LISTEN: Grandmother Tells Granddaughter What It Was Like To Fall In Love With Her Partner

This Friday, StoryCorps, an oral history initiative that helps Americans record and archive stories from their lives, will celebrate the third annual National Day of Listening, which organizers hope will remind people of "how much more unites us than divides us." To help commemorate the event, HuffPost is featuring one StoryCorps conversation every day this week leading up to the National Day of Listening on November 26.

In today's installment, listen to M-J Seide talk to her 12-year-old granddaughter, Genna, about falling in love with her partner, a woman who had previously been married and raised several children. When they met in the early 1990s, M-J embraced her new extended family. "I knew that I had hit paradise," she says, "because I now have a family that I can wrap my arms around."

Listen to M-J's story:

To hear more stories, learn about the National Day of Listening, and to find out how you can record your own story at home with a DIY kit, visit StoryCorps. You can also tune in to hear StoryCorps broadcasts on NPR.

Comments

[Dr. Cara Barker]

12:55 PM on 11/30/2010

Love is love. Period. Wherever, however love is celebrated that rejoices in the best we are, whenever it looks to the Good in the world, of which we are each a part, regardless of our preferences, this, in my book, is what fosters a richer experience of living. My hope is that with my own grand-daughter, she will be able to look to what we do, not say, and feel welcomed into the world with safety, reassurance, and trust that Love is always. When I don't find Love in my neighborhood, it is not because 'it' left, but rather, it is I who have turned away.

May you be well. May your heart be filled with peace, joy, and love. May you know the Love from which you came, and celebrate what makes you unique and needed!
Cara

[kcflood]

05:50 PM on 11/28/2010

Love this

[mamacat]

01:58 PM on 11/28/2010

It seems to me that we are on the path to treating gays and lesbians better than we used to. Thank goodness.
Growing up I knew a lot of gays and lesbians, and the popular myths about them were hard to reconcile with the reality.
It is estimated that roughly 10% of the population is homosexual, but even if it were only 0.01%, they deserve to be treated with justice.

[eve mahar]

01:56 AM on 11/28/2010

jfmckenna 7 hours ago (6:34 PM)

In the inner city, 90% of kids without fathers have run-ins with the law, compared with only 10% of kids WITH fathers.

I think that has a lot more to do with the fact that they are inner city kids, living in poverty in neighborhoods full of gangs and crime, where single mothers are going to be more prevalent and most male role models are drug dealers or in prison.

This really doesn't apply to most same sex families, who are generally better off, live in better areas, and have in many cases, have two parents in the home.

[Ioan Lightoller]

08:42 PM on 11/26/2010

This is just beautiful. It made me think of a line from "Desert Hearts" that I recall when someone asks me why I fell for my wife and not someone else: "She just reached in and put a string of lights around my heart." Love is love and gay, lesbian, straight, or bisexual it is beautiful when it happens.

[eve mahar]

09:17 PM on 11/26/2010

I love that line, and couldn't agree more. Love is love, I wish everyone could understand that.

[Ioan Lightoller]

09:42 PM on 11/26/2010

I do, too, Eve. My love for my wife is as pure and normal as that of any woman for her husband or vice versa.

[aaronaa3]

02:29 PM on 11/26/2010

All the side-arguments below seem to completely miss the point that 12-year-old Genna seems to get: her relationship with her grandma has nothing to do with anything that's not her and her grandma. And it's this kind of private relationship that transcends justification that unites us all. The homosexuality part serves only to suggest a borderlessness about this unity.

[Ioan Lightoller]

04:05 PM on 11/26/2010

Beautifully-said. F&F. Unfortunately, the haters see "gay" or "lesbian" and go off the deep end.

[Bonnie Brill]

11:46 AM on 11/26/2010

Absolutely beautiful and heartwarming.

Love makes a family!

Standing up (ok, sitting down) for our rights!

[Ioan Lightoller]

10:47 PM on 11/26/2010

Fanned and faved for truth! You go, girl!!!!

[Fifty Mission Cap]

06:26 AM on 11/26/2010

What kind of person or god would deny someone the opportunity to love and be loved for who they are? Love begets love and hate begets hate.

[azureblue]

12:04 AM on 11/26/2010

why do those who rail against gays always ignore the greater threat to marriage- divorce?

[Ioan Lightoller]

04:07 PM on 11/26/2010

F&F. Excellent question. I suspect it is because concentrating on divorce would make them have to look inside themselves.

[azureblue]

12:01 AM on 11/26/2010

when it becomes republican

[Moti]

03:02 AM on 11/26/2010

Somewhat close minded of you.

[ez duz it]

12:41 AM on 11/26/2010

I'd most certainly draw the line at...

Closed-mindedness,
Intolerance,
Unwillingness to dialog,
Hubris masquerading as humility in the name of a creed,
Insistence that only opposite-sex couples and their families deserve to have the responsibilities and rights of their committed love protected by law.

Yep...that's where I'd draw the line!

[JoeBoy254]

10:44 PM on 11/25/2010

The kids and grand kids of gays or lesbians have been found to be more happy and well adjusted than their counterparts who are raised solely in a hetrosexual family or extended family. There is nothing wrong with this.......

[jan1760]

01:26 AM on 11/26/2010

This is not true , I have no interest in who is with who but the constant need to say that one relationship is better than the other needs to stop. We have to recognize that if we have to explain our relationship to our child or other love one then we need to take pause and that applies to hetero, bi or homosexual relations. Maybe if we left the bedroom in the bedroom it would work out better neither side pushing their agenda or asking for special rules or treatment.

[ez duz it]

01:33 AM on 11/26/2010

No legitimate research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any more or any less harmful to children than heterosexual couples.

The American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2002 policy statement declared: “A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.” That policy statement was reaffirmed in 2009.

The American Psychological Association found that “same-sex couples are remarkably similar to heterosexual couples, and that parenting effectiveness and the adjustment, development and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation.”

Similarly, the Child Welfare League of America’s official position with regard to same-sex parents is that “lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well-suited to raise children as their heterosexual counterparts.”

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/10-myths

[ibreathe4u]

02:27 AM on 11/26/2010

I don't know the statistics, but what I do know is this. Gay/Lesbian couples actually have to put thought into whether or not to have children, they are generally more educated, have better jobs and have fully thought out their decisions. That in itself would tell me that their children are going to be happier, more well-adjusted and loved.

[its time now]

09:34 PM on 11/25/2010

This is so sweet..... I loved it....... heartfelt and sincere words.

[mahamudra]

08:22 PM on 11/25/2010

Beautiful, simply beautiful.

[Nomccain]

08:17 PM on 11/25/2010

Homosexuals like for you to accept their behavior as "normal", but IF it's normal, NONE of us would be here. Smoke that in your pipe!

[NikitaAhn]

10:38 PM on 11/25/2010

Since when does "normal" mean that EVERYONE has to do it? There's variety in nature and in human sexuality.

[Ioan Lightoller]

09:18 PM on 11/26/2010

Since when are hatred and bigotry to be accepted by all as NORMAL? Those are far more ABNORMAL than this story of love.

[pseudohuman]

10:49 PM on 11/25/2010

You enjoy trying to win arguments with logical fallacies?

[aurora59]

07:41 PM on 11/25/2010

You "believe in freedom of all kinds"?! You mean as long as it doesn't challenge your narrow view of how things should be, don't you? Children should be taught to love and to celebrate the differences in people that make us all unique individuals. Herero or homosexual, any child would be fortunate to have a grandparent who so values and adores their partner, as Genna's grandmother does.

[DetroitDraper]

07:51 PM on 11/25/2010

No thats not true. I believe the grandmother can do whatever makes her happy I just dont agree with a child being raised in that kind of enviroment but in no way do I believe her freedom to live that life should be taken.

[its time now]

09:09 PM on 11/25/2010

So you want them to think it's not OK? The result would be self-loathing, shame and the accompanying self harm that goes with it. Is that what you want for kids? Take a long hard look at what you've just said and maybe you'll realize that what you're saying means only straight kids get to feel OK. I grew up gay and I'm grateful that I had an Aunt who told me it was OK and it felt wonderful and I wish every gay and lesbian kid had that in their lives. You will never ever have a clue how it feels to be marginalized in your own family for just being who you are.