Milestones...Daniel Graduates Junior High

For some, graduating Junior High may not seem like a big deal. Heck, even the school itself doesn't call the act "Graduation" anymore. They call it "promotion"....a weird term at best, and begs the question of what they are promoting to, and does it come with a raise? But there I sat, in the rows of identical, red folding chairs, set up on the lawn in the warm spring sun, looking at a ring of chairs set up for the graduates and realized.....this is happening. Next year my son will be in high school. The little boy that I once knew, was being replaced by a young man. Another world was passing away and all of us, as a family are standing on the doorstep of a new one. It feels like just yesterday that Daniel was a third grader and a new student to our little charter school. As proud as I am to be here to celebrate this moment with Daniel, the time just seemed to have gone by too fast and I could not help but  look back to remember all that had brought us here...

Is This The Year Of The Dads?

Hello readers! Welcome back! Since Father's Day is fast approaching and it just happens to be Pride month here in Califronia, I thought it might be a good day to talk a little bit about a subject near and dear to my heart.....gay dads! This week my partner pointed out the picture above from this years NYC Pride Guide, and ignoring the rather snarky question about marriage spelling the end of gay culture, I had to admit that I was surprised to find the cover graced by what appeared to be a family even if the "dads" still looked like they fell of out of an underwear ad. While it is not abnormal to find absurdly hot guys on the cover of a Pride magazine, it is a little unusual for them to portray them as parents. And yes, this shot looks staged as hell. That baby looks like he's just as much an accessory as the sunglasses he's about to whip off and throw on the ground. But its still something to see these men as father's and a family instead of just two hot guys that may or may not be a couple. We are used to seeing sex in images like this....it is something else to see the message of a family.

Paired with all the T.V. shows that have portrayed gay dads this year, like the recently canceled "The New Normal", Cam and Mitchell from "Modern Family", and the briefly aired "Two Dads, Ten Kids" on the Oprah Network....it has led my partner to marvel at how we have come from near invisibility to being all over the place. Was this magazine pointing to an explosion of acceptance of gay dads.....or just a tacit nod that we now exist in numbers significant enough to warrant recognition?

To be honest, I hadn't really given it much thought. I had just welcomed each new change as it happened, But, since he brought it up I had to ask if he was right? Since when did we become so big?! Are we living in the year of the gay dads?

Adoption Stories...First Contact

A while back (wow, it was June of last year!) I a post titled "Cold Case" I talked about our Daughter, Selena, beginning to ask some rather pointed questions about her biological mother and how difficult it was going to be to find anything now that state adoptions felt the case was forever closed.  that launched us into becoming amateur detectives in order to track down our children's biological family. We have always been really open with the kids about where they came from and how they came to be with us, but now that they were actually wanting to know more about their family, it had caught us off guard and wondering how the heck we were going to find anything when all we had was a hand written family tree in Daniels adoption binder that only had the first names of his older siblings and their ages at the time of Daniels removal....not a lot to go on. Well, thanks to the help of a good friend and some major facebook and google sleuthing, we found a list of names of likely candidates. And so I had sent them all facebook messages, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

And then nothing....

We has absolutely no response at all and quietly, inside my heart I was heartbroken for the kids. We wondered if we got the wrong people, or perhaps their older siblings had been so scarred by their experience with their family that they simply wanted nothing to do with them anymore...even if they were long lost siblings. People rarely react the way we think they are going to and everyone has their own reasons for saying no to a contact that most of us would jump at the chance to realize. But we let it go, resigned to try it again later, and got on with our lives. All of us forgot about it and got caught up in the daily grind of homework, karate, fencing, foster child visits, and Youtube. And then,out of the blue...something amazing happened...

Kids of LGBT Families In The Spotlight

It's the eve of the beginning of oral arguments for the Supreme Court on the issues of Prop 8 and DOMA and here I am on a Saturday already holding my breath. It's been a whirlwind week in which the pending cases have been front and center for us all week long. As most of you know...since our Facebook wall is practically wallpapered with links....my son Daniel's letter to Chief Justice John Roberts has gone viral and gotten a lot of attention. Thankfully, the lions share of that attention has been positive and we have been very happy to pass that along to him. I was/am very proud of him and I feel he earned every bit of the praise he has received from this.

However, when it comes to kids and the public eye, there are many who ask if showing our children in such a public way is good for them. This question was brought to me just this last week in a brief spot that Daniel and I were in for CNN's Starting Point. The one and only question I received from the anchors was nothing to with DOMA or Prop 8 but everything to do with why we as parents would chose to put our kids in the spotlight:

...Tell me a little bit about putting your family out there for the world to see. There can be down sides to that too. People can say, "Look, you're showing what it's like to be your family"....There are others who say, "Maybe kids shouldn't be in the spotlight."

It's a fair question...and one that I had a specific answer for but as a parent first and marriage equality advocate second I think the topic is one that bears further discussion. So grab your favorite beverage and follow me after the jump....

Rupert Everett and Turning Homophobia Back On Ourselves

“I can’t think of anything worse than being brought up by two gay dads.Some people might not agree with that. Fine! That’s just my opinion."    -Rupert Everett

For some of you reading this post, Rupert Everett's opinion about same-sex parenting may be old news by now. After all, the internet has been castigating Rupert for more than a week and that's forever in internet time. Yet as a gay father myself, Rupert's words have continued to ring in my mind...not so much for his evaluation of gay parents, but of Rupert himself. For a man out personally and professionally for a good number of years and in a relationship, you would expect Rupert's experience with gay people to be a little broader. And yet from the tone of his comment, it seems clear that he has never even met a gay parent in real life. If we are the worst that he can think of...then he really needs to get out more.

However, I couldn't give a rats behind about Rupert Everett's opinion about me or my family. Like many people, his opinions(or his mothers) are more fueled by ignorance about gay families than by any fact or experience with them. What troubles me more is that Rupert can maintain this point of view in spite of the fact that he, himself, is gay. And yet....Rupert Everett is not the first person I have heard make some head scratching comment about gay people while being gay themselves. Sadly I have heard things come from gay men that sound like they came straight from the press desk at The National Organization for Marriage. It always makes me wonder how in the hell they can think that way about other gay people as if they are not included in their blanket judgments. And so...Rupert's comments have become the catalyst for me to think a lot about acceptance this week and how we come think of ourselves as gay people before and after coming out. Where does self acceptance come from? Is it from living our lives, out to our family and friends?...or is it learning to define "gay" for ourselves? Lets talk about it...

10 Kids 2 Dads...An Open Conversation

For those of you who may have missed it, The Oprah Winfrey Network recently aired it's new reality series 10 Kids 2 Dads. The show chronicles the lives of Clint and Bryan as they raise their 10 adopted children. As of now the show is being billed as a "special" with hopes that enough interest will lead OWN to make it into a regular series. That's an option I sincerely hope they pick up because I enjoyed watching it a lot...and the list of T.V. shows I consider "must watch" is extremely short....as in countable on one hand short. It was actually my husband Jay is who brought the show to my attention. He is a total reality show junky and so when a show about two dads with adopted kids came up on his radar, we both got pretty excited. And so we settled down to snuggled up for a TV night to watch another set of dad's deal with the stresses of family life both in the everyday way and in the challenges that come with parenting adopted children. This also counted as a "date night" for us...if that tells you anything.

Now...some of my readers know that we have already given some of our opinion about this show on Youtube. However, this is my chance to give my own unvarnished view in a way that our family videos doesn't always allow. In addition, I would like this to be an open conversation as I will likely ramble over a variety of topics relating to the show....please feel free to chime in and let me know what you think. So without further ado...

The Science Of The Obvious

Some of the news items that pop up on the internet make me facepalm...sometimes roll on the floor laughing....and every once in a while, both. This weeks news nugget has both in spades. It appears that there is now scientific evidence that gay parents go through the same relationship challenges as straight parents. In other words...we have less sex. To which I have only one response....

Um.....Duh? oh, and ..../Facepalm!

Someone had to study this to confirm it?! I know that most blogs are framing this as yet another scientific factoid that can help build bridges with people who are still struggling to deal with the notion of gay marriage, gay parenting, and homosexuality in general but the that the fact required a scientific analysis just boggles my mind. So....let me put this issue to bed(har har) once and for all....

Cold Case

Hello everyone. Many of you may remember that last March, Selena had begun asking some very pointed questions about her mother and, at that time, we were doing our best to allow her the fantasies she created while also trying to give her the real story in tiny age appropriate bits. As an adoptive parent you do your best to try and meet your child's needs but no matter how much you may have been expecting these conversations, you may not expect your own emotional reactions to them. While it was clear to us that Daniel wasn't feeling the need to know his bio family...Selena was being affected and seeing the depth of her feeling moved us. Selena needed something to hold on to...some small piece of her mother that can help her understand her story better, even if it's only a picture of her. And so our detective work must begin.

The Problem?.....how do you find someone who doesn't want to be found?

Foster Diaries...Another Chapter Closes

This week has been an eventful one for our family. It has seen me reveal my OCD to our YouTube audience(something which scared the hell out of me) and we had the good fortune to reunite another family, ending a year long foster placement that was originally only meant to last 2-3 months. It sort of felt like Gilligan's Island...a three hour tour that turned into something much, much longer. However...looking back over the last year has taught me that even when things were at their most challenging and at times I really...really wanted to tear my hair out, we all were learning and growing together in ways I couldn't recognize at the time. It's only now that "H" and his little sister "D" are home with their parents that I can look back at the last year and realize the good things that we gave to each other..and sometimes the ride has been a rough one.

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...

Stolen Childhood

Welcome back everyone....

I know it's been a long time since I have written anything. But, that does not mean that it has been an uneventful beginning to the year. The kids are still off for Christmas vacation and my husband has taken off some time to help care for Baby Boy and the others...so our house is full and very busy. Additionally, I have not been so happy with the gay related news these days. It seems like it's all completely wrapped up in the Republican primaries and the insane viewpoints of it's candidates. I have to admit that I am sick of hearing about Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachman to the point that I am afraid to even log onto the internet anymore. They are on everywhere, all the dam time...and they seem intent on pushing each other over to prove who is the most "conservative(I.E. against the gays). Case in point...

Via Towleroad and reported by the Miami herald...Rick Santorum wants to be your president...and this is what he thinks of same-sex adoption and children's rights to a safe home:

Citing the work of one anti-poverty expert, Santorum said, "he found that even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids, were still better than no father at all to have in their childrens' lives."
Allowing gays to marry and raise children, Santorum added, amounts to "robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have right to. You may rationalize that that isn't true, but in your own life and in your own heart, you know it's true."

Really?...robbed?!...then I have a little story to tell about how Baby Boy came to be in our care this Christmas. Brace yourself and grab a tissue...it's going to be hard to hear...

Foster Diaries: The Return of Baby Boy

Well dear readers, it seems that life is bringing me full circle again. Many of you may also watch us on YouTube, and if so...you know that there is a new addition coming to our home. Way back in February of this year I  blogged about a little boy who was placed with us that I had dubbed "baby boy" since we can not put him in print or video. On the first day he came to be with us he had two ear infections and a whole lot of fear and neglect issues and so he cried every night....for hours. At that time, it made me wonder whether I had the chops to handle being a foster parent. But as time went on, his medical issues cleared up and became the cutest little baby I ever could have imagined. Sadly though, the time came when social services found a family member willing to care for Baby Boy while his mom could go through drug treatment and the family reunification process. We were sad...but we also knew that this would be a part of emergency foster care and we thought it was good that he would be with family......And so Baby Boy left our home to whatever the future would hold for him. All of us shed a few tears as we said our good buys.

Except....that the future that he went to wasn't as bright as we had hoped and it seems that Baby Boy is returning to our home today....

Setting Goals For Our Kids...Report card Time

This week was finally report card time for my son and daughter and anyone who's been through grade school can remember the nail-biting uncertainty everyone feels opening up those tiny manila envelopes. Parents want to know that their children are getting the best education possible and that our kids are giving their best efforts in that regard.....and our kids are going through their own anxieties. I remember that report card time in my family meant stress for me no matter how well I did. My mom wanted all "A's" from me and anything less than that was met with a silence that I knew meant "you can do better". That pressure to perform at the top of my abilities was why, when I hit puberty, the first way I rebelled was through my grades. I just did not want to be a smart kid. Smart kids got beat up and were never popular. At least that's the way I saw it then.

Being a parent now, I thought I knew how to set a more loving and affirming set of expectations for my own children. I would not be the pressuring parent. I would let my kids know that my love for them did not hinge on their performance or their grades. It all seemed so clear and so simple....and then I became a parent and all my preconceived notions  were wiped away in the realities of day to day parenting.  I have also been challenged me to rethink how I set goals for my kids....so much for clear and simple.

The Trouble With Quibbles or...Why We Put Our Kids On The Net

Welcome back everyone...I know my blogging has been sporadic lately. Daily life seems to be getting in the way putting pen to paper....or at least keystrokes to net. However, that does not mean that our lives have been uneventful. This week we had Halloween, my 39th birthday, and a great right up about "The Right To Love: An American Family" In the Huffington Post. That's all big stuff! Being an amateur blogger I was thrilled to find the movie being covered by such a large and well read publication...and to receive a positive review for the movie was even better. I want to say thank you to Frank Schaeffer, the author of the piece for giving his truthful and candid observations about the movie and also about our family.


I also want to address a "quibble" Mr. Schaeffer had with us as parents exposing our children to protests and the glare of public scrutiny. It's not the first time we have heard that point make and  I feel it is important enough point that it requires a response. Our kids are very important to us and our decision to include them in our YouTube work was not simple. It was however, an organic process and not a preplanned set of events.....but I will explain that further in a sec. Read on after the fold.....

Protect The Children

Isn't that how the mantra goes when the tide turns to recognizing equality for the LGBT community? No matter what the issue at hand might be, instead of making their stand on religious grounds, those who oppose acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual,and transgendered people twist the conversation around to one of protecting children. What really cheeses me off however, is that they are not really for protecting children at all. Few, if any, of the people who have criticized Jay and myself for raising children will ever open their home to a child in need of a family. Many would rather a child age out of the foster system never knowing a family, than see them raised by a loving same-sex family.

But the reality is that we DO have families and those children can be equally as harmed by the lack of legal recognition and protections as their parents are. A recent video from the Family Equality Council highlights this issue and shows how bans on same-sex marriage and attacks on gay rights can have a serious impact on the most vulnerable people of all....kids like mine. Check out the video after the jump and ask yourself who is really being protected by anti-gay laws?... because it's not children. I can guarantee you that.

Cold and Flu Season Strikes Again

*Bleh*....it's that time of year when the colds and flu's start to circulate and I am feeling like my head is stuffed full of cotton....and you don't even want to know what my nose is up to. I have tried to write at least ten times today but I can't seem to muster the focus to put together coherent sentences. (yes...I know, never stopped my before right?)

It always begins with the schools....first one classmate is gone, then another is out for a week, then they start dropping like flies...each of them spreading around something I know is gonna come home soon. Selena gives me the breakdown on who was out and for how long because she totally keeps tabs on her classmates that way. I know who got the broken arm and who barfed and had to go home because she will totally tell me everything in stomach churning detail. I often wonder why kids who are sick still end up at school but I guess when both parents work that kinda thing is just going to happen. So when a handfull of kids went absent last week I knew it was coming. And no amount of vitamin C will stop it's reign of terror.

First it was our oldest Foster boy(I call him crash) with the upset stomach that knocked him out for a night then quickly cleared up. Then it was Daniel with the same issue and now its sore throats and runny noses for everybody!...Yay!!!!!....ugh. One by one the seasonal bugs are taking us out as they do each year flu shot or no flu shot. Now all the kids are better and off at school collecting the next round of bugs that they will circulate amongst the rest of us. I

When kids get sick they get to curl up in front of the T.V. and snuggle in a warm blanket. I totally miss those days. My kids love being home, but they hate being made to sit still...even in front of the tv. One afternoon of that and they are chomping at the bit to go back to school. I was soooo not like that at there age. Any chance to stay out of school I milked for all it was worth. But today, when dad gets sick...he has to empty the dishwasher, answer emails, mind the concrete guys working in the back, and make sure everything keeps functioning. Taking time out for a nap can often be out of the question. It's just a part of the job...but I really could use a warm, soft blanket and some chicken soup right now.

Ah well. enough complaining...expecially since I know that this is only round one. check out this fridays A Gay Collab video and you will totally hear the sick in my voice...it sounds like puberty all over again. In the mean time I will go back to

The Case Of The Terrible Tattlers

Its was a hot, gritty summer....The kind of summer where the sun strikes shadows so deep you can swim in them and the heat drives people to do crazy things. The kinda things that always lead to trouble. And when when that trouble hits the fan who do you think they call? That's right...me...The Dad Detective....

It was on one of these hot summer days, when I was in my office...just trying to keep my cool in an overheated world when she walked in. She was my Daughter Selena, and while she may have only been three feet tall.... she had a laundry list of grievances and a chip on her shoulder a mile high. "Dad! Charlie is doing back flips off the couch and now he's stealing my spot!" "Really?", I said, "If he's jumping off the couch, how come I didn't hear anything?" "Because it happened earlier when you were gone and Daddy Jay put him down for nap...but now he's taking my spot!!!!", she cried...clearly on the verge of tears. But I cut her off at the pass..."Save the water works for Daddy Jay sister...this dads seen it too many times. If Charlie committed the crime and already did the time, why are you coming to me?"  "Because he took my spot and won't give it back!"...she choked out through the tears. "Well Toots.....I'm not sure what you need me for" I replied, "Your six now and that means you know how to use your words to solve these kinds of problems." "Did you ask him for your spot back?", I asked. She appeared to think about this for a moment and then weakly replied, "No...but...it's my spot....*sniff*"  I headed her off again,...."I know, I know...its your spot. I get it. But I also know that you are a big girl and when Charlie and Marlene aren't necessarily doing what you want them to do, you come running to me instead of trying to work it out yourself first. Now you go back in there and sort this thing out with your words." To this she stomped out of the room with defeated air of one who feels there is no justice in the world. But off she went anyway.

 "Case closed", I said to myself..... Or so I thought....

New Rites Of Passage...The Cellphone

One of our kids favorite movies is "Horton Hears A Who". Its a very funny movie and my kids have seen it a billion times. One of my favorite and funniest of scenes in the film is when Mayor McDodd's youngest daughter precociously asks him for a "who phone". Being a patient and prudent dad, he responds that surely the other kids in her class don't have who phones yet. Then, to his chagrin, his daughter produces her class photo and all the kids are talking on who phones....except her. It was laugh out loud funny the first hundred times the kids watched it...but little did I know that it was less light hearted entertainment and more a warning sign along the road to tweendom. This is because my ten year old son has been asking me for a cell phone anytime he thinks I don't remember who it is that is doing the asking. This has always been an "out of the question" conversation between him and I...but recently we had our own "who phone" moment that has prompted me to start thinking about kids and social technologies. But first...the background...

Who's Your Momma...

Well Mothers Day has come and gone. I hope everyone had a chance to spend some quality time with their moms to say thanks for all the little things they do for us everyday. Me and the kids got to spend some time with Grandma who turned out to be the only mother who didn't have somewhere else to be on "Mothers Day".....oh well.

I don't know if anyone saw this weeks Modern Family in which they take on Mothers Day. It included a rather funny segment in which same-sex parents Cam and Mitchel get into an argument...well...Cam has a full drama meltdown actually...because Mitchel regards him as the "mom" in the relationship. This sent Cam over the edge because because everyone treated it as if it was his holiday and this was just too much of a threat to
his manhood and it drove him to do those ridiculous things that only people in sitcoms do. It was funny enough to watch on television...until Jay turned to me and said "that is so you. You're the mom in this family. (insert sound of record scratch here).....say what?!

and of course he found every opportunity to drive the point home...including in our Mother's Day video included after the fold.

My Son's First Crush

Every day our kids get a little bigger. Sometimes that growth is easy to see, like when we they learn how to tie their own shoes or when we mark another inch on the growth chart. But along with all the changes they are making outside, they are also maturing inside and it's those changes that can sometimes catch us very off guard as parents. I mean...we know their coming at someday in a theoretical future...but when they actual get here it's still hard to imagine that those words are coming out of your childs mouth. This last week my some has been blowing me away and making me wonder were the little boy has gone. My son Daniel likes a girl...and likes her enough to tell her so in front of his friends. Oh man...I am proud of him and scared to death all at the same moment. Who would have guessed that such a simple part of growing up would fell so complicated.