Foster Diaries: Risking Your Heart

One thing that we as human beings do not like to do with our hearts is risk them. Risk means uncertainty and with uncertainty comes the possibility of loss and pain. But however much we try too limit the risks we have to take, it has been a life lesson for me to learn to hold your heart out there anyway..even  if you are hurt.And in the event that you are, you must learn not to let it keep you from loving again. This is the heavy lifting of the heart and way we build its capacity to love. Yes, I know...it sounds like the inside of a Hallmark greating card but it is also a fact of life as I have lived it.

One of the ways this lesson was brought home to me was through adoption and foster care. Many of our readers may have been keeping abreast of my previous writings about "Baby Boy". The two year old who has stolen our hearts and who already feels like a member of our family. He came into our lives with two ear infections and soul full of pain and made me question my ability as a foster parent only to later steal all our hearts. At that time we had to say goodbye to him and let him be with a member of his family for long term care only to have him return six months later after having suffered horrific abuse in that home. We welcomed him back with the intention that this time we wanted him to stay. But as with all times you open your heart to someone...there is the possibility that it wont work out. Such is the case with Baby boy.

What Makes A "Better" Parent?

Whether or not gay men men and women can parent has been a topic of conversation for ages now. I can remember it being debated when I was a teen and had a lesbian cuuple that lived across the street from me raising a boy not much younger than myself. I did not take me long to figure out that their was a disconnect between what I was being taught...and what I could witness in life of the family across the street. And I have heard the worst of arguments over time...that we will raise emotionally damaged and confused kids to allegations that we adopt in order to make kids gay...and so much worse. "kids need a mom and a dad" is the rallying cry of those who appose LGBT adoption and marriage equality and they beat that drum with fervor. They are old arguments that strike a sensitive cord in any of us that thought that being gay meant giving up on the notion of having a family of our own. Yet, as damaging as these arguments are, there are lots of same-sex families out there to prove them wrong. I feel fortunate to have grown up across the street from one that helped me see differently even before I came out to myself.


Now...It seems like we have hit the flip side of the debate. With more gay families out there to point to, a lot more people are familiar with same-sex families with children. The adult children of gay parents can also stand up to defend themselves and their families much like Zach Wahls did for his own family. We have fought and struggled to show the world that a gay family looks and functions just like any other family does...in our triumphs and our shortcomings. And then this article comes along from livescience.com carrying the headline, "Why Gays May Be Better Parents"


Strangely enough...while the article may make points that I absolutely agree with, I still find myself troubled by this article. Lets dig into this this thing and I will explain why...