackled.

We open today with a piece from Dana Rudolph, the GLAAD-Award Winning writer behind Mombian, talking about a more subtle challenge: how she dealt with an abundance of unsolicited input on the “right” ways to parent.

I knew my spouse and I were in trouble when we opened the gift bag we’d been given by our hospital’s pre-birth class and found that it was composed almost entirely of coupons for products promising to make parents’ lives easier. I’m all for an easier life — but balked quickly at the onslaught of messages characterizing parenting as an endless stream of problems solved by this-or-that gadget or pre-packaged food product. This went beyond the gift bag, of course, because the world was full of magazine articles, blog posts, and acquaintances happy to tell me the “right” ways to parent: what time we should stop breastfeeding, whether cloth or disposable diapers were best, or why only a certain brand of bottle would do. As a lesbian mom, it was especially hard to fight the urge to do the “right” thing, however slippery a concept that was, because I was representing a community, not just myself, I thought. It was almost enough to make me want to raise our son in a log cabin off the grid somewhere.

Yet we remained in suburbia and in the ten years that I’ve been a parent, one of the biggest challenges has been learning to tune out those directives and parent according to the particular needs of our son and also the values my spouse and I hold, with the advice of family and friends.

The first challenge was all the baby gear. We were overwhelmed the first time we set foot in a baby store to register, having been (kindly) pressured to do so by co-workers who wanted to throw us a baby shower. Sure, we needed some basics, like a crib, a car seat, a stroller, and diapers—but an electric diaper-wipe warmer? Not so much. And who knew there were as many options on baby strollers as on cars, including cup holders and built-in audio? (We opted for the former and not the latter.) Alas for us lesbian moms, though—one cannot, in fact, obtain babies at a baby store, despite how convenient that might be.

I’d constantly remind myself: women have been having children for thousands of years without [this product]. Will it really make our lives easier or definitively benefit our son’s development? Occasionally, the answer was yes. (Those little rubber-lidded cups that let kids snack on cereal without spilling? Terrific.) Most often, we passed. (I’m guessing Einstein’s mother didn’t have an digital music player-enabled belly band that played Mozart to him in her womb, and he turned out just fine. As did Mozart, for that matter.)

We didn’t need a specialty diaper bag when my old knapsack would do just fine — and there’s nothing like using a pack previously dragged to women’s music festivals and camping trips to make you feel connected to your lesbian identity, especially when the world’s always assuming you’re straight just because you’ve got a baby on your hip. I tried to limit what we hauled around — usually just a snack and drink, diapers and wipes, and a couple of small toys. I figured I could improvise for the rest, and that in itself was a good lesson for our son.

It felt awkward, sometimes, when I’d encounter one of those moms (they were inevitably moms, not dads) dragging around an enormous bag full of every item her child might possibly need. I’d wonder: Was I not being a good mom if I didn’t have three different kinds of snacks and eight toys at hand? Or was it that our society’s definition of a “good mom” was so bound up with consumerism (“if you love your family, you’ll buy our product”) that even I was seeing the gear-laden moms as “better,” regardless of what our actual parenting was like?

The truth is, though, that I’m the kind of gal who goes camping with little more than a bandana or a pocket knife, so of course I’d be the kind of Mom who’d take a minimalist approach to baby gear, too. That’s just me. I’m a minimalist, and I feel everyone should let their parenting identity reflect who they are as a person, whatever that may be. If you’re a gadget freak and have the wherewithal, by all means get a color video baby monitor. If not, get an audio-only one—or none, if your house or apartment is small. Ignore the ads that imply you’ll be putting your child’s life or college admission success at risk if you don’t BUY THIS PRODUCT RIGHT NOW.

Conversely, I tried not to pay too much attention to the people who advised abandoning certain modern conveniences for higher ideals. I sought a middle ground. When I was making carrots or squash for dinner anyway, for example, I’d purée some in the food processor for Junior—but I also bought some baby food in jars, for convenience. (Sometimes the apple-blueberry ones became my own dessert.)

From observing my son and his peers and the many differences among them, I eventually realized that the answer to most parenting advice was “it depends.” I had to give myself a virtual slap upside the head sometimes to snap out of it. Attempting perfection inevitably leads to failure, even assuming we could all agree on what “perfect” means.

Then there were all the messages about the extra burdens LGBT parents carry. We do tend to face different hurdles than many families, and they can be significant—but for over 40 years, out LGBT parents have been finding ways to go over and around them in order to have the honor and the joy of raising children. We’re here, we’re queer, and we’ve gotten used to it.

Most profiles of LGBT families in the mainstream news, however, seem to be about them being LGBT families, focusing on the difficulties they faced in either starting their family or obtaining legal protections. Stories focusing on other aspects of LGBT families lives are rare. Granted, it’s vital that the world is aware of these obstacles so that we can change minds and laws, and reading about LGBT families who’ve faced similar problems as you have can be incredibly comforting. But an endless stream of stories about LGBT families facing problems because they are LGBT (even if they overcome those problems) can be draining.

I’ve tried therefore, not to let all of the things we’re told can be “issues” for LGBT parents turn into issues. Take the start of the school year. One common piece of advice I’ve heard is to set up a meeting with one’s child’s teacher (at least in the early grades) in order to get a sense of their level of knowledge and acceptance. This can be useful if you live in an area where there might reasonably be problems, or if you’ve heard rumors about the particular teacher that you’d like to confirm.

In our particular community in liberal Massachusetts, however, we’ve always figured the odds were pretty good that the teachers would be accepting. Instead of separate meetings with our son’s teacher each year, my spouse and I simply show up to the Parents’ Night held during the first week of school. We introduce ourselves—not with “We wanted to let you know our son has two moms,” but with “Hi, we’re [son’s name] moms.” Both ways alert the teacher to the fact that there is a two-mom family in the class (a useful reminder to keep language inclusive)—but the first way emphasizes the difference about our family; the second, simply on who we are. The former implies that our family structure needs a special announcement because it could be a “problem” in the classroom. Again, our method may not be the solution for everyone—sometimes it’s better to be clear and proactive—but for us, living where we do, it’s been a way for us to avoid focusing on our difference as if it was going to be a problem.

It can still be tough. Many LGBT-inclusive children’s books focus on a child being teased because of her or his parents. It’s a valid concern for some families—and these books were groundbreaking in portraying our families at all—but I always worried they’d put fears into my son’s mind that weren’t there already.

More recent books (including ones by Newman) have shifted away from this “problem” approach and more often depict LGBT families simply living their everyday lives.

Sometimes focusing on the “problems” of LGBT parenting also serves to distance us from potential allies. Television portrayals of LGBT families, for example, have mostly shown LGBT parents just starting their families, concentrating on what seems to set us most apart from “traditional” families, and treating it as a problem to be overcome. I can’t count the number of storylines about a lesbian couple and their wacky search for sperm. Even in family creation, though, LGBT parents hardly stand alone. Straight, cisgender people also foster and adopt, undergo fertility treatments, and use donors and surrogacy, too—and we can often find common ground with those families.

I am thrilled that shows like ABC Family’s new dramas are showing LGBT parents raising older kids and dealing with issues that any parent of adolescents might face, as well as issues that are LGBT specific.

Not that there aren’t challenges we face specifically because we are LGBT parents—most notably, the lack of legal rights in many states for both parents in a couple, even in this new era of federal recognition. But we can’t let ourselves be defined solely by our differences.

We also can’t let ourselves be pressured by the constant buzz of messages contrived to make all parents worry that we’re not attentive enough, educational enough, or even stylish enough. One of the best pieces of parenting advice I’ve gotten is from those who remind me, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” If we make every small hill into a big one, we won’t get very far.

Parenting rocked my world, to be sure—but at the end of the day (a long and exhausting day), I am still much of the same person I was beforehand. I know my values and interests, and am hoping to convey most of the former and a few of the latter to my son. My touchstones are my own childhood, my own parents, and friends who got to parenthood before me. Yes, we will encounter challenges, big and small—and I have concerns about this whole raising-a-teenager thing that’s coming up—but I hope the challenges stem from my son’s actual needs as he learns and grows, rather than being placed upon us by a society that likes to invent them.

We don’t plan to have another child (we figured we’d quit while we’re ahead), but if we did, a better item for our new-baby gift bag might be not coupons, but a mirror (an unbreakable, child-proof one, of course). It might remind us to parent according to who we are, based on the needs of the child in our arms. The rest is optional.

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a leading lifestyle blog for lesbian moms and other LGBT parents, covering a mix of parenting, politics, diversions, and resources. Mombian was named “Outstanding Blog” at the 2012 GLAAD Media Awards by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Dana also writes a regular “Mombian” column for several LGBT newspapers around the country, and has reported on a variety of other LGBT political and legal topics for both mainstream and LGBT publications. She has been a speaker at numerous LGBT and blogging events.

Dana began her career in Internet content development, strategy, and marketing during the first dotcom boom, and has worked at a startup, a Fortune 100 corporation, and a non-profit, in addition to her freelance work. She balances parenting, job, and blogging in the Boston area with her spouse of 20 years and their 10-year-old son.

Australia Conducts Largest Ever Study on Gay Parents, Finds Kids Are In Fact Alright

In this week’s edition of shockingly obvious news that is, unfortunately, still not obvious to a lot of people (see: traditional-marriage enthusiasts and anti-gay bigots) the children raised by same-sex families are… wait for it… totally okay! In fact, they’re more than okay! They’re healthy, open-minded and thriving with Mommy and Mama or Mom and Lesbian Dad, Mom and Mom, or whatever else they call their loving, same-sex parents. Melbourne University recently conducted the largest study ever on children in same-sex families and found that these kids are not only doing well, but in some ways, they’re doing better than the children of straight parents.

via http://www.shutterstock.com

Melbourne’s researchers collected data from over 500 children, and 315 lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents, to monitor key indicators of health. What the Australian Study of Child Health found is that there’s no difference between the children in same-sex-parented families and those with heterosexual parents when it comes to issues of self-esteem, emotional behaviour, and the amount of quality time spent with their parents. However, when it came to overall health and the strength of the relationship they had with their parents, kids raised by gay parents scored higher than the national average..

What a surprise, right? Wrong. This study may be the largest, but it’s by no means the first of its kind. Way back in 2009, professor Stephen Scott, director of research at The National Academy of Parenting Practitioners explained that the data they’d collected showed that children raised by two moms went on “to do better in life.” And a year later, the 24-year-long USA National Longitudinal Study released its findings that zero percent of families with lesbian parents reported incidents of physical and sexual abuse. Granted, the sample size was small, but zero is still a good percentage when it comes to abuse!

Kate Coghlan (left) and Susan Rennie with their children Hannah, 8, Anouk, 5, (top) and Xavier, 6. Photo: Joe Armao via: The Age

It’s not the first study to show that children aren’t going to be traumatized by the simple fact of having same-sex parents, either. A few months ago the very reputable American Academy of Pediatrics released a paper that draws on 30 years of research to conclude, among other things, that “many studies have demonstrated that children’s well-being is affected much more by their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support for the family than by the gender or the sexual orientation of their parents.” Exactly. If traditional marriage supporters were really so concerned about the well-being of children, they’d focus instead on things like how poverty and race and class affect children’s access to health insurance, good education, and nutrition; but nope, they’d prefer to preach the danger and dissolution of America caused by Heather’s Two Mommies.

via Strong Families

The Australian Study of Child Health and ones like it are important because although their findings can seem obvious to us, there can never be enough scientific studies and reports released when in many states second-parent adoption is still illegal and there are even states like Florida that completely ban same-sex partners from adopting. Just last week in Louisiana, a bill passed which ensures that all gay and unmarried couples will not be able to use surrogacy when starting a family. Studies concerning the fitness of same-sex parents and life outcomes for their children have become major talking points in the courts; during the Prop 8 trial, questions about whether children really needed “a mother and a father” abounded. Whether or not it’s true, conservatives love to argue that none of the research supporting gay families as healthy families is viable, so it’s hugely important that this study was so large; it makes its results much harder to argue with. The more viable research we have on our side, the harder it is for homophobes to claim that they’re just doing what they think is best; when experts have debunked that theory, they’re left with admitting that they’re acting out of bigotry. With all the pressure put on lawmakers by traditional marriage supporters and homophobes, it’s important that reputable organizations continue to conduct well-researched and scientific studies that show, for however long is necessary, that in same-sex families, the kids are alright.

Mom Dresses Daughter Up As Historical Badass Ladies, Is Awesome

Vanessa’s Team Pick:

Did you know that a thing parents do is take photographs of their kids? I know, a wild and wacky concept. I guess a parenting trend right now is to dress your kids up when you take photos of them on their birthdays, which actually sounds so fun because think of the possibilities! You could dress your child up like a puppy. Or a burrito. Or a cat dressed up as sushi. The options are endless! (I’m kind of jk, please no one call child protective services re: the emotional well-being of the children I do not currently have). But apparently most parents out there are not interested in dressing their little girls up as edible animals, and are instead sticking with the ever original ~*~DISNEY PRINCESS~*~ theme. Yawn.

But! But but but! Mom and photographer Jamie Moore bucked the trend, and the results are fantastic. Jamie seems to be less cynical and eye-roll-y than I am about Disney princesses, acknowledging “their beautiful dresses, perfect hair, gorgeous voices and…ideal love stories,” but she didn’t want to dress her daughter up like one for her 5 year photos. So she picked five influential extraordinary women from history and dressed her daughter up as them instead. The result is adorable amazing photos plus an inspirational message – this mom wins the internet this week, according to me, and I work at a parenting magazine by day so my opinion is very valid and important.

Here are my favorite images from the collection; you can see all the photographs and read Jamie’s full blog post here.

amelia!
via jamiemoorephotography.com

oh hey jane goodall!
via jamiemoorephotography.com

…It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better. My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters. I wanted her to know the value of these amazing women who had gone against everything so she can now have everything. We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over the world……..so let’s set aside the Barbie Dolls and the Disney Princesses for just a moment, and let’s show our girls the REAL women they can be. – Jamie

this is the future
via jamiemoorephotography.com

If someone offered to photograph you as your favorite badass historical woman, who would you choose?

“Is She Gay? Should I Ask Her?”: Advice To Moms Who Have Queer Daughters

feature image via switchteams

I wasn’t afraid to come out to my mom. She’s pretty liberal and had always been accepting of gay people but more than that, we’d just always been so close. I told her when I had sex with a boy for the first time, and I was honest when I skipped class or wanted to go to a party where there’d be alcohol. Her own mom had died when she was relatively young and she doesn’t have any sisters, so I used to joke that I was more than just her daughter. “I have to be your daughter because I am,” I’d say, “but I’m also your mother because yours isn’t here anymore, and I’m your sister because you never had one, and I’m your best friend… because I want to be.” I have no idea when I came up with that idea, or how a small human decided such big things, but it was true. My relationship with my mother was a giant thing, a beautiful thing, a special thing that I knew I was lucky to have.

As I grew up I found out that not all daughters and mothers were close. I felt bad for them — I could tell my mom anything. So when I went abroad to London and met the girl who would end up changing my whole world, I wasn’t afraid to tell my mom about it at all. I was excited. I knew my mom would love me no matter what, even if I were an axe murderer. That had always been our joke: she’d say, “I will love you no matter what,” and I’d ask, wide-eyed and big-grinned, “Even if I were an axe-murderer?” And she’d laugh or shake her head or just nod and smile back, always assuring me: “I’ll love you even if you are an axe-murderer. But I hope you won’t be.” Coming out to my mom felt safe because I knew that no matter what happened in this life, she would love me.

When I said, “I met this girl Emily and she kissed me and I think I like her,” to my mother’s grainy face over a bad Skype connection, my mom wasn’t happy. I had been casual on purpose. I didn’t have a speech worked out. I wasn’t sure if I was gay or bisexual or confused and I wasn’t really worried about the label. I just wanted to tell my best friend a thing that was happening in my life. I don’t remember exactly what my mom said in response but I know she ended the call pretty quickly. I sat at my desk for a long time afterwards staring at the screen. That was four years ago.

When Riese showed us this mothering forum message board with a note from a mom who suspects her daughter is a lesbian and is asking for advice, it felt personal. The original question, the responses and the followup message from the original mom brought out a feeling of tenderness and understanding that I wish I could have granted my own mother four years ago. I spent a long time feeling angry and misunderstood by my mom, and while I don’t think those feelings were wrong, I’ve also started working through the more complex feelings of understanding my mom, accepting that she is trying just as hard as I am and ultimately forgiving her and loving her no matter what, just as she promised always to do for me.

Here’s what this mom wrote:

I need help. Today I went into my daughters room to clean up a bit since she is away at college, and I found lesbian themed graphic novels under her bed. She never showed any interest in boys, but I always assumed that was just because she was shy. Now I’m starting to suspect that her relationship with a certain “friend” of hers might be more than it seems. I’m very upset, and I don’t know what to do. Is she gay? Should I ask her? Should I confront her about the books? Also, how do I accept this if she does turn out to be a lesbian? I feel sick just thinking about it. I know it is not a choice, but I don’t want her to be this way. I want her to have a normal, happy life, not this.

One person, who wrote that while her own daughter is currently questioning her sexuality, “whatever she figures out, it’s not an issue to us… we want our kids happy and healthy,” (yay supportive mom!), questioned if the original message might be from a troll, because “it can be taken as inflammatory, imo.” True, I felt somewhat uncomfy the first time I read the original question. This person feels “sick” at the idea of a gay daughter? Yikes. The language isn’t the best. But I did not for one instant think it was the work of a troll. I have a feeling that a big part of why this mom went to the effort to post on a message board is because she was looking for assurance and acceptance in a situation that she really wants to be okay with, and it was inspiring to see other parents reach out with words of advice and reason and kindness. I didn’t see any hate on the board, and while I wouldn’t necessarily agree with all the advice this woman was given, I certainly appreciated that every word seemed to come from a place of love and acceptance and wanting what’s best for your child.

Before we go any further examining the advice this woman received via a list of my very own advice for moms with gay daughters, let’s appreciate the poster who pointed out that this woman might be jumping to conclusions. Because much as I wish we could recruit the entire world to the gay baby army, alas, a lesbian themed graphic novel under a bed and a close friendship with a friend of the same sex do not a lesbian make. This person says as much:

There is also a chance that the books you found mean that your daughter is an aspiring indie cartoonist. Or that she enjoys the work of Alison Bechdel. (I have a complete set of Dykes to Watch Out For in my house, half of which were bought by my husband.) Remain open to other interpretations.

Right-o! Hey ma, your gaydar may be off. Totally valid. But let’s assume this daughter is gay, because if we don’t I can’t talk about the rest of the really heartfelt and interesting advice that these humans on the internet gave to another human on the internet, and I really want to do that because it’s good and some of it made me cry. I put together a handy dandy list of my own advice to moms who have gay (or bi or queer or questioning etc etc etc) daughters and as it turns out, many of the message board posters are totally on the same page as I am. This is the list I wish I could have given my own mom.

1. Do not confront your daughter. Period.

So your daughter’s a lesbian! Should you say something to her about it before she comes to you to discuss it? NOPE. This is the #1 piece of advice I would give any parent in this scenario. It bears repeating: Do. Not. Confront. Your. Lesbian. Daughter. Why? Another poster explains:

I would wait until she is ready to talk.  She might still be figuring it all out herself, and that takes time. And, if you feel “sick” about this and want her to have a “normal, happy life” she is probably right in not choosing you as a confidant at this time.

Yes! She might still be figuring it all out herself, totally! When I first came out to my mom she was so hung up on the words — “Are you a lesbian? What is queer? What do you mean you don’t know? If you’re not a lesbian why does it feel like you’re writing off boys forever?” — and I was so fucking confused that every conversation we had felt like an accusation or a fight, even when she wasn’t trying to pick one. In retrospect, that was not all her fault — I was very angry at her for not immediately understanding me, and I didn’t think it was my responsibility to hold her hand through my coming out process especially when I was less than sure what I was even coming out as. I was right in that it’s never your responsibility to make anyone feel comfortable with your sexuality, or any aspect of your identity. But I forgot to acknowledge another truth: Sometimes the people we come out to, the people who love us most, do need someone to hold their hand while they get used to the news.

2. If you’re not immediately okay with this, find a source of support (that is not your daughter).

Part of why I love this message board conversation so much is because this mom is acknowledging that she needs some handholding, and she’s seeking it from people who are not her daughter, and these people are offering to hold her hand. It’s actually a really great, healthy way of dealing with the fact that this news is upsetting to her. Sometimes our friends and family need support. Another person on the message board realizes this and points this mother to a place where she can seek said support, as well as echoing the idea of not putting your daughter through a “confrontation” and challenging the concept of “normal.” I love this person!

There is no reason to put her on the defensive about who she is, and that is not going to encourage her to open up to you. Whether she is a lesbian or bisexual or just exploring, having the support of those close to her is so important. Also, she can definitely have a happy life, even if it doesn’t match what you would think of as “normal”. I would start by checking out PFLAG — Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

I begged my mom to check out PFLAG, but she said it wasn’t the right avenue for her. I disagree, but I had to respect her feelings. That said, I think every parent who struggles with any aspect of their child’s identity needs to get support so they can work through their own feelings and not burden their child with the responsibility of dealing with the negative reaction.

3. Do the work.

Newsflash: Being gay is okay, and if you’re not okay with it, it’s your problem. If you’re not in a place where you can accept your gay child, you’re the one who needs to do work, not your kid. Do the work. The following poster suggests, “see if you are capable of growing and changing,” and maybe now’s the part where you all tell me I’m a dumb optimist but I truly believe everyone on this earth is capable of growing and changing. So do that.

Right now you are not in a position to give help, support or constructive criticism to your daughter, because you are living in an angry, shocked, prejudiced place. Give yourself time. See if you are capable of growing and change. I am not saying it is easy, it isn’t. And even if you don’t say a word, your daughter knows the place you are in. Perhaps she is not discussing it with you in order not to hurt you… sometimes two people are two whole poles apart, and their views so vastly different, that there is no middle ground for them to meet in. I think, right now, this is maybe where you and your daughter are at.

A thing that really struck me in the original message was the mom’s concern that her daughter would lead a harder life because she is a lesbian. That’s a fair concern, to an extent. People do a lot of really horrible shit to gay people. Even those of us who are fortunate enough to live in big cities with welcoming communities and ample okCupid possibilities feel the harsh reality that comes along with people hating you simply because of who you are and who you love. It sucks. But the answer is not for all of our parents to sit around biting their cuticles until they bleed, worrying that we’ll be the next victim of a hate crime or miss out on that prime promotion because our boss is a bigot. And as one poster points out, the idea that just because someone is a lesbian she won’t grow up to have a wife and a dog and babies and a picket fence (if that’s what she wants) is pretty old fashioned. Expecting something awful to happen to your gay daughter and using that fear as an excuse for your negative feelings about her identity is a copout. Fight bigotry and hate and the patriarchy, not your daughter.

4. Get over your expectations (and yourself).

There are literally a billion ways your kid could not fulfill your expectations as they grow up and become a human with their own thoughts and ideas. Wanted your kid to be a doctor? Well guess what, she’s gonna be a dancer. Wanted your kid to travel the world? Sorry, she’s a homebody and never wants to leave the country. Wanted your kid to love all your favorite books? I’m sorry, mom, but I’m never going to read Lost In Translation. I don’t know why, it doesn’t even make sense, I’ve just got a lot of other things to do right now and I can’t. You’re going to love her anyway, because that’s what parents do. So treat the whole sexuality thing in the same way and stop asking her to read your favorite book. Maybe try reading one of her favorite books, while you’re at it! A real live gay lady showed up in the message board conversation to say what I just said in a lot fewer words than I used and also to make me have a lot of emotional emotions.

If your daughter is a lesbian, she might still fulfill your vision in every (other) way. If she is straight, she might never fulfill it. Chances are no matter who she is, she’ll meet your expectations in some ways and not in others.

(Side note: When I came out to my mom, the first thing she said to me was: “But I always thought you wanted to get married and have children!” and I said, “I do want those things!” FWIW, my partner and I have been together for 20 years (married for 11, still awaiting legal recognition of our marriage), and we are parents to a daughter, though my mom died before she got to meet her granddaughter.)

This specific point has been one of a lot of contention for me and my mom. She desperately wants grandchildren, and luckily I really want kids (one day, not today!). Win/win! This was true when I was dating men, and it’s remained true since I started dating women. Despite marriage often being looked down on in queer circles, I want to get married (you can yell at me about being a bad queer later but I don’t care, I really want to wear this dress and walk down the aisle) and in New York nobody can stop me.

5. Love her unconditionally.

Moms, listen up: a lesbian daughter can have a way happy life, okay? But you know what kind of puts a damper on happiness? When your mother doesn’t accept you for who you are. That pretty much insures that you’re going to be unhappy for a while, ya know? If you’re so worried about your lesbian daughter’s happiness, don’t be the thing in her life that makes her unhappy. In fact, if you suspect your daughter is a lesbian and she hasn’t confided in you yet, she could be leaving you out of the loop because she’s scared that you’ll freak out, she’ll lose your love and she will indeed be very unhappy. Another wise poster points out this logical possibility:

I’m sure her reasoning for not telling you, if she is a lesbian, is just because she is scared that she will lose your love. Assure her that she won’t lose you, and it will make it easier for her to open up to you.

Even though my own coming out conversation didn’t go as planned, the very reason I felt so comfortable to say anything in the first place is because I was absolutely certain I would not lose my mother or her love. Though she didn’t react the way I wanted to, I was right about the big stuff. Her unconditional love is the reason we are able to have a relationship today.

Things with my mom are so much better now than they were after our initial conversation in February 2009. We continue to work on our relationship because we love each other and we want a relationship, even when it’s not easy. I’m lucky. I know things don’t go as smoothly for some people when they come out to their parents, but the way it happened to me still felt hard. I wish my mom had reacted differently and had supported me immediately. I wish the world didn’t see a lesbian daughter as something to be sad about. Most of all I wish that one day, no one will have to give advice to moms who have gay daughters on the internet, no matter how heartfelt or sound that advice may be, because there won’t be any questions to ask — just love, acceptance, and more love.

Modern Babies Totally Know How Gay And Drunk You Are

feature image via shutterstock.com

According to a story on the news website of Finland-based public-service media company YLE, babies these days are saying the darndest things. Kuopio pre-school teacher Raija Tuovinen is quoted as noting that “Last autumn and even before that, while learning how to write and pronounce the letter S, for example, the kids might say “s niinku siideri” (c as in cider”) or in the case of the letter K, they might say “k niinku kalja” (B as in beer).” Sure enough, a quick google image search for “baby beer” turns up a plethora of parents who find it amusing to pose their infants with various beer cans, bottles and paraphernalia, undoubtedly permanently corrupting their children forever and ever. Or you might get lucky and birth a child like me, who knows the word for “beer” and yet chooses not to drink it. (I prefer whiskey.)

who wants to watch me chug this sucker (via shutterstock.com)

Tuovinen has been working with kids for 30 years and has noted that modern rascals are more “aware of adult subjects compared to the 1980s.” You thought beer was bad? Well, check this quote out:

“We see and hear about gays, lesbians and similar matters. Children’s speech reflects the world they live in. Computer games and their content are another matter. We see battles in children’s drawings and games. Of course children need to act out what’s inside them in play.”

Had I been present for this hard-hitting interview, I undoubtedly would’ve followed up on what, exactly, she means by “similar matters.” At this time, I can only assume that she means “polygamy.”

hold the phone i think my dads are gay

Tuovinen suggests:

“Adults should take responsibility for what is appropriate for children and they should explain the things that they sometimes see and hear. Children don’t only talk about these things, but sometimes there has been a kind of tone and in those cases that I’ve had to intervene. I think it’s a cause for concern in some way. We adults should wake up to this. We need to protect our children and preserve their childhood.”

The article points out that Tuovinen does not think children should be “sheltered from all kinds of information.” She is quoted as “concluding” that “we simply need to select the right things for them.” Apparently if your kids want to know why they have two mommies or what’s in that glass, it’s best to just make shit up and then retcon when they’re a little older.

it’s up to you: fill this speech bubble with purity or with corona and homosexuals (via shutterstock)

If your baby has been rubbing creamed squash all over her bib while chanting “lesbian, lesbian, lesbian” all day, it should comfort you to know that my first word was “ball” and look at me now.

Choosing Jonah: A Family History of Abortion, Choice and Love

This post is part of Still Wading: Forty years of resistance, resilience, and reclamation in communities of color, a blog series by Strong Families commemorating the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

I have a photograph of my mother that I love. She is 21 standing in her graduation gown beaming expectantly at the camera. Round belly poking through dark drapes, it’s the first portrait of us “together” — me nested inside of her, a sliver of white pressing through the black folds that usually conceal its opening. As if I am graduating too. At this threshold you can see that she (we) just barely made it to this moment. While I irrevocably altered her life, she was fortunate that I arrived in the world about a month after her commencement.

My arrival was not a given. I came at a time of great change, upheaval, and risk, born in 1968, five years before Roe v. Wade became law. Politically the world was volatile and in the throws of great social movements. Two important leaders—King Jr. and Kennedy—assassinated.

My mother did not want a baby. With her eyes set on international relations she was ambivalent at best about her relationship with my father. I was not the plan, and so, like many young women of her time and class, she sought a way out.

She found a doctor in another town who performed abortions. In my mind she had to climb a dark stairway, grey with creaky steps, to get to the door. My father was with her, and still it took great courage for her to get to this point. But the doctor refused to let her in, or even acknowledge what was about to happen. He told her to come back alone. The feeling of the place and the demand that she come back alone scared her. She turned around and decided that she could not go through with it. Several months later I arrived.

Growing up I always had an inkling that there were pieces of my story I was not putting together. It wasn’t until I was 21 and pregnant, like my mom had been , that I was ready to wrestle with it. Despite identifying as queer and primarily attracted to women, I found myself in a relationship with a man and pregnant in Northern India, far from home. Like my mother, I too had big, emerging plans for my life that did not include a baby at this age. I assumed I would have an abortion when I got back to the U.S. Instead, just before I left India, I had a dramatic and humbling miscarriage.

The experience created an opening between my mother and me that allowed for deep honesty. We shared stories as equals—feeling the circularity and changes of time. While happy to be alive, I was sad my mom had been in that position in 1968. Twenty years of marriage to my father, an abusive and dysfunctional relationship, forgoing her dreams—it all seemed like something that did not need to happen. I did not take personally the idea that I could have been aborted.

I didn’t know that the story, my story, and the nuance and questions about choice would get even more complex with the coming of my son fourteen years later.

Like many lesbian couples, my partner and I were faced with the other side of reproductive “choice” on our road to parenthood. After years of planning, looking for a donor, changing our plans, then trying to conceive, Adrienne became pregnant. I was elated, scared, and deeply aware that my life was about to change.

The early stages of pregnancy were fairly typical. As Adrienne’s body was transforming, I continued my work in youth development and organizing. During this time I became close to a group of young activists who all had disabilities and worked together through a group called Kids as Self Advocates (KASA). They opened my eyes to a new community, perspective, and questions about choice.

The KASA youth were all individually powerful, bright spirits. Getting to know them opened my eyes and heart to think about how medical practice, the deep cultural value of “individual choice,” and our fears lead many of us to abort babies with disabilities. Through abortion we edit our society — and experience — of humanity. I began to question why we choose to keep some babies and abort others, and I considered what I would do if my child had a disability.

Adrienne and I went to the required class for prospective parents of children with genetic disorders and procedures to terminate pregnancies. As a queer person, I was disturbed by how many disorders highlighted in the class simply altered the sex of the child. I had a sinking feeling that this medical and cultural practice was also about editing out intersex babies from our population. I thought about sex selection practices around the world. The parallels made my head spin.

Despite growing skepticism, a series of events led us down the path of pre-natal testing. A small sign in the ultrasound led to more screenings and then to amniocentesis. It was intuition as much as clear medical evidence that ultimately landed us in the waiting room with doctors from Kaiser’s genetics department. Our child had Down syndrome. Stunned and disoriented, we were unsure of our next step.

We had pushed testing back. Now we only had seven days until the 20-week mark when the fetus is considered viable. I would be lying if I said I did not feel pressure from the medical system, and elsewhere, to abort. So we did what I hope anyone would do. We left town, stayed with close friends, called our wisest advisors, and searched for the answer that felt right.

That weekend was among one of the most vivid in my life. We talked with friends and took long walks. We each imagined what it would feel like to have this baby, versus abort it. I realized I felt more connected and open to life choosing to welcome him into the world. We agreed, even though it was scary and unknown, choosing Jonah felt like inviting life and love in.

The words “pro life” have been pitted against “pro choice,” as if they are opposites. In my experience it’s a false dichotomy, and while politically difficult and messy, our truths are much more complicated.

We left that weekend having made the choice to have Jonah. The power of making this choice is that we knew, our community knew, and the medical team knew that we were welcoming him into our life. This made all the difference. I could see it the moment he was born and the entire team—midwife, nurses, doula, even the doctors—were jubilant. You can see it in the photos. There was no doubt, no hesitation, no fear or grief present in the room.

This is not true for many families who give birth to babies with obvious disabilities. Often a sense of mourning, shame, anger, and guilt sweeps over the room instead of joy. But this is not the baby’s problem, or the mother’s or the families’. It’s ours.

After he was born we struggled to find community. Many of the parents who choose to have kids with Down syndrome and genetic disabilities are devout Christians. Other communities secretly (or not so secretly) cannot understand why you would “choose” to have a child with Down syndrome. The magic for us has been trying to find people who will be courageous enough to walk a different path with us.

I cannot describe the gift that it is to have Jonah in my life, although it has not been easy. Sometimes the gulf between my own experience and “typical” parents is the same as that between parents and non-parents. And yet, on a fundamental level it’s also the same joy and the same challenge that we all face.

In Jonah I have learned to see the light of a child’s spirit, the patience and full acceptance that allow him to thrive, the ways my own baggage gets in the way, and the gifts, brilliance, and love embedded in each one of us. Jonah is smart, funny, and deeply curious about other people. He is an emerging actor, DJ and musician in his own right. At 7 going on 8, he is reading and writing, learning math, ice-skating, and attempting to ride a bike. He is part of a family and a community who loves him and whom he loves. He has introduced me to my own joy, deepest sense of love, connection, and self-acceptance. Is there anything else that is important?

As the years pass and Jonah grows, I encounter the same fundamental lesson of parenting, a lesson my mother had learned many years before: we do not know who our children will be or what they will teach us; but we have our own stories and expectations of who they are and who they will be. The more we try to control or alter this, the further apart we become. The more we accept and embrace who they and we really are, the more magic and life we are able to embrace. Some of us get this lesson early and often; others bump up against it unexpectedly or resist it all together.

For Jonah and all of us, I long for a world that values humanity, one that supports us to thrive together—not survive individually, one where we value difference as part of the natural condition of things and where we see our choices as part of something larger than ourselves.

Kristen Zimmerman is a writer, trainer, and consultant focusing on movement building and social transformation. She lives in Oakland, California, with her wife Adrienne, their son Jonah, and their wonderful network of chosen family.

Special Note: Autostraddle’s “First Person” personal essays do not necessarily reflect the ideals of Autostraddle or its editors, nor do any First Person writers intend to speak on behalf of anyone other than themselves. First Person writers are simply speaking honestly from their own hearts.

How To Live With Kids: Four Zines You’ll All Like, Probably

When kids are at their newest, choosing books for them is so easy! You grab some Mo Willems, some Margaret Wise Brown, some Dr. Seuss. You work your way up to Sendak and Virginia Lee Burton because how could you possibly deprive them of knowing Where The Wild Things Are or the heartbreaking tragic dive that is The Little House? You cannot. And you make sure you did indeed Pat the Bunny, and obvs Duck! Rabbit! and Ferdinand and everything Shel Silverstein even so much as sneezed at, and the classics and your favorites. But what if your radical punk anarcha/separatist queer crunchy unicorn spirit wants to shine shine shine via reading materials for the smalls in your life? And it does — it wants to shine so hard. Well of course you’re gonna turn to zines and independent presses, as any good RPA/SQCUS would. Lucky for all of us, there are a bunch to choose from!

Below is just the tiniest list of four zines you might want to bring into your/your little responsibility’s purview. This isn’t comprehensive in the least, so if there’s a zine, magazine or book for shortie small tiny tot youngen peoples that you want us to talk about, email laneia [at] autostraddle [dot] com!

He, Her, Him: Free, Fer, Frim

by Adrian Prawns Sinclair, illustrated by Sylvie LS

This is the story of a firloy named Han Majazi and fer first day of elementary school. Page one lets kids know that a firloy is someone who isn’t a girl or a boy, and that their pronouns are free, fer and frim. Han’s caretaking adults are Tuck-Me-In-Pick-Me-Up and Scratchy-Face-Belly-Laugh — this made me super nostalgic for the time when Slade introduced me to a new friend at the park as his “other tall person, Laneia,” which is about as honest an introduction as you could hope for from a 4 year-old. In He, Her, Him: Free, Fer, Frim, neither Tom nor Sarah wants to play with Han because free doesn’t replicate their ideas of rigid gender roles. Sarah is a real turd about it, sidenote. Tereese, Han’s top hatted faerie best friend, shows frim that free’s not the only firloy and even helps frim sing a little song (there’s an email address for requesting a free CD, so you can sing along, !!) and there’s a satisfying happy ending that I won’t spoil for you.

The illustrations are perfect and the writing presents Han and the idea of gender-neutrality as if it’s something as plain as the nose on your face, if you’d just look. Kids might crack up after hearing new words like frim and firloy, but they won’t be laughing at Han or fer story — it’s just that new words are novel things when you’re new, too. If your young human is a gender-neutral small thing looking for their own reflection in a book, this one would be such a good start. I wish there was a whole series! I wish there was a whole library/world.

How I Quit School, Issues 1-3

by Julie

Julie’s got a lot of feelings, but the one we’re focused on in Issue 1 is the feeling that high school as an 8-hr workday plus overtime/homework is getting in the way of what’s supposed to be life, and sucking the creativity and drive right from her youthful heart and soul. If you’ve ever skimmed The Teenage Liberation Handbook or even just sat in a 3rd period American History class “learning” about the same fucking wars for the trillionth time while you nod your head and doodle and wonder what your city looks like at 10:30am on a weekday, the idea of unschooling will be one that hangs around in your brain for a while, like a tiny gnat of possible opportunity. Advocates are hella quick to give the disclaimer that unschooling isn’t for everyone, but Julie’s story of self-preservation and realization kind of is. I haven’t read Issues 2 and 3 yet and I’m anxious to see where this decision to quit school takes her.

How I Quit School Issue 1 is personal and honest: there’s frank talk of cutting, apathy and depression, but those themes aren’t the boat that takes you through Julie’s story; they’re part of the water. Your boat is Julie’s confidence and self-awareness, which could easily be scooped up and placed upon the waters of your very own young person’s life. Even if you aren’t interested in unschooling, in Issue 1 Julie represents (via you know, actually being Julie) a valiant stab at autonomy. I loved it.

biff, Issues 1-5

edited/written by Allie and Bill Donahue, with various contributors

biff is something of a classic, which is weird because it’s only a few years old. It’s also terribly hard to find! But don’t let that stop you from trying. Bill is Allie’s dad, and Allie his daughter, and Biff was the name of their beloved kickass dog who passed away in 1992, and these two truth-seekers live in Portland (STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES RIGHT NOW) and here’s the thing: this is what can happen when an older person participates in a project with a younger person — almost ANY project. Knowledge is passed along, strategies are shared, values learned. Everyone learns and grows from each other. It’s synergy. It’s everything you want the game of Clue on Saturday night to be. It’s connecting. It’s the thing you hold onto and sit with as long as you can, actually.

Allie is the kind of person I would’ve wanted to (and still want to?) be/be best friends with: funny, cool parents, doing weirdo interesting things I’d never considered. In Issue 2, Allie sends an invite to George W. Bush to come with her to Eagle Creek (in a white limo) so he can see the effects of a dam that was preventing salmon from reaching their spawning destination. Issue 5 discusses religion and death, and finds the editors exploring various places of worship within 432 paces of their home.

In the past few weeks, at church, I’d seen a whole new culture. I’d visited a new world. it’s funny how close we can be to another culture and know nothing of it. But I’d made the trip now. And I’d come home to the bikey, wordy life that is my own. I’d come because—well, these churches didn’t feel right for me. There was too much praising without question or thought. but I’d seen the churches. I’d appreciated them, and they were beautiful: full of song and wonder at this amazing world that surrounds us.

– excerpt from Mt. Nebo Church of god in Christ, 432 paces, by Allie

There are also tons of random top 10 lists, which I feel you’re probably a fan of.

Wild Children: A Zine For Kids Age 0-18

edited by Glen Venezio, Peter Lamborn Wilson and Dave Mandl

Holy shit, ok — this is like if you could go back to 1987, take a cross-section of a bunch of kids’ brains — but the cross-sections represented what they actually thought and felt for real — and then magically turned those cross-sections into poems that you then put into a time capsule and didn’t open again until today. Or it’s like the episode of Buffy when everyone is in each other’s nightmares (S1E10 jsyk), but instead of the Scoobies, it’s YOU and your 6th grade classmates. And I’ll be honest, Wild Children sometimes either scares me or disappoints me, but it’s SO FASCINATING. Some poems are very extremely arguably not for the smaller smalls, but this zine feels important. It’s just kids telling their own truths, and I’m beyond compelled — almost obligated? — to listen. Maybe you don’t let your kids read this; maybe you let it take you back to some honesty you’d left in an intricately folded note somewhere, and maybe you use that honesty to help a younger person convey theirs. I mean, nothing here is revolutionary, but it is. Just get this book. It feels important.

(Dear reader, I do not know what the fuck I am doing. So please do not try to understand, OK? Thank you! If you know what you are doing that is too fucking bad! I don’t care.)

Today we are going to take a trip to bum-fuck egypt. Do you know where that is? It’s west of tim-buck-too, and north of hell.
(Nice place.)

– excerpt from Untitled by Christopher, age 14

Wild Children is also available from Alibris.

Did you make a zine when you were 8 years-old? Are you making one now? How do you feel about everything in the world ever?

What’s It Like Growing Up With A Transgender Parent? Sharon Shattuck Knows.

When Sharon Shattuck was a kid, her dad told her that she identified as a woman and that she was going to change her name to Trisha. Now, Sharon has decided to explore her father’s experience, along with the experience of LGBT families across America by making a documentary. She’s currently working on raising money for her film through Kickstarter (just one day left!).

I recently had some back and forth with Sharon about what is was like to grow up with an LGBT dad in a time and place that wasn’t necessarily always the most queer-friendly. As a future LGBT parent myself, I found Sharon’s perspective to be both useful and educational.

GINA: Because I think it would be very useful for future LGBT parents to hear from a “kid” perspective, looking back on your experience with your dad, is there anything you wish either of you had done differently? Any questions you wished you had asked?

SHARON: I think the one thing that really sticks with me from my childhood is that I felt very alone–I felt like no one else’s family was like mine, so I just sequestered that part of my life and didn’t talk about it with my friends or acquaintances. Trish (my dad) became the elephant in the room — everyone in town knew of her, but no one wanted to ask questions or to understand our family dynamic. It was very Midwestern and stoic, but there was also an undercurrent of fierce suspicion and fear from some people in the community.

I guess I wish I had talked about it more, and been more open from the start, open to answering questions and diffusing the fear that some (but not all) people exhibited. It would have been an opportunity to educate people who might not otherwise know any LGBT people. I also wish that I could have met other kids from LGBT families, but I think that when I was younger, that Midwestern tendency to not talk about things also ran pretty strong in me, so it might not have really changed things much.

I also wish that there was some sort of template for us during dad’s transition. I think that it was as confusing for my dad as it was for the rest of the family — much more confusing, I think, than not having kids, or transitioning prior to having kids. We never really nailed down which pronouns to use, or what to call dad, besides “dad” — because I feel like “mom” is off-limits, since I have a mom. And dealing with all that in a very small, conservative town only compounded the stress, because we were getting negative feedback from certain people in the community.

G: Speaking of that, let’s talk a little about your mom. How was the experience for her?

S: Well, dad told mom about being transgender before they got married, although I’m not sure they knew the term “transgender” back then. Luckily, my mom decided she was ok with that part of dad’s identity… back then, it wasn’t something that dad wanted to express in public, and so they’ve definitely had to evolve together over the years to make the marriage work once Trish realized that she wanted to identify as a woman. My mom considers herself straight, in that she’s attracted to men, so I think that being with Trish posed some challenges. Trish never had “sexual reassignment surgery” (SRS) though. I think that eventually my mom and dad came to a compromise and learned to love one another for the people that they are. There is an element of gender compromise there for my dad, too — over the years, Trish has oscillated from being more feminine to being almost gender neutral, and I think partly that was due to her desire to stay with mom.

G: That must have been tough for both Trish and your mom. How has your extended family reacted to your dad’s transition? Has everyone been supportive?

S: I don’t think dad’s gender identity was necessarily a surprise to anyone in my extended family. Trish grew up in the 60s, and was a long-haired hippie, so there’s always been an “alternative” element there. I think it was somewhat difficult for my dad’s brother and sister, because they grew up with “Michael,” but I was recently in Chicago with my extended family and it was really heartening to hear my aunts and uncles refer to dad as “Trish,” and to hear my cousins just use “Trish” automatically. My grandparents, dad’s parents, also were fairly supportive, after an initial adjustment period. Really, I think ours is one of the more happy stories of a trans person finding acceptance within the family; there are unfortunately a lot of transgender people who feel they have to hide that side of themselves from their family indefinitely, or who are completely ostracized. I’m so glad that didn’t happen to dad.

trish

G: What were some of the biggest positives of having a trans dad? How about the negatives?

S: I think the biggest positives of growing up with a trans parent are probably the same as the positives of growing up with any LGBT parent. I grew up painfully aware of how it feels to be different and so I was uncomfortable talking about people behind their backs, and tried not to judge people for being different. I think it also helped me to understand the unique struggles and discrimination that LGBT people sometimes face, so I’ve been an advocate and ally for LGBT rights for many years now. Also, growing up with a parent as unique, creative and unabashedly “weird” personality-wise as Trish made me realize that it’s okay to be different. Trish always says to “follow your bliss,” and I try to do that with every decision I make.

On the negative side, I think it’s just tough to feel drastically different because of something that’s out of your control. I felt embarrassed of dad when I was in elementary and middle school, because kids would ask me questions about my family that I didn’t know how to answer. I worried about offering my friends a ride home from school, because I wasn’t sure what Trish would be wearing when she picked us up. Trish was very uncompromising with her femininity when my sister and I were in elementary and middle school, and that caused some serious tension in our family, because that was also a point in our lives when the most important thing seemed to be fitting in with our peers. I did wish for a “normal” dad back then.

G: Because this has come up a lot in comments about your piece and because there is a wide variation in terms of knowledge about the trans community, I’m wondering if you can talk a little about your dad’s use of gender pronouns. You refer to her as “Dad,” and sometimes “him,” and “he.” Does she go by both male and female pronouns?

S: Sure. I’m learning that calling a transgender parent “dad” is far more contentious in the trans community than I realized! My sister and I grew up using “dad,” and Trish never requested any other term. When I say “dad” I almost automatically say “he,” because, well, my brain is hardwired that way, but I’m trying to change that by using “Trish,” which reminds me to say “she.” In a recent interview, I posed this pronoun confusion to my dad, and asked what pronouns people should use when addressing her. Trish said, “whatever they’re most comfortable with.” But I think that she appreciates it when we use feminine pronouns, because it’s an issue of respect.

What I want to make clear, though, is that this is how MY family chose to be, but it’s not how every transgender family is. That’s part of the reason I want to meet and interview lots of other LGBT families, as well as experts, journalists and researchers, so that I can incorporate their stories and viewpoints into the film, too.

To learn more about Sharon’s film, Project Dad, check out the official site–or watch a section of it on The New York Times.

Every Badass Woman Was Once A Mighty Girl

Engaging with quality books and cinema creates more evolved people. Period.  Feel free to write an angry FB post about why you don’t need to do either of those things. Oh wait, nevermind, y’all ain’t like that! We love artsy intelligent stuff here at Autostraddle! But finding solid and non-damaging media/arts for kids, especially female kids, can be difficult. I feel like most little American kid brains are steered towards reality teevee, and I worry that it’s easy to reach the age of 10 without reading a real book. And when kids do read, especially girl kids, they often as not just end up with something like Twilight, books that don’t help them see the strength inside themselves. Harry Potter would have died in the first book if it weren’t for Hermione, you know? Which is why I’m so glad that A Mighty Girl, a resource for books and movies that are affirming and encouraging of girls, exists.

About A Mighty Girl :

A Mighty Girl is the world’s largest collection of books and movies for parents, teachers, and others dedicated to raising smart, confident, and courageous girls. After years of seeking out empowering and inspirational books for our four young nieces, we decided to create A Mighty Girl as a resource site to help others equally interested in supporting and celebrating girls. The site was founded on the belief that all girls should have the opportunity to read books and watch movies that offer positive messages about girls and honor their diverse capabilities.

Also, A Mighty Girl doesn’t have separate categories for Black, Latina, Asian or differently abled. All of the stories are together as equals, as it should be. And AMG isn’t just for kids — there are books and movies in their collection that appeal to everyone. I might just spend the afternoon brushing up on my female empowerment media because then it’s not slacking right? Then it’s Feminism.

So spread the word about this website and use it to build up the catalogues and media libraries of all the badass little kids in your world. It might be called A Mighty Girl but the works in their collection will help kids of all identities grow up to be better people. What are your favorite girl power books and movies and things? Share! Matilda by Roald Dahl will always be at the top of my list.

19 Terribly Interesting Tips On Raising A Trans Kid (From A Trans Kid)

Originally published on Translabyrinth. 

Jezebel’s got a story of a 10 year old transgirl named Jackie (formerly Jack). Jackie’s parents ended up earning a 10 out of 10 for supportiveness (not to mention extra fluffy cushions on their sofa in Heaven) for their role in helping Jackie transition at the age of 10. Of course, by pop culture standards that makes her, like, 30, but better late than never, right? Truly though, it’s touching to see something that once had to be silently swept under the carpet become fair fodder for the day-to-day news. If there’s one thing I learned from the GaGa going GuyGuy the other night, it’s that whether or not her on-stage gender flip was another tired pop star trope, it’s really the repetition of things like this that helps society’s medicine go down. And there’s nothing 24 hour news stations do better than repeat things incessantly. Can I get a high five?

All this got me thinking about my now blank-firing genitals. See, before I started pumping concentrated Woman down my veins (that’s W on the periodic table of elements. Yes, I know someone told you it was Tungsten, but people lie to you, get over it), I had this thing called fertility. And during that dark, boobless chapter of my life, I had my baby bullets frozen. Now, I could sell these as cocktail ice at a gay male orgy, or I could put ‘em in a lady. And how would I react if my spawnlings turned out to be trans? I wandered around my home for awhile today, looking back on my childhood, what I would have wanted, and remembered what I’ve learned about love and support from GF, friends and family. Thus, this list.

(Pre-disclaimer: some people don’t realize they’re trans until well past their childhood. No two transitions are alike, and no one’s gender identity should be held under suspicion simply because it doesn’t follow a mold.)

Make your home an inclusive one. No, this doesn’t mean leaving your doors unlocked, I’m far too paranoid an American to recommend that. But one of my biggest disadvantages growing up (which was in no way my own folks’ fault, as transpeople still aren’t common knowledge now) was not knowing that transgender people existed. It’s easily segued from the love conversation: sometimes girls love boys, sometimes girls love girls, and sometimes girls want to be boys. Even when I was very young, I latched onto any examples of gender variance in my life, and when they were negative images (like from porn), I didn’t have any parentally-backed ones to counterpoint them with. Set a good example by making it seem normal, boring and everyday.

Don’t equate “Mommy I want to wear girls clothes” with “Mommy is the stork going to make a second trip to drop off my vagina?” Just because your child has these feelings doesn’t mean they are trans, genderqueer or simply fabulous. However, they do need the space to figure themselves out, and if you deny them that I guarantee you the feelings will only intensify over time. If you deny them this chance to express themselves in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone, it will only lead to complexes, trust issues and even more identity issues. SPOILER ALERT: everything you do as a parent makes these.

Splash water in their face? Boom! Aguaphobia.

Talk to your kid about how far they want to go right now. Some are aching to change everything now, some are just wanting to test the waters in a safe space. Talking takes precedence, and that’s why this is an okay time to exert some parental authority and say “You can’t have everything now.” But girls tend to like piercings, and boys like shorter hair, so why not start there?

Consider a therapist, but only if you’re willing to do some leg work. Therapists need to be asked about their familiarity with gender, and working with kids. Also, seek out trans or LGBT support groups and ask if they have any therapists to recommend, or advice to offer. If you have a middle school or younger age kid, consider going without them to that meeting the first time (you need to make sure this is a good group, because not all are). However, if your child tends towards the hyper confident end of the spectrum and doesn’t mind outing themselves to a group of strangers, you go, transkid.

Don’t run and tell everyone that your kid is trans just to get it over with. Tell people as they need to know, unless there’s a family member or friend your kid feels they should tell, and is one that you feel will react in a positive manner. If you’re Super Parent (and if you are, sorry about everyone on Krypton dying and everything, that sure sucks), you may want to go telling your family and friends The New World Order, but the more people who know the more pressure can be put on a child to make up their mind one way or another. Also, odds are your kid won’t want pronouns out of the gate, so call them your daughter if that’s who they are right now, and if they change that to son later, say that later. You’re not here to make other people feel comfortable, you’re here to make just one person the most comfortable person ever. So do that.

When it comes to schools, talk to their teacher first when they start living a significant period of the day in their new gender’s clothing (if they’re in elementary school). If there’s bullying, talk to an administrator, but don’t do so with the assumption you’re going to have to fight them all the way to the Lifetime movie adaptation of your struggle. Most people, yourself included until your kid became trans, don’t know as much about gender variance, so be ready to take the lead, educate, and make it clear that the school’s job is to prevent any kind of bullying. Also, never let changing schools be off the table. If they’re in middle school or high school, don’t divulge to their, what, eight teachers, until they’re going to school in dress. Talk to teachers of whatever classroom they’re being bullied in, first, if they’re not full time new gender at school.

If your kid changes dress in the younger age bracket (0-10), their peers’ll likely just accept what you tell them. “Your girl is a boy? Capital! Now where’s your most edible ground?” -Their peers. Really, kids are mega-accepting and submissive to authority figures when they’re young. That is, until the fruit of knowledge begins properly digesting and we all become twats in middle school. A good friend of mine (let’s call her Tessa) who’s a transwoman, fathered a kid just before she transitioned. She told this daughter, Melisa, when she was about 2 that mommy Tessa used to be a boy, but Tessa wasn’t happy being a boy and became a girl. Melisa’s response even years later? A perpetual motion machine of love.

Hormones can be a comfort for kids, but never let them be a crutch. If they’re younger, tell them that if their body starts making them too much like a girl or a boy, they can stop that if they feel comfortable with it. If older, only if they can come to you knowing everything good and bad these drugs do. It’s important that they understand their identity emotionally before they get too fixated on their identity chemically. (Hormones don’t fix the self, they just give it different wrapping paper)

On fertility. This may be an awkward convo for a suddenly hormonal 11 year old who wants their body to stop changing them the wrong way. Yes, hormones, especially at that young an age, can *potentially* end their ability to have babies forever. Talk to doctors and see if anything can be frozen. If it can’t, you and your kid need to decide if X amount of time without hormones is something they (and not you) can live with until something can be frozen. If not, there are an awful lot of unadopted, love-worthy kids on this planet.

Encouragement. Yes, you may need time to mourn the “death” of the child you’ll never have again, but don’t put that pain on them. They need you to be strong, they need to think of you when they’re afraid, and not the fear. If they know someone can stay by them and be strong, that makes all the difference. For ‘xample, I was very hard on myself at the beginning of transition, but GF never flinched in daily reminding me how strong I was and how wonderful I was for being true to myself, and over time, when I would find myself on the floor, wet eyed, shaking and scared, I would stop replaying my fears and would instead remember her, and her sureness. That’s what you want: the magic of repetition.

Family who is not on your side will not be accepted. That is all.

Don’t force them into their new gender. You know your kid, even if right now it feels like you don’t. You know whether or not your kid is the kind who’d be happy to come home from school one day and find their room pink and every trapping of their old life replaced with bunnies, bunnies and more bunnies. You see, whether I’d been born guy or girl, I’d still think My Fair Lady and Starship Troopers are excellent, so let your kid explore their gender rather than tell them what it is. I wouldn’t have been broken hearted to come home and find Ultraman hugging a stuffed kitty.

Or tackling Ryugulo’s mighty head knife. I was a weird kid.

Part of encouragement is telling them it’s okay to be wrong. They need to know they can come to you with doubts, especially if they want to change their minds about hormones, pronouns, their name, anything. Would you want to be judged? No? Then do unto others.

Don’t erase yourself from this equation. Have a support network of your own, because you’ll need someone to lean on if this hurts. It’s not your kid’s fault, nor yours, but the biggest trip-up in parenting is pretending you’re a magic fixit machine. You’re a person who feels. Just spare the child the woe you’re writing in your heart and save it for that certain someone great at making you feeling less ARRGH-sad.

Stand up for them. They’re very probably terrified in one way or another, and if they don’t learn to expect someone to stand up for them, they’ll withdraw, hiding their real self in the dark place where it’s safe. Correct people on pronouns. Stare back at starers. Answer questions to your heart’s content, not someone else’s. You can always walk away from a conversation and no one will arrest you. If someone tries to tell you about how to raise your kids, well, if you’re in the 1950′s you can say “Sure thing, Mrs. Willoughby, we’ll get right on that.” If you’re in New York you can say “Yourself: go fuck it.” Or if you’re a regular person you can say something hokey like “I’m just letting my child be who they are in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone,” because you’re a parent and you say things that are well-intentioned and hokey.

How cool and in touch your kids see you. (neck beard and all)

Gender Spectrum has piles of good advice, so here’s a few of their tips:

If there’s trouble at school, keep records of it. Who with, what day. This will give you something to bring to administrators, PTA meetings, teachers, etc.

Make sure you and your kid understand the difference between privacy and secrecy. Secrecy is frequently something you’re ashamed of, and that’s not what your youngin should feel. Privacy is explaining to your kid that not everyone accepts this, and that telling everyone everything is not what a person does for anything in their life, least of all this. Work out between the two of you what’s the right thing to say when asked, like rehearsing a script.

If your child moves back and forth between genders “a lot,” accept that maybe they’re a crossdresser, maybe they’re genderqueer, or maybe, just maybe, they’re a person who gets confused and unsure. The same way you do about everything you’ve ever known, including and especially about who you are. Most of transition is being in a safe space to act out your identity. So it’s not about whether your child is “really” a boy or “really” a girl, it’s about accepting that your child is your child, and needs help.

Now, post-disclaimer (but ha, you suckers read the whole thing anyway! Except for you down scrollers, who I’ll soon exact vengeance upon): this is a guide that was written in reaction to the story of 10 year old Jackie (plus some inspiration from another ABC News piece), but like general parenting 101, there is no ‘parenting trans kids 101’ textbook. All there is is showing up to class. Situations vary for each kid, regardless of age, but I find that when I’m feeling lost, reading through guides can help shine a light where once there was just darkness to blindly grope about in. You’ll make mistakes, but this is how you learn. Or as transman pastor Aaron Raz Link said, “Forgive yourself for learning instead of knowing.”

If you have hella helpful additions or teeth-gnashing criticisms, deliver them to the comments below, or my electronic mailing service via femail@translabyrinth.com. I certainly don’t want to write from a vacuum when there’s whole communities of people out there who can help me increase people’s collective knowledge, or something equally cuddly and LeVar Burtony like that.

w/luv,
M

“Family In The Beach” photo courtesy of artist photostock at freedigitalphotos.net.
“Love heart” and “Etienne Parent” photos courtesy of acobox free images and hosting.

A.K. Summers Draws The Life And Times Of A Pregnant Butch

Jamie’s Team Pick:

Some people want babies. People I went to high school with are already having them by the twos and threes.  And remember The Real L Word’s Cori and Kacy?!? Pregnancy and parenting in the LGBTQ community, especially from the perspective of the genderqueer or butch, still leaves much to be explored, and representation of a butch dyke pregnancy are few and far between. (Also, have you and your lesbian feminists friends/lovers ever discussed the feminist collective family plan? Read on!)

Enter Pregnant Butch. A. K. Summers began working on the semi-autobiographical Pregnant Butch comic in 2005 following the birth of her son. In the series she shares struggles personally and socially with her pregnancy, and the oddity of being feminized throughout by people who had viewed her as masculine prior to the pregnancy.

Some readers may notice Summers’ work is influenced by Hergé’s Tintin. She explains in an article with Bay Windows, “I loved the idea of wearing things like knee britches and berets and cutting that kind of Tintin-esque figure, rather than being like a ’50s style butch who’s really going for something rougher and tougher.” Fan. In addition to this comic, Summers is also working on a graphic novel for children, The Minotaur and the Bicycle.

As of December 5, 2011, Pregnant Butch is being released one page per week through the webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE. Check it out now!

How to Live With, Be Around and Give Gifts to Kids: Holiday Season Special

And a happy Festivus to you! Are you the proud caretaker of a small, young human? Perhaps you’ll be traveling with them to a holiday destination in the near future? Or, if you don’t have a small person of your own, maybe you will soon find yourself in the company of several children who don’t belong to you but are nonetheless blocking your view of the television and scheming to eat the last roll.

What will you do?? First you will make a nice cup of tea and take a deep breath. Ok now you’re ready.

MOST SPECIAL NOTE OF ALL NOTES
This is your greatest opportunity to create real, lasting, totally insane holiday traditions that these kids will remember forever and possibly pass on to their future friends/families. You don’t even have to be their parents — as long as the tradition is ridiculously fun or weird, they’ll appreciate it. This is absolutely not the time for unoriginality.

TRAVELING WITH KIDS

Everyone wants to look at and interact with the young people you’re in charge of. They’ll have you believe it’s because they love these children and want to get to know them better — and that’s probably true — but it’s mostly about checking up on your parenting skills and judging your work. That’s fine; you’ve likely done an excellent job and should have nothing to worry about. However, everyone knows that children can be rogue, unpredictable little things, capable of embarrassing the holy living hell out of you at any moment.

That prospect is terrifying. As with all parenting endeavors, you will need a strategic plan and a small arsenal of bribes.

Prep

For shy children, it’s imperative that they be given the proper tools for interacting with strange, older people. Explain that you will be visiting some folks who might be loud, tall and wearing lots of perfume, and that these people will have a great interest in the child. This will make the child uncomfortable. Tell the child it’s perfectly normal; that the same thing happened to you. Have the  child practice acceptable responses via role play.

You: HI SMALL PERSON!! I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN [TIME]!! What grade are you in??? Look at your hair!! Oh you are just THE CUTEST THING.

Child: (smiling) Hello, thank you. I am in [grade]. It is nice to see you again. I like your [something, anything].

You: OH THANK YOU! WHAT A PRECIOUS ADORABLE CHILD! Do you like [grade]? Do you have a [girl/boyfriend]??? I BET YOU DO! OHHHHH!

Child: (smiling) Thank you. No, I do not currently have a [girl/boyfriend], as I’ve chosen to focus solely on my studies and future career. I hope to be involved with the local [shelter/co-op/community theater] next summer. I have a [GPA]. It was so nice to talk to you. I’m going to get some water now. Excuse me.

Bribe

People need incentives — it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Be frank: “If you embarrass me, I will take away [prized possession(s)] for [outrageous length of time]. If you do not embarrass me and instead make me look awesome, I will give you [money/days off from chores/a puppy?]. The end.”

Above all, remind the child that no matter what happens at this holiday function, they will be returning with you to your house, where they will stay for several years to come, and that you have a pristine memory and very little interest in granting amnesty.

via myelephantmuse.wordpress.com

Pack

I just needed an excuse to show you these suitcases.

1. Travel Buddies Archie the Alien
2. Melissa & Doug Trunki in Sunny Orange look at this fucking cute wtfery

Charge

Charge every device. If it has batteries, charge them. If it will need batteries, bring them. Bring more than you think you need, then bring more.

For Your Ears

For some reason, short young humans don’t like listening to NPR for hours on end. I know, it’s so weird. I think you should make a mix CD to bring along. Because it’s the holidays, you’re allowed to add as many obnoxious holiday songs as you’d like and you’re encouraged to sing along enthusiastically. They’ll love you for this later, when they have something to complain about to their friends.

The Trip

Whether the travel time is 20 mins or two days, being prepared is crucial. Anything from a splinter to a mini-famine could occur before you’re even out of the driveway. Aside from the obvious supplies — like band-aids, PSPs, headphones, a deck of cards, etc. — don’t forget the Please Shut Up Lollipops, the Stop Complaining Gum, and the I Cannot Possibly Answer Another Inane Question Fruit Leather. If you’ll be traveling for an extended period of time, I highly recommend the I Will Only Love You if I Can’t Hear You String Cheese.

NEXT PAGE: Holiday Gatherings With Kids – A Guide For Childless Humans — including a fantastic guide on how to give gifts to people younger than you!

How to Live With Kids: Chores and Responsibilities

Feature image from have a banner day!

Sometimes really late at night or early in the morning, when your subconscious is creeping into the periphery, you find yourself thinking, “Who the hell are these people I’m living with? They could be anyone. They’ll be old one day, with pants they paid for themselves. Jesus what is happening. How did I get here.” And you’ll think those things because honestly, living with kids is weird.

There are workarounds to these potential frustrations and jarring moments of clarity. We’ll go over a few of them and hopefully you’ll share some of your own and everyone will feel much better about the smears all over the glass doors.

Previously:
How to Live With Kids: Toys & Entertainment
How to Live with Kids: Food & Cooking

Chores & Responsibilities

Living with kids means setting an example. You have to be the you that you want them to think you are and remember you as. You have to think ahead to how your current actions will bubble to the surface in their future. Because years from now, when you’re busy listening to Das Racist’s Greatest Hits, this kid will be subconsciously reinacting something from their past existence with you, and they’ll either put the plate in the dishwasher or leave it on the countertop, depending on what you drilled into their skulls when they were young.

This is the source of much anxiety.

Their eventual partners / friends / children will either curse or praise you, depending on this future adult’s ability to fold and put away their own shirts, among other things. This won’t always be fair to you, but that’s the price of receiving such large tax deductions.

Chores are one way to come out of this on top! All at once — practically without lifting a finger — you’re setting a good example, cultivating their work ethic, teaching responsibility and money management, and AND! enjoying a clean house. You’re the best parent ever. You are the winner.

Don’t Underestimate:

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Starting Young

As soon as these beasts can walk across the room without falling over, you have to make them do chores. You should even call them “chores” so there’s no ambiguity later. Start them out with small things — picking up toys, putting away groceries — but don’t stop there. There are some lovely stepstools at Ikea and the sooner these children know how to properly wash a plate, the better.

Having a Plan

You’re gonna need a chore chart. Kids have selective hearing and memory loss, so the chore chart is essential. (More on chore charts below!)

The Barter System

These short people are probably going to want money from you, and that’s valid, but maybe it’s not always an option. If we’ve learned anything from the esteemed Chuck E. Cheese, it’s that a non-monetary payout can be more rewarding than dollars. This is especially true for the smallest of smalls, who have yet to grasp the concept of money.

Kids earn something — stickers, rocks in a jar (Riese got poker chips) — for each completed chore. Have a variety of activities, small to large, that they can trade their tokens for.

This system is a good way to squeeze in the activities your kids really love but you don’t always have the time or energy for, like Nerf wars or backyard picnics. You’ll definitely need to include a couple of grand prizes — something they can save up for — like an actual food fight or letting them drive your car around the parking lot. That’s legal, I think.

Respite

Those poor overworked children would really appreciate a break. I recommend not giving them scheduled days off and surprising them instead. Have you ever seen a very young person be excited because you dusted the bookshelves? Now you will.

Advanced Chore Charting for Teenagers
with Special Guest Fit For A Femme

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It’s important to teach your kids the importance of earning their own rewards. I think it’s equally important to teach them gratitude, because there’s nothing worse than a spoiled, ungrateful brat, no matter what age you are. Also? Kids are messy, but thankfully – as discussed in the Food & Cooking edition of How to Live with Kids – they’re also inclined to help.

My focus is on Advanced Chore Charting for Teenagers. Fair trade. Good old slave labor, like they used to have in The Baby-sitter’s Club. We’re lucky, she approached us for additional chores to earn more money for the stuff she wants (music for her iPod, sparkly oxfords, mint lip balm), so it was technically her idea. Maybe that’s a strategy. Let’s pretend it is.

The key here is balance. There are a few really crappy jobs here. Nobody in this household wants to do them. Vacuuming, picking up after the dogs in the backyard, cleaning the guest bath. Those things SUCK, so they’re worth a bit more. There are a few easier ones thrown in – the laundry room, sweeping the front porch, loading/unloading the dishwasher – and they garner a little less cash. For clarity, these aren’t a la carte chores – payment’s made when they’re all done.

actual negotiation document. we're impressed.

What does this mean for us? We supervise, execute on clutter reduction, and congratulate ourselves because it’s way cheaper than weekly maid service. KIDDING! Sort of.

We do not police her bedroom or bathroom. It’s her space and we generally let her do as she pleases until we can no longer contain our disgust or are entertaining guests. This is probably more of a private parenting decision rather than basic chore assignment and completion, but it’s worth mentioning that if she wants to have a friend over or go see a movie, that room had better be reasonably presentable and her chores done.

Fun stuff: Let’s say your kid wants a ukulele for fun (mine does). They’re expensive! A nice one can run you close to $200. That could take 10 weeks! Let’s say Christmas is months and months and damn months away. As a parent, you want to encourage your child’s creativity and possible hidden ukulele talent, so we’d offer to match her savings. That’s how she got her first iPod (until she lost it, then she was on her own and saved up for half a year to replace it)!

Tip: Nobody likes a nag. The $1 charge per chore reminder is like built-in nagging and it totally works. It saves time and keeps me sane and nag-free. Probably too harsh for the wee ones, but fair game for teens. (We can be extra fancy and call it Priority & Time Management if you want to.)

What kind of chore system has worked for you? Can you think of one thing that you wouldn’t have your kids do? Because I can’t. Have you ever had a food fight?

Next week we’ll talk about how kids have to ride in your car sometimes and what to do about that.

How to Live with Kids: Food & Cooking

Sometimes really late at night or early in the morning, when your subconscious is creeping into the periphery, you find yourself thinking, “Who the hell are these people I’m living with? They could be anyone. They’ll be old one day, with pants they paid for themselves. Jesus what is happening. How did I get here.” And you’ll think those things because honestly, living with kids is weird.

There are workarounds to these potential frustrations and jarring moments of clarity. We’ll go over a few of them and hopefully you’ll share some of your own and everyone will feel much better about the smears all over the glass doors.

Previously: How to Live With Kids: Toys & Entertainment

Food & Cooking

Much like you and me, kids need food to survive. The smallest of all kids — babies — need food every hour. As they age, thankfully, the time between feedings grows and so you’re more able to find something to read or possibly leave your house for an extended period of time.

via aboutcatsonline.com

You’ll be expected to provide these kids who live in your house with food. This can be a daunting task, given that you’ll likely be able to think of no less than 30 things you could / should be doing that don’t involve pots, pans or plates. The trick is to anticipate when the kids will be hungry and plan ahead. While no two kids are exactly alike, it’s been my experience that kids typically need food at these specific times:

+ upon waking
+ immediately upon arrival from school
+ the exact moment you sit down for the first time all day
+ when you’re in the shower
+ 15 minutes after they said they weren’t hungry
+ at 3:00 a.m. (relevant only during sleepovers)

Don’t Underestimate:

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Limited Rations

This is like the opposite of the Play-Doh Rule, which states that some age-appropriate things must be made off-limits in order to increase their value. Implementing a snack box (that’s just what we call it — you should probably come up with something more creative, like The Hexahedron of Vital Nourishment) ensures that only pre-approved foods are readily available at any given time.

Fill the container with dull healthy things, like fruit leather and homemade trail mix, maybe the occasional bag of pistachios if you’re feeling generous. Your bag of PMS Doritos should be kept well out of reach, along with the Milano cookies, strawberry Twizzlers, rosemary bread and anything else their tender palates couldn’t possibly appreciate.

Having an Accomplice

Not every food experience has to look pretty, and I’m guessing you reached this conclusion about two weeks after your child came through the front door. Personally, my number one feeling is appetizers, and I’m fairly certain it’s because I was exposed to Mermaids in my formative years.

Make appetizers an ‘acceptable’ meal the same way you make peanut butter & jellies and cheese plates (or the vegan equivalent) acceptable: adding fresh fruits and vegetables. The way I see it, you can feed these short people almost anything, as long as you serve it next to some grapes, a spinach salad, carrot sticks, or whatever whathaveyou etc.

Knowing When to Retreat

Set aside at least two days a week when you won’t be the one cooking dinner. Maybe this means you go to a restaurant or a friend’s house (if they truly are your friends, they will periodically feed your children).

If you have some extra time on Saturday or whatever, you could strategically cook way more food than you need, in anticipation of reheating / revisioning it later in the week. This can be super low-key, like making a huge lasagna and having leftovers a couple of days later. Or you can get ambitious and prepare all the meals for the week in one day. Also Rachael Ray and about a million other people have some feelings about this.

Breakfast For Dinner

You just won. The end.

Things Kids Can Do in the Kitchen

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The thing to remember about kids is that, while at first they seem totally useless in the kitchen, they’re actually perfect for a small variety of things. Not only that, but they’re usually wildly idealistic when it comes to household duties. It’s your job to exploit their enthusiasm and naivety for your benefit.

School Lunches

Does your short person know how to make their own sandwiches and put items into small containers? Teaching self-sufficiency is literally your job. Literally.

Salads

If you have a lettuce knife and a salad spinner, you’ve basically turned salad prep into Romper Room and now you can finish reading that article on how to organize your inbox to its fullest potential. Or you know, whatever.

Weekend coffee

My dad taught me how to make coffee using an electric percolator when I was 9. Nine, you guys. What a fucking genius.

Stirring

I don’t know, kids love to stir things. Don’t squander this passion on bath water.

What are your feelings about keeping kids fed? Are your kids on special diets? Do you sometimes just throw jellybeans at their heads and pretend like it’s lunch?

Next week we’ll discuss how kids need to do chores and what you can do about that.

How to Live With Kids: Toys & Entertainment

Living with kids is sometimes hard. I mean, living with kids is a hilarious, magical, rewarding experience full of funfun happiness and Raffi and sunshine, but also it’s exhausting and hard. And weird.

Living with kids is weird.

If most of your friends don’t have kids — which means housecleaning takes them under an hour and nobody wakes them before 6am on Saturdays, which is fine you’re not jealous — then you’re acquainted with the underlying weirdness of living with these minors who oftentimes can’t even make their own grilled cheeses. For example, I have two kids and most of my friends don’t have kids.

Sometimes really late at night or early in the morning, when your subconscious is creeping into the periphery, you find yourself thinking, “Who the hell are these people I’m living with? They could be anyone. They’ll be old one day, with pants they paid for themselves. Jesus what is happening. How did I get here.” And you’ll think those things because honestly, living with kids is weird.

There are workarounds to these potential frustrations and jarring moments of clarity. We’ll go over a few of them and hopefully you’ll share some of your own and everyone will feel much better about the smears all over the glass doors.

Toys & Entertainment

Kids like to be entertained, obviously. They apparently also really like plastic things — with or without hinging mechanisms or wheels– and a wide variety of paper products and broken items. If you liked plastic things and paper products and broken items, that’d be ok because it’s your house and you’re cool with you. But what is this, really. What are these loose Legos in the dining room floor and 70lbs of video games and more Thomas the Tank Engine paraphernalia than you and thirty other people could shake a stick at?

via daddytypes.com

It’s life! Glorious plastic consumerist parental life in America womp womp!

But actually, I really like Legos and video games, and I like that they’re here whenever someone decides to utilize them. I just don’t want to have to look at them in the meantime. That’s reasonable, I think, but also surprisingly difficult to maintain! It doesn’t help that other adults think the only way to properly observe a national holiday is to send more plastic things to my house.

So here’s how you live with toys without going insane: 7-Day Toy Cure. Apartment Therapy’s cures are life-changing and this one is no exception.

Don’t Underestimate:

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Controlled Substances

it's made of play-doh. get it?

You’re going to need to make something off-limits — Play-Doh, for example. Even if you’re the most lax parent ever and you really don’t care if there’s Play-Doh in the carpet, you have to act like you do. Make Play-Doh (or anything, really) something that’s only permissible on ‘special occasions.’ This tricks your kids into believing that Play-Doh is special, which means they’ll do anything to play with it, including cleaning their rooms, taking out all the garbage, wiping down the baseboards, detailing the car, alphabetizing the coupons, etc.

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Stealing

via icumusings.blogspot.com

If you have some storage space, periodically go into your child’s room and gather up entire sets of things — army men, some books, whatever. Bag it up and hide it in storage. Ideally you’re going to want to steal the things that aren’t ranked in your kid’s top 10.

Then, in a few months, when they’ve forgotten all about Lincoln Logs or how to play There’s a Moose in the House, BAM! You bring the bag out of hiding and present it, much like Santa Claus himself, to a suddenly nostalgic, super grateful child. Obviously you’ll need to steal something else now to restore the balance of the universe.

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Safe Spaces

In a perfect world, toys would exist only in the bedroom of the kid who owns them. But this isn’t a perfect world, is it? You’ll have to sign a treaty regarding the family room, and those terms are up to you, but under no circumstances should there be a plastic cheeseburger in your bedroom. Or the bathroom, or the kitchen. Those territories are safe spaces where adults can roam freely without fear of stepping on puzzle pieces or action figures or those tiny brushes that come with My Little Ponies.

Things That Entertain Kids And Aren’t Toys

Board games

You may argue that board games are toys, but you’re thinking of Operation or Mousetrap. I’m talking about Scrabble or Scattegories or other things that involve the grey matter stuck inside your skull.

Magazine subscriptions

These will come directly to your house and magically turn the day into The Day My Magazine Came, which we all know is the best day.

Dry-erase boards

Hours. Of. Entertainment. Things that aren’t dry-erase boards: refrigerators, surprisingly.

Closets / forts / tents / large boxes

Kids like to hide in dark places, like bats. If you really want to be a hero, give them some flashlights and a bag of snacks. You probably won’t hear from them for a couple of hours.

Do you have tips for living with toys without losing your mind or going on a donation rampage (personal favorite!)? You should definitely share those in the comments!

Next week we’ll discuss how kids need food and what you can do about it.

Canadian Parents Raise Gender-Neutral Baby by Not Revealing Its Sex

A Toronto family is raising their youngest child, Storm, gender-neutral by not revealing the sex of their baby to anyone outside their immediate family, their midwives, and a close friend. As you might imagine, their decision has brought a deluge of criticism from friends, experts, and non-experts who like to tell other people what to do.

Kathy Witterick and David Stocker plan to keep Storm’s sex a secret for as long as Storm and Storm’s brothers, Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, are comfortable with it. Jazz and Kio are encouraged to explore their gender as well; their parents believe that they’re giving their children the opportunity to be creative and free from social norms that dictate male and female behavior.

Despite their good intentions, grandparents and friends worry that the parents are setting their kids up to be bullied. Witterick recognizes that her children, while resilient, are vulnerable as well. Once, “a saleswoman at a second-hand shop refused to sell [Jazz] a pink feather boa. ‘Surely you won’t buy it for him — he’s a boy!’ said the woman. Shocked, and not wanting to upset Jazz, [she] left the store.” At the same time, she sees value in adversity. “When faced with inevitable judgment by others, which child stands tall (and sticks up for others) — the one facing teasing despite desperately trying to fit in, or the one with a strong sense of self and at least two ‘go-to’ adults who love them unconditionally? Well, I guess you know which one we choose.”

Witterick and Stocker have also been accused of using their children as social experiments to further their own political agenda. While I’m not a mom, it seems to me that all parenting is experimentation. Life is all about uncertainty and bringing a new one into the world takes some serious trial and error. As as for pushing an agenda, I’d argue that it’s nothing unique to this situation. People becomes parents for all sorts of reasons, but it only makes sense that they’re going to raise their children according their values. But why does it take more imagination to acknowledge that even the most white-bread status-quo nancy normal family is “agenda-pushing” just as much as families that live out their more alternative principles? The answer brings us to today’s point: social constructionism.

Social constructionism is the idea that specific phenomena, actions, concepts. and things are not naturally meaningful, but are given meaning by a culture. Obscene gestures are an easy way to understand social constructionist views. Raising your middle finger at someone doesn’t inherently mean “fuck you,” but in the social context of the United States or Sri Lanka it’s considered disrespectful.

Gender, as most of you know, has been subjected to an incredible amount of social construction as well. Some beliefs, while ingrained, are easier to spot; pink hasn’t always been a “girl color.” Others, like the myth that men are more interested in sex than women, are more transparent. Historically, there were probably fewer consequences for a man to have sex than for a woman to do so. Perhaps men had something to gain by arguing that women weren’t as sexual. Maybe men held positions of power that allowed them to perpetuate this line of thinking. This isn’t to say that hormones and chemistry have nothing to do with the way we experience the world, but it does mean that we should consider that differences among males and among females are too diverse to accept without challenge. Looking at the construction of something requires you to look beyond beliefs and question the origin of knowledge itself. The idea of something being “natural” is in itself a construction.

Dr. Ehrenshaft, a psychologist who is herself the mother of Jesse, a “girlyboy,” expresses worry that Storm will feel lost in a gendered world and unable to position her- or himself. While her concern is understandable, it doesn’t sound like Storm is going to grow up unaware and confused. Witterick and Stocker aren’t withholding any information from Storm, only from the rest of the world. They aren’t trying to make sex or gender go away by pretending they doesn’t exist (this tactic doesn’t work), they’re attempting to change their child’s encounter with a set of cultural beliefs that equates sex and gender and dictates expectations based on sex.

As long as a child is safe, healthy, and loved, it’s not our job to tell other parents if what they’re doing is right or wrong. The problem arises when people believe that teaching children that self-exploration and knowledge is harmful. Life is full of wonder, love is never wrong.

In Which This is Not a Mommy Blog and I Need Gluten-Free Advice

When you work for a website / are friends with Riese, and you’re doing something vaguely interesting, you’re more or less expected to write about it. Despite strong suggestions / all-out requests, I’ve successfully avoided writing about parenting or my children for two years! And now that’s over.

Here are the top three reasons I never wanted to publish anything about the kiddos:

1. I couldn’t think of pseudonyms for them.
2. I don’t presume anything we / they do is worthy of sharing with the entire world (I mean, except for this).
3. I don’t take unsolicited parenting advice / criticism well. At all.

But you write about what you know, and if I know anything, it’s these two weirdos who live with me. A little background: I have two boys, *Bon Jovi (12) and Zeppelin (6). The oldest was born while I was still in high school, which made me hyper-aware of / annoyed by anyone a) making broad assumptions about my morals, education or background b) doubting my abilities to properly raise a child based on my age and c) writing off his or my future as pointless. I used to be married to their father and now I’m not. I used to think I was straight and inexplicably miserable and now I know I’m gay and that misery comes from lying to yourself and others. We live in the depths of suburban Phoenix. We do not own any pets.

Bon Jovi Facts:
+ draws
+ writes stories / books
+ doesn’t particularly enjoy team sports
+ awesome hair

Zeppelin Facts:
+ obsessed with trains
+ listens exclusively to classic rock
+ swimmer
+ heartbreaking eyes

There’s always something really ‘fun’ or ‘slightly complicated’ or ‘time-sensitive’ going on with these two. Also, they require lots and lots of food and water or milk. Like, more than you’d expect. Sometimes I don’t feel like preparing an actual ‘meal’ for them because, seriously, it’s exhausting. The key to lazy-but-healthy food preparation is raw vegetables. You don’t even have to do anything to them aside from cleaning and cutting — and any monkey can wash and peel a carrot.

But things are a little more complicated now! I’m putting Zeppelin on a gluten-free diet in hopes it’ll neutralize a couple of digestive problems, as well as some seemingly unrelated behavioral issues that I’m being told are, quite possibly, related.

See, everyone likes to tell you how different the second child will be from the first, and they’re right. Let’s not mince words — things were a lot easier with Bon Jovi when he was Zeppelin’s age. I thought I was an amazing parent, but it turns out he was just a naturally well-behaved and goal-oriented person. Neat. Zeppelin’s a little more… um, colorful! Self-focused! And really, really sensitive! To like, everything. All the things.

So what used to be interesting little Zeppelin quirks are now increasingly becoming an issue at school and at home, and obviously that’s a big deal and I’m trying to fix it. With rice pasta…?

According to some doctors and also articles like this, a gluten-elimination diet is a good first step to take if your child is showing possible signs of ADHD, as ADHD and celiac disease have some overlapping symptoms. However, as with all things parenting, not everyone agrees on what’s right. Others believe that gluten-free is a (possibly dangerous) fad and that most children would instead benefit from a more personalized and evolving approach to learning and behavior redirection. I agree with both sides.

A Zeppelin-adapted learning and living style has always been a thing. Obviously it’s insane to think that every child will progress at the same rate or respond to the same social cues in the same pleasing way, and I don’t expect that. But something is different with him. Removing gluten is just another step in ruling out as many causes or issues as possible. So if you’ve taken out all the gluten and the behavior remains, it’s not a gluten intolerance and you move on to the next possibility. Sounds simple, right?

As you probably know or could guess, gluten-free is no joke! Being a strict vegetarian for ~10 years, I’m used to studying labels. And I’m already a total bitch when it comes to processed foods, excess sugar and artificial colors, so avoiding typical junk food isn’t the issue. (Apparently Goldfish crackers just fall from the sky in kindergarten and I’ve already taken a stand there.) But like, there’s gluten in soy sauce! And what about whole wheat? I don’t know what to do in a world without whole wheat.

We eat a so much bread / bread-related products, so doing away with normal breads and snacks wasn’t something I could just slip by him. Not that I would’ve tried, of course — you have to be honest with small people. I explained gluten-elimination to Zeppelin and introduced him to the ‘Gluten-Free for You and Me’ shelf at Trader Joe’s, which went well. He was a little upset about not getting his favorite cereal, but perked right up when he realized the gluten-free cereal was peanut butter flavored and had pandas on the box.

I’ve made those creepy ‘ants on a log’ things for his lunch for a solid week, and that seems to be going over pretty well, but I feel like I can’t shove peanut butter into celery canals forever. What do people do when they can’t have sandwiches? Or pitas? Or most crackers? Or chicken strips??

Corn tortillas, apparently.

Look, here’s a new recipe I just came up with the other night:

Nutella on Not Toast
1 corn tortilla
Nutella

Heat the tortilla in an oil-free skillet for a few seconds on both sides. Remove from skillet. Spread Nutella on the tortilla. Roll up the tortilla. Eat it.

I think this is going to go really well. Do you have some super great advice about going gluten-free? Kid-friendly recipes? Get it out of your system in the comments! (pun!)

*Not real names, duh.