How My Lesbian Boss Makes Me a Better Father
Why Straight Parents Need to Take a Strong Stand Against Prop 8
A short while after my son was born, my wife brought him into the office to meet my co-workers. My wife was still nursing. My infant son was hungry and my wife was going to breast feed him in my crammed office. Within seconds of learning this, my boss cleared everyone out of the comfortable lounge where we entertain high-profile clients, magically pulled her old nursing pillow out of a nearby closet, and immediately put my wife at ease. I stood in amazement as I watched the scenario unfold. My boss looked at me and said, "Don't just stand there, get her a glass of water." I never forgot the glass of water again and it was the first of many lessons my lesbian boss has taught me about how to be a better father.
There was another time my boss walked in on the nervous phone argument I was having with my wife over whether or not we were going to vaccinate our child. She stopped what she was doing, led me into her office where she promptly whipped out the paper equivalent of the Warren Commission report on pros and cons of childhood vaccinations.
I could list dozens of similar examples of the parental wisdom that has been passed down from my boss. She and her wife are super-moms. You would be hard pressed to find parents who love their kids as much or who are as actively engaged in the well-being and development of children. When my wife and I wrestle with the millions of choices parents wrestle with, we often look to the decisions made by other parents we respect as a guide. Kelly and Linda would be at the top of that list. If there is one thing fatherhood has taught me, it is that good parents help make other parents good. And very often we straight Dads can use all the advice we can get.
For all of my boss' advice, it's witnessing the love she gives her kids that is a constant reminder of what it means to have your priorities in the right place. Her two daughters are in the office all the time. Even with a high-power position, she rarely misses a parent-teacher night or a school auction. Her office has a floor to ceiling cork board with all of her daughters' artwork and photographs. I've been to her house -- like mine, it has been taken over with the kids' toys, save for a tiny office reserved for the parents' stuff. My wife and I and our kids see their family at the Sunday morning farmers market, at a local pancake place, at swim lessons. Save for gender, our lives are virtually the same.
Occasionally, when straight parents get together, the subject of gay marriage or more over, gay parenting, comes up. For those of us who know same gender parents, the reaction is almost unanimous: gays and lesbians tend to make amazing parents. Maybe it's their acute sensitivity. Maybe it's because it is so much harder for gay and lesbians to become parents, so they work at it more. Maybe it's because they know they will face increased scrutiny and opposition as parents. Maybe it's genetics or a worldview, or maybe it's because of the heart-wrenching prospect that the same group behind the Prop 8 measure, if empowered, will some day try to take their children away.
As the Los Angeles Times wrote in its eloquent essay in opposition to Prop 8:
"Supporters of Proposition 8 insist that the measure is in no way intended to diminish the rights of gays and lesbians, but instead means to encourage ideal households for the raising of children."
Underneath the pro Prop 8 argument is a belief that gays and lesbians, simply by virtue of their sexual orientation, make bad parents. If only that were true, then we straight Dads would have it so easy.
I think moderate straight men and women might be able to rationalize, as both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have, that the word "marriage" should be exclusively reserved for a man and a woman. While certainly discriminatory, it is an accepted and often widely embraced political mantra. It is easy to conflate Prop 8 with that political talking point. But the fact is the proposition is far more dangerous. This proposition would be the grease to a very, very slippery slope. If successful, Prop 8 will embolden a radical agenda (mostly funded from outside California) which will not only take aim at Adam and Steve, but their children.
For many straight, well-intentioned parents of all political affiliations, Prop 8 may conjure up stereotypical images of carefree gay and lesbian couples running off to City Hall in leather chaps, who could be similarly served by civil unions, and separate but equal laws. Those parents may believe, "You know, marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman." Setting aside the arguments of civil rights, basic fairness and equality, I would ask those parents to think carefully about when those same gender husbands and wives become mothers and fathers. Since children have been the focus of so many of those frightening television ads supporting Prop 8, I ask you, "What about the children?"
At the very least, Prop 8 will create a group of second-class citizens discriminated against by our state constitution. At its absolute worst, manufacturing a defined "difference" between straight and gay relationships will manifest itself in a manufactured difference between straight and gay parents. This prejudiced social construction already manifests itself in several states, where gays and lesbians are not allowed to adopt children; or a same-sex partner does not have the right to adopt their partner's biological child. This goes against the push for nuclear, two-parent households so passionately endorsed by many conservatives and liberals. Leaving children in the murky middle ground of adults' conflicts is simply unconscionable. And so is Prop 8.
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good article
A friend of mine wants to do a follow up if this crap passes and outlaw marriage as a civil contract and keep it strictly a religious term. then the state would ONLY have domestic partnerships and stop religious discrimination.
I thought the rider should be to outlaw divorce if these jerks are so righteous about protecting breeding family units.Guar
In some intellectual or reasoning fashion, it would be wonderful if both same and opposite sex couples had the same document and the same rights. I for one could see you asking your grandparents for their marriage license to replace with a Civil Union Certificat
You see, marriage IS a civil document. Religious ceremonies are optional. Only in North America, thanks to the British with their Established Churches, both Anglican and Presbyterian, that gave the clergy the simultaneous right to function as civil magistrates. This mistake blurs the reality.
Bravo, John!
While my partner of 9 years and I are only dog moms right now (though our dogs are arguably the most human canines on the planet!), we are in the process of considering adopting an actual human child.
Your eloquent essay fills me with optimism in a very uncertain time for LGBT Americans.
Thank you!
I'm tired of the argument that marriage is a gateway to good parenting. I've never been able to have children. Does this mean that I don't have a right to marry?
I think I went a step further than most when I got an interdisciplinary degree in queer studies; but I didn’t need to do that to find the arguments in support of Prop 8 (or any heteronormative initiative) baseless, demeaning, anti-democratic and without intellectual vigor. So why then, does it seem acceptable to Californians and citizens of the United States more generally, to support and propagate fallacious conjecture based on violent homophobic worldviews?
If, as any well-minded progressive will tell you, there is NO PROOF WHATSOEVER of same-sex parents being “harmful,” “less-capable,” “lacking in love,” then “straight” parents, how…why…under what system of reason is it possible that these crusades persist? Why, in this democracy, are people allowed to stand up and lie and maintain any sliver of respectability or credit? And how do “we” keep believing them in such numbers? (I’ll give you a hint: "we" let them.)
Why do we as a society permit known lies to permeate our cultural discourse? How is it possible to concoct hate-speech and get a majority of the citizenry to vote it into the State Constitution? Apparently, my education has failed me yet again. The polls are tight. “Save the children!” they say. That’s such a sorry line. One day, we’ll grow tired of hearing such bullshit. Maybe my generation can clean up yet another mess made in the 19th and 20th centuries.
I can't find anywhere to post this, but here goes. In reference to the baby formula debacle in China re: putting melamine(plastic) in the milk, WHY don't Chinese mothers nurse their babies?? None of this would have happened if they were breast feeding naturally. Where is the La Leche league - we're hearing nothing.
No one has EVER been able to give me a cogent reason as to why same sex marriage is a threat to straight marriage or families. It touches me so when I meet same sex couples and one introduces the other as "my husband" or "my wife." Though there is nothing wrong with being a partner or a lover or a boyfriend/
That's a touching story, but it's not exactly news that there are gay people who know how to raise children. Anybody who has any contact with the gay community knows several people like this, and probably knows at least one gay person for whom parenthood should be legally mandatory.
But that's the problem: too many people don't know any gay people, or don't know that they know. The main remedy for that is what the gay community is already doing: being out there, in the public eye, making it harder for the rest of us to pretend that they don't exist, or that they're all that different from the rest of us.
Great article.
Let's just stop and think a bit about the children of gay and lesbian parents..h
Honestly, I read the headline along the same lines as "How My Red-headed Boss Makes Me a Better Golfer" since sexual orientation and parenting ability have zero correspondence. Since reading your article, I want to address some anti-gay (is there a better term than homophobic for this? "sexist" is already taken) arguments that all boil down to arbitrary, baseless opinions.
There is no evidence, at all, to support the argument that same-sex couples are worse parents. If that is the real motivation for this ammendment, then I would like to tack on some additional groups to block where there is a valid argument: alcoholics and violent criminals. These groups are a shoe in for having higher potential for being bad parents, but I don't see legislation to block them from having kids or getting married (how many death row weddings have their been?).
The "definition of 'marriage'" argument. I can't think of any other constitutional ammendments dealing purely with semantics, this one is just plain dumb.
The "devaluation of traditional marriage" argument. I can't wrap my head around this one. This is almost like saying "that band isn't as good now that EVERYONE likes them." Your marriage, much like an album, is completely unaffected by who else has one. Get over yourselves.
How about this for straight parents? When your son or daughter grows up, do you want him or her to be able to marry the one person they love, or have someone's religion decide it for them?
It's important that all parents need to realize their child may grow up attracted to their own gender. It's been happening for a long time now. When do we take down walls of years of misinformation, tearing down stereotypes that are so untrue? Do parents try to improve upon the world, the environment, so all our children, straight or gay, can grow up to be happy? Growiing up and living in a prejudiced society does not make for happy.
There is no type of person I love more than straight men who love, respect and cherish the gay people in their lives and who will put their money where their mouths are, so to speak, by openly supporting them at the ballot box.
THANK YOU - we are partnered for THIRTY TWO YEARS and we are the parents of a 6 year old son....we were given the right in Canada to marry in 2003 and we wanted that legality before we became parents. My spouse is a Canadian citizen, and I am a patriotic liberal American.
I can assure you, however, that if McCain wins and Prop 8 passes, then we are expatriating to my spouse's nation, and since his citizenship provides dual for our son, and the right to give me equal rights to any foreign spouse, I would consider becoming a Canadian citizen.
No one is going to create laws that first give me second-class status, and then try to take my children away simply because we are a same-sex couple. I am, BTW, a Vietnam veteran, and a retired lieutenant colonel, and my family has been American since before the Revolution.
Can anyone explain to me why we've never seen something like a San Francisco tea party where gays and lesbians refuse to continue to pay equal taxes for less than equal rights?
Because I tell you what would motivate these idiots to change their perspectives, let them find out that there might be a tax write off for people who have to accept less than equal rights. Do that and every greedy republican in the country would run to vote no on prop 8.
And let's face it, it's only fair. Why do gays and lesbians have to pay equal taxes for less than equal rights? I've never understood that and I guess I no one will ever explain any of it to me.
This just takes the phrase "my brother's keeper" to a new low. I'm all for looking out for my fellow man or woman, but what they do in the privacy of their lives and homes isn't my business. Whether or not gays and lesbians get married isn't going help or diminish my life one iota.
My life isn't going to get better or worse. Only a job and healthcare will make it better. The lack thereof will leave it as it is. And from where I sit, their lifestyle and choices doesn't have a blessed thing to do with my survival. It will stay the same only being enriched by the knowledge that others are not being discriminated against as I have in the past.
To those proponents of Prop 8, go find a life. Take all that time and money and help out someone whose losing a home, needing healthcare or lost a job. That is what is meant by the phrase "my brother's keeper," not supposedly saving someone's soul that doesn't need to be saved anyway. And if it does, it is up to that person to do so, not you Prop 8 proponents. Just go and find a life and stop trying to screw up others and passing judgement on them.
I'm raising a gay son. He's an amazing kid. He will be an amazing adult. He will raise amazing children. If I deleted the first sentence of this post, no one would give these statements a second thought. I'm not gay. I'm a pretty good parent. I know plenty of better ones and plenty worse. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. And as for an ideal situation to be raised in? Who's the judge of that? Barack Obama turned out okay.
I remember going on a cruise to the Bahamas many years ago, and getting seasick. This wonderful lesbian mom Susan helped me and my friend, all while attending to her children and partner. My friend and I got to know them, and really like them. They were AWESOME parents, and when we got to the Bahamas, we stayed in touch., even going to the beach together as we were in the same hotel. I was amazed at how smart, worldly, sweet and well mannered their little boy and girl were. Before that trip, I was a little doubtful (by way of brainwashing, I guess) of the merits of same sex parents, but that trip opened both mine and my friends eyes. We knew REAL people that helped us put faces on this issue. Leah and Susan, wherever you are, you ROCK!! I bet their kids are going to Ivy Leauge colleges. Straight people against same sex parenting, please don't use your jealousy at how awesome some of these parents are as a reason to keep wonderful people from being parents. YOU are the problem, you and your ignorance and faux disgust. You could open your hearts and minds and learn a LOT from these parents, instead of being so judgemental. I know I did!
I have defended the rights of gay and lesbian individuals and couples for decades. However, please comment on the face of the father that the children will likely never know. Will or does this have consequences? I do not know but think such matters should be discussed before supreme court judges decide the matter based on equality and hate laws. When did we endorse absentee fathers. In most cases of absentee fathers, a friend, a grandparent, or a sibling steps in to help raise the child. The consequences are still undeniable and Barrack Obama is the exception, not the rule. In 2006, the French denied same sex marriage because it had ramifications on other family relations that needed to be considered. The French may someday approve same sex marriage. But, they have taken a course that is reasonable and more cautious regarding such important matters. Can we not exercise similar caution to avoid the consequences that will certainly follow. Many less than traditional or ideal family relationships exist but this reality is not a reason to purposely create less than the ideal. Children have the right to know there biological parents and biological parents have an obligation to participate in the life of a child. Making a premeditated contract for another to raise our child has become acceptable. Despite how wonderful these parents may be who raise the children, the underlying reality should be considered before we power off and endorse such arrangements.
equalground, in this day and age, the abscence of an opposite-gender parent is indeed a weak arguement. If this was backed up by solid statistical proof. What are these "consequences are still undeniable?" f they are undeniable, then certainly you can STATE them. But you don't, anywhere in your post, STATE these consquence
To refer to same sex parents as " less than the ideal" only exposes your obvious ignorance on this issue. Gay and Lesbian parents are raising well adjusted perfectly normal children. As one parent households are certainly mainstream in America nowadays, what is the issue with allowing a few more 2 parent households.
Gays have suffered the effects of social exclusion for decades, largely because a cross section of heterosexuals is uncomfortable unless the gay population is identified as an "other", as an outside group, as NOT NORMAL. As shocking as it might seem, homosexuals are largely NORMAL. I find it extremely unfair that not only gays, but the children of gays have to suffer the effects of social exclusion.
The saddest thing, equalground, is that I doubt you realise how unfitting and ironic your name is.
What we are doing is considering things right now. Let us consider. Women who don't want a father to take part in their children's lives cannot be legislated against. Should we outlaw singel parents?A woman has a right to her body. What if a parent dies? A man and a woman will always be involved in the making of a child and just because parents couple up with somebody else, man or woman, it does not mean that the relationship to the father or the mother needs to be severed. Many cultures have had same sex marriage and nothing bad happened to them. Many countries have it now and nothing has happened to them. Actually, I think by not endorsing it, it teaches everything but love, causes angst in gay youth even mental illness or suicide, causes people to get married who should never have gotten married and a ton of problems that that causes, it causes people to suppress their natural feeling and may cause perversion and sex crimes, it causes there to be more anonymous and promiscuous sex and disease, and it makes people consider gays as lesser people which causes anger, discrimination, and even H crimes. I think the whole society would become a better place.
This is a completely different subject than the question of marriage. Single people can, and do, have children all the time. Many marriages occur for reasons other than the procreation of offspring. There have been many studies done, and none have found that children raised by same-sex parents lacked in any way compared to the "mom and dad" group. Legally, all parents have an equal right, and responsibility, to raise and support their children. Nothing in Prop. 8 does anything to change any of these facts.
As a registered voter in California, who now calls Paris his second home, I feel compelled to comment on the French "family study" that helped the Conservative faction in the French Parliament jam their marriage ban down the throats of the people of France. The biased study was conducted and written by religious conservatives, and goes "against' the grain of French life. If the people had their say, the ban would have never been passed. Most Parisians were outraged, while the farmers and laborers residing in the countryside were unaware of its passage.
Although the Conservatives were able to "temporarily" impose their own sense of morality on ALL of the people of France - we look to the North to see the example set by Norway; the East set by the Netherlands and Belgium; the West set by Spain and the South, set by South Africa.
There are millions of us in France that see the injustice in this marriage ban and our only consolation is knowing the ban will ultimately be overturned! So please - do what you want, but don't use France as an example to justify your bigoted Prop 8, as your justification is certain to disintegrate, just as your Prop 8 measure will!
Jeff Gagnon
I'lle Saint-Louis
Paris 75004 France
In response. My point is not that I am correct but that the research is far from over. Imposing equality laws and hate laws is not the answer. The equal ground reference relates to the authors indication that Prop 8 will result in slippery slopes. In another blog, I indicated that Prop 8 supporters feel the same way. Stating that an acceptable solution will emerge when we find a place for all to stand on equal ground to belief and raise children as they choose. The recent legislative and education effort in California based on equality and hate laws do not accomplish this end.
A few specifics -
The French Parliament saw these issues as inseparable subjects.
I mentioned that arranged parenting may not sever the relationship, but ran over my 250 words.
The use of the word "ideal" did not escape me. The word "ideal" does emphasize that people have a right to belief as they choose and not be guilty of hate crimes. You can belief another ideal.
I did not mean to state that absentee fathers carries over to gay and lesbian couples. I hope we can agree that absentee fathers has been an historic problem. You may even feel gay and lesbian couples will solve the problem. We don't know the impact.
Having defended gay and lesbian rights for decades, I am disappointed I am not allowed to belief a mother and a father is the ideal. Put me on equal ground to belief as I
Thank you for this article.
I hope it will provide a counterpoint to the "THE GAYS ARE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN IN SCHOOL!!!" fear propaganda that seems to be the center of the campaign at the moment.
You're a good man, Mr. Koch. Thank you.
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