When You Get Caught Between the Moon and New York City....

Please forgive me an easy listening classics reference now and then. Christopher Cross was a favorite part of my nightly elementary school years, forced muzak bedtime routine (see “Alligator, Go Away!” for an explanation). And, that background has been invaluable to my “there’s a song for everything” philosophy.

Now, to the meaning behind my musical reference to romance and the Big Apple: as most of you probably know, last Friday night, New York became the 6^th state to pass a marriage equality measure for gay couples. Predictably, I had passed out with Anna while putting her to bed and I missed the actual vote. But I’m glad I woke up in time to hear the news and enjoy some of the jubilant coverage before dozing off again. Two years ago, we had such a celebration in my home state, thanks to a courageous legislature and governor….until a voter initiative narrowly stripped us of our newly found freedom to marry before we could even make it to City Hall for a license.

Heidi and I in NYC, December 2010

Now, I won’t often use this blog as a soapbox for hot-button sociopolitical issues, because my primary focus here is parenting. I want to hear from and learn from parents of all political persuasions and I don’t want to alienate anyone. However, I felt compelled to write about this because New York families just scored a big victory – one that resonates with all our families, all over the country.

The ability of gay parents to solidify their unions means more protection and less social stigma for their families. It’s a part of the journey that those of us affected most look forward to: the day when this becomes a non-issue and nobody cares. Believe me, most of us don’t understand why people do care, and we would love to be able to stop talking about it. Sadly, things have to change first.

Why, you ask, does marriage matter to kids? Well, folks, the indoctrination starts early. Anna already knows, in a vague toddler way, about marriage. She saw Kermit and Miss Piggy get married in The Muppets Take Manhattan. She knows they love each other. She’s bright enough to make the association from love to marriage once she starts getting curious about it. Inevitably, one day, she will ask why her parents aren’t married like other kids’ parents, since we clearly love each other and marriage is important to a lot of people.

Here’s where we get to the part that a significant segment of our population still refuses to recognize: that, believe it or not, our family is the same as anyone else’s. We have family dinners. We stress over money. We have pets, a house in the suburbs, yard work to do, bills to pay, and jobs to keep us busy during the day. It’s really not all that exciting, you know. In fact, despite what sensationalism in the media might have you believe, we’re pretty much as boring as everyone else. I like it that way.

Me with Heidi and the Pie

So I dread having to explain to Anna why, despite how typical our household seems to her, society thinks our family isn’t good enough for this most revered of social institutions. Ironically, it’s not really being in a family like ours that makes kids feel different – social attitudes toward our families produce the feeling of “otherness.” If those were different, nobody from the outside would make our kids feel different, and then we’d reach our goal of nobody caring.

Despite over-hyped fears, reputable studies show, and medical professionals acknowledge, that there is no real difference between kids raised by gay parents and kids raised by straight parents. That’s because there’s no real difference in the parenting. Every parent faces the same child-rearing issues: separation anxiety, nighttime fears, naughty behavior, etc. It’s a universal experience. And as long as they are loved, in the end, kids tend not to care what gender their parents are.

Kelsey, for example, has no problem being “different.” She has a dad and stepmom that love her, and a mom and other stepmom that love her equally. She’s grown up valuing tolerance and respect for all people. She was even motivated to organize a protest at her high school when the voter initiative erased marriage equality, and it drew significant student support. Clearly having a “unique” family composition hasn’t hurt her; if anything, it’s made her more sensitive to issues of diversity, and that’s a good thing. .... And she’s dating a boy, so our evil gay indoctrination attempts obviously have failed. *wink*

Kelsey and Russell, marriage vote protest Nov. 2009

I mentioned in “The Gender Divide” that, to everyone at the day care, I’m just another parent who picks up her kid at the end of the day. I’m glad. I think we as a society are evolving in our understanding of family composition. After all, there are grandparents, foster parents, single parents and adoptive parents raising kids. And we gay parents will continue to raise ours whether we can get married or not. It won’t make any difference in our parenting because we’re committed to our partners and our children whether the guarantee of “equal protection” under the law actually applies to all of us or not.

But….it will make a difference to our kids. Marriage confers an instant status on people. You don’t have to explain who someone is to you with ridiculous words that sound like legalese, because they are – i.e., domestic partner. When we tell our kids that we’re just like everyone else – but we can’t call each other the same things and have a ceremony like other people do– it might seem a bit incongruous to them. They might feel a sensitivity about or anger toward other people’s attitudes. We’d rather they not go through that, but apparently, we’ve got miles to go before that’s the reality everywhere.

There are other children to think about too – closeted kids struggling with a secret and a heavy heart because they fear people’s reaction. I was one of them. As a teenager, I didn’t have the guts to be honest with people, to really be able to get to know them, because I was scared and depressed and ashamed and was worried God would hate me.

In that regard, things are MUCH better now than they were back in, say, 1994-1997, when I was mightily struggling with this. My first girlfriend broke up with me because she started dating a boy and “wanted a church wedding.” Now, maybe we can each marry our respective same-sex partners – a possibility I would never have dreamed of back in high school when neither of us thought it was okay to be who we naturally were. Doors long open to everyone else are finally starting to open for us.

Yet, there is still progress to be made, as evidenced by the anti-gay rhetoric in political discourse, and, tragically, by the recent epidemic of bullying and teen suicides. Perhaps if those kids hadn’t been surrounded by negative attitudes, perhaps if they thought they could have the same hopes and dreams everyone else does, they would have seen that it does get better (check out the awesome anti-bullying video campaign here).

The likelihood is that Anna will marry some guy who will have to withstand some tough scrutiny from her moms. But I hope that, by the time she’s thinking about love and marriage, she’ll be able to marry whoever she loves without caring what other people will think of that person, or of her family. We love her – that’s what counts.

Me, Heidi, Anna and Kelsey