For Michele Bachmann

Congresswoman Michele “I’m really from Iowa” Bachmann has spent some time lately wondering whether same-sex couples with children can be considered family.  Apparently they cannot, in her world.  Mrs. Bachmann has hardly been a friend of the LGBT community in the past.  But since she wants to become President, there are some things she should know about the people she proposes to lead:

• Approximately two-thirds of Americans do see same-sex couples with children as families, according to 2010 research from Indiana University.
• Based on 2010 U.S. Census data, there are more than 901,000 same-sex couples in the U.S., 25% of whom are raising children.
• Same-sex couples with children live in large cities, suburbs and small towns all across the country.  The fact that there are 13,360 families with same-sex parents in New York may not seem surprising.  But the Census also reports:  6,290 families with same-sex parents in North Carolina; 2,585 in Oklahoma; 4,550 in Arizona and 2,372 right here in Minnesota, the state she represents.
• And here’s one for Mrs. Bachmann to chew on: support for same-sex marriage is growing in Iowa – even among Republicans.

If children will teach you anything, it is that things change.  Not that long ago, gay men and lesbians assumed that coming out meant that they would never become parents.  Now, young gays and lesbians assume that they can.  Not that long ago, same-sex marriage seemed improbable at best.  Now, it is legal in six states and Washington, DC.  What’s more, 53% of Americans support legalizing same-sex marriage – with support reaching 70% among young adults.  Clearly, there are still fiercely divided opinions about same-sex marriage and parenting, but public attitudes are shifting and younger generations are driving the change.

“So,” I say to my daughter, “some people think we’re not a family because we don’t have a mom and a dad.”

“That’s stupid,” she says.

“What is it about us that makes you know we’re a family?” I ask.

She shrugs and looks at me like I’m a bit dim.  “It makes me feel good.  I feel cozy and safe.  I don’t know.  We just are.”

Things I Love About You

I drop you off at school in the morning and linger a moment in the car, watching.  Your light blue backpack slides off your shoulders and hangs on your elbows.  You shrug it back up.  Your navy blue yoga pants rumple on top of your snow boots.  Your hair is pulled back in a messy pony tail.  Your bangs, which you insisted on cutting and re-cutting yourself, are held by barrettes clipped perpendicular to your forehead.  You walk inside.  You walk away from me.

* *

You are catching a cold.  You count your sneezes all day long.  “Sixteen,” you say at dinner.

* *

We play games at bedtime before you fall into sleep.  One of your favorites is “Would you rather?”  Would you rather . . . be a peanut or a walnut?  Would you rather be a rock or a tree?  Would you rather be a bird or a song?

* *

You are obsessed with birth.  In pre-school, you announced that you wanted to be a baby doctor, you wanted to help babies get born.  I walk down to the basement one evening after dinner and find you and Jane watching something on YouTube.  “What are you doing?” I ask.  You look at me with a huge grin.  “We’re watching a giraffe give birth,” you say.

* *

Another game.  The object is to make up the longest, most winding and wandering sentence you can imagine.  We call it Melville.

* *

You love the planets.  Jupiter is your favorite.  You like to name its largest and most famous moons.  “Ganymede, Europa, Callisto, Io,” I hear you recite.

“I’m getting tired of being cold, Hannah,” I say one day.  Snow piles outside our windows and the temperature seems stuck at ten below.

“Good thing we don’t live on Pluto,” you respond.

* *

You adore weddings.  You fill notebook after notebook with your wedding gown designs:  sleek, ruffled, Victorian, modern.  You have planned a wedding for Jane and me, down to the shoes we will wear and the food we will eat at the reception.  You will be the bridesmaid, of course, and you have that dress designed as well.  From time to time, you ask if we will get married as soon as the government says it’s OK.  As though to remind me.  As though to promise yourself that it will happen, it will.

* *

You love history.  You can easily spend an hour in an antiques store.  You save your money to buy an antique typewriter.  You are enthralled by your grandpa’s genealogy work.  But you are also seven and have a seven-year-old’s sense of humor.  “Spell ICUP,” you and your friends say to each other.  “I-C-U-P.”  Endless giggles.

* *

One morning before school, you wake unusually early.  You call me in to cuddle with you.  Jane is getting ready for work, in her long blue bathrobe, her wet hair wrapped in a towel.  You call her in.  “Come snuggle with us,” you say.  She lies down on the other side of you.  “Where would we be without family?” you say.

Prop 8 and the 7-year-old

“You remember that judge in California, Hannah?  The one who was going to decide if the law saying that two men or two women are not allowed to get married is a good law or a bad law?”

“Yes,” she says.  We were in San Francisco, coincidentally, on the day of the closing arguments, so we had talked about the case over Prop 8.

“He made his decision.  He said that it should be OK for two men or two women to get married,” I say.  “He’s just saying that for California, but it’s still really important.”

“YES!” she says.  “This is the most important thing of all to me.”

I’m a little surprised by her reaction.

“Why’s that?” I ask.

She points to Jane and then to me.

“Hel-LO?  Girl.  Girl.”

I know that she wants same-sex marriage to become legal, in part because she wants to plan a wedding for Jane and me.  She wants to be a bridesmaid.  She wants to ride in a limo.  She wants ice sculpture in the shape of a swan.  She wants us to wear elaborate gowns.  But honestly, I think what she really, really wants is for us to be married like everyone else.

And, in the end, I think it’s her reaction that is the most important thing of all to me.  Yes, I would like to have the rights and recognition that come with a marriage license.  Yes, I think that gay and lesbian people should have the same range of choices as straight people – whether around marriage, parenthood, where we work, where we live, whatever.  That said, for me personally, legal marriage sounds a bit anti-climactic, now that Jane and I have already been together – and believe me, married – for 26 years.

But it matters a lot to me that it matters so much to Hannah.  For those of us who have children, it is tremendously important to be able to show that our families are just as valued as everyone else’s.  We can tell our kids that our families are just as important, but those statements are undermined by laws that say they aren’t.  The truth is that our kids are on the frontlines of explaining our families to the world.  Marriage rights would make that work much easier because they would take away one of the major ways in which our families are set apart.  And, if they mean that Hannah gets to be a bridesmaid, so much the better.

Names

When Jane and I were considering names for our daughter, in the months before her birth, we settled happily on Hannah.  Neither of us had known a Hannah growing up, so didn’t have any of those unpleasant associations (paste-eater, nose-picker) that we had with some of the names of our childhood peers.  In fact, we thought we were wildly original, only discovering after the fact that our wildly original name was actually the fourth most popular choice for baby girls that year.

Apparently other gay and lesbian parents are more creative, according to a new list of the top “gayby” names recently released by Goodkin.com.  Based on a survey of hundreds of gay and lesbian parents, the top names for babies born into our families are, by and large, not the same as the top baby names overall.

How are they different?  Think less Jane Austen, more Harper Lee (Harper, in fact, rings in at number 5 for girl names).   Parents overall (which means mostly straight) are still opting for Emma, Abigail, Isabel, Jacob and Ethan.  Not so the gay dads and lesbian moms.  The top names for boys raised by gay/lesbian parents include Atticus, Charlie, Milo and Dashiel.  Girl names include Vivienne, Charlotte, Billie and Scarlett.  Remarkably, only 3 names – Alex/Alexander and Noah for boys and Ava for girls – showed up on the top ten lists for both gay and straight parents.

Maybe gay and lesbian parents (other than, apparently, Jane and me) are bigger risk-takers or more out-of-the-box thinkers when naming their kids.  It’s possible that gay parents feel they have more leeway to be creative given the fact that our families are already different.  Or maybe gay parents are at the front end of the next trend.  Who knows?  A couple of years from now, little Atticus’ may just be showing up in nurseries everywhere.

I feel compelled to add, though, that Jane and I might have been more daring than it seems.  Hannah’s middle name is Elisabeth.  With an s.

Cooties

Usually the pools don’t open in Minnesota until June, but it has been especially hot this spring and the pool near our house was open this past weekend.  Hannah and I discovered this, to our great joy, and rushed home to change into our suits, grab some snacks, and get over there.

Water makes Hannah almost immediately happy and relaxed.  It always has.  When she was six months old, we took her to a class at the YMCA to get her introduced to being in a pool.  Jane and I took her into the water and, while the other kids were splashing or crying, Hannah fell fast asleep.

This weekend, though, there was no sleeping.  She is seven now and prefers to spend her time at the pool leaping off the edge, doing cannonballs, swimming “laps,” and diving down to grab my legs and upend me.

“Mommy doesn’t tan well, does she?” Hannah asked, mid-splash.

“No, she doesn’t,” I said.  Jane is fair and freckled.  She burns easily, tans rarely.

“Do you tan easily?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.  ”Just like you.”  Which is pure chance, actually, since my genes are not shared by her.

Hannah climbed on my back and directed me around the pool like a giant seahorse.  This way.  That way.  Now back.

“I think I know what happened,” she said, finally.

“What?” I asked.

“When you and Mommy first kissed, I think she got some of your cooties.  That’s why I tan well,” she said.

Oh, I think.  And, oh dear.  Evidently, we need to revisit our conversations about genetics.  Soon.

And then she adds, “Either that, or it was my donor.”

New film: Gayby Boom!

Artist and filmmaker Lisa Marie Evans is producing a new documentary film, Gayby Boom!, about (you guessed it) GLBT parents and their kids.  She’s looking for home videos from around the globe to include in the film.  This looks like a great opportunity to share real perspectives from real people about what life is really like in and for families with GLBT parents.