Monthly Archives: July 2013

Jul 31 2013

Book Update! And more!

Where Do Gaybies Come From, bookshelf, great books, literatureThere’s some big news concerning my upcoming book, WHERE DO GAYBIES COME FROM (available May 2014 from Taylor Trade Publishing, ahem, plug plug plug). And the news is that it’s no longer called WHERE DO GAYBIES COME FROM.

To be honest, I’ve never loved the word “gayby.” I know what you’re thinking: so why did I name both the blog and then the book WHERE DO GAYBIES COME FROM? Well, it had a clever ring to it. It got people’s attention. It did a reasonable job of explaining what the book was about.

Still, it bugged me, and I finally figured out why. When you come up with a cutesy name for the child of gay parents, it implies that the kid is the one who’s different, that something about having two dads classifies you as some kind of unique species. Worse, it gives my kids’ future bullies ammo to use against them. “Hey, gayby!” “I’m not a gayby!” “Oh yeah? Well your dad said so in his best-selling memoir!”

I understand we’re a non-traditional family, that gay dads are still a relatively small minority, so if there’s some cutesy term that applies to me, I’ll embrace it fully.

But my kids are just kids. I wrote 264 pages (official page count!) explaining how two dudes ended up with two perfectly amazing yet perfectly common human infants, and that’s kind of the point, so why have a title that suggests otherwise?

Also, I know there are plenty of other people who dislike the term “gayby” — because it’s cutesy, because it implies the kids are gay rather than the parents or for the same reason as me. Who needs a title that turns people off?

I briefly flirted with calling the book “Breeders,” even though that term irritates people even more than “gaybies,” but at least it referred to me, not the kids. Then, my editor came up with a much better idea, one that was right under our noses all along.

Announcing my upcoming memoir:

MOMMY MAN: HOW I WENT FROM MILD-MANNERED GEEK TO GAY SUPERDAD

If I have one reservation about this title, it’s that it’s entirely focused on me. Sure, the book is mostly about me, but it’s also also about my amazing partner, Drew, and the two incredible women who helped us become a family. And it’s about the kids, of course, although (spoiler alert!) they make kind of a late appearance.

Just don’t call them “gaybies.”

* * * * *

A couple of other things to report… I did my first podcast! The delightful Karly and DJ at What’s With the Drama invited me to take part in their show about stay-home dads, and we had a really fun chat.

* * * * *

I was also invited by the Daily Post at WordPress to take part in a roundtable for parent bloggers. We had a great conversation about privacy, dealing with criticism and our personal blogging tips. Part 1 of 3 is up now!

* * * * *

Sorry for the repeat image at the top of this post. Until there’s a real cover, this one will have to suffice.

Jul 24 2013

I Am Michael Jordan! (To My Kids)

basketballFor the tiniest sliver of my childhood, I was a jock. Or at least I tried. I guess I was probably about 8 years old. It’s hard to recall, because I’ve resigned the memory to the deepest, darkest, most hidden corner of my brain. My mental panic room.

For reasons that must’ve made sense to me at the time, I decided I should try soccer. I guess I had seen other kids doing it, so it seemed like the normal thing to do. I took a break from staging the musical “Annie” in my backyard and suited up for a pee wee league. Here’s where the memory gets fuzzy again, because all that comes to mind when I try to think about soccer are these two things:

One, I was never allowed to take the field during a game. (And let me wish a belated eff you to that coach, while I’m at it.)

Two, there was a cooler at the sidelines that had orange slices in it.

Those are the only things I remember, because that alone was enough to make me swear off sports forever. Even their snacks sucked. What was the point? Those few weeks of soccer and a bit of bowling comprise the entirety of my athletic career.

Until yesterday.

Our new house is three doors down from a playground. My kids and I were on the jungle gym playing some imagination game they made up that merges elements of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with Barbie’s “Princess & The Popstar”, when they noticed that the basketball court was empty, and that would make a perfect chocolate river-slash-ampitheater for the performance of our smash encore-slash-dessert.

So we headed over, and I prepared to play my least favorite playground game, “Everybody Keep Away From the Broken Glass!”, when the kids noticed that someone had left their basketball behind.

“Daddy, do it!” they shouted.

“What?”

“Throw the soccer ball!”

It’s a sign of how little sports is a part of our family that this is how my children ask me to shoot a basket. (Again, it was a basketball, not a soccer ball, though what the ball looks like is pretty much my extent of knowledge about the sport.) I figured I had nothing to lose, though. Thankfully, their respect for me has never been built around my athletic prowess. They’re perfectly impressed that I know how to find the Broadway channel on Sirius and that I can score enough to be labeled a “Hopeful” on our Playstation karaoke game.

So I picked up the “soccer ball”, dribbled a few times, studied the angle, moved over two steps, then shuffled back one step, took a deep breath and tossed ball skyward.

And an incredible thing happened. For one of the only times ever, I made a basket. Not just a regular basket, but a perfect, through-the-middle swish boom-goes-the-dynamite on-the-first-try two-pointer.

The crowd went wild.

Like, insanely wild — both of them.

courtkidsIt started off as a squeal of delight and astonishment, transformed into cheers and applause and ended with a chant of “Daddy’s so cool! Daddy’s so cool!” that went on for over a minute.

And I just stood there and basked in it. It was the most beautiful feeling in the world.

I know a lot of kids dream of being Michael Jordan when they grow up, but I never even kidded myself that that was a possibility. And somehow, yesterday, for a moment, I was him, at least in the eyes of two three-year-olds who know nothing about sports and have yet to catch on that their Daddy is as clueless as they are.

Let’s just hope they never expect me to do that again.

Jul 10 2013

Bravo to “The Boxtrolls”

"Sometimes there's a mother. Sometimes there's a father. Sometimes there's a father and a father. Sometimes both fathers are mothers."

“Sometimes there’s a mother. Sometimes there’s a father. Sometimes there’s a father and a father. Sometimes both fathers are mothers.”

One of the bigger challenges of being in a two-dad family is finding representations of families like yours in popular culture. When you have no mom in your home, it can sometimes seem like 90% of kids’ books don’t apply to you. (And when you have no dad, you’re just as likely to feel excluded from Disney princess movies, where moms are virtually nonexistent.)

Yesterday, I took my kids to see Despicable Me 2. There’s a subplot in the movie about the main character’s daughters wishing they had a mom. It was perfectly sweet and inoffensive, and I’m sure it’s a subject that really does pop up in a lot of families headed by straight single dads. I don’t mind my kids seeing cartoon children who wish they had a mom, but it’s nice when that can be balanced out by fictional characters who are perfectly happy with the number and gender of parents they already have.

The amazing thing was, they actually got that. Not from the movie, but from one of the trailers that came before it. I’d never heard of The Boxtrolls before, but I let out a little squeal of joy when, out of nowhere, I heard them acknowledge the existence of families like mine. “That’s like us!” I cheered to my kids.

You can watch the trailer here:

I’m sure the filmmakers will get some flack over what will seem to many people like a totally unnecessary nod to LGBT parents — and maybe publicity was part of their motivation. The trailer comes right on the heels of the Supreme Court DOMA/Prop 8 decisions, yet the movie doesn’t come out until September 2014. (Hey, Focus Features, just how long do you think my kids’ memory is? They didn’t remember the movie about the racing snail and we only saw that trailer a week ago.)

Still, it’s my opinion that it’s never too early to talk to your kids about homosexuality — in fact, the sooner, the better. So I’m grateful this trailer will help nudge the conversation forward. More importantly, though, I’m happy for all the kids like mine who are going to see it.

You may not see families like mine every day — or single-parent families, adoptive families or families that cross any number of racial lines — but it’s very nice for us when we get a chance to see ourselves… so to the filmmakers, I want to say thanks.

I also want to let them know that my son was kind of freaked out by the Boxtrolls themselves and has sworn he’ll never see the movie. Good thing he has plenty of time to change his mind before it’s actually released.

Jul 8 2013

My Two Daddies… The Awesome, Cool, Hilarious Daddy, and the Other One

(l-r) Awesome, Cool, Hilarious Daddy; Daddy

(l-r) Awesome, Cool, Hilarious Daddy; Daddy

There was nothing I wanted to inherit from my father more than the name “Dad.” I loved my dad, and in my mind, he was indelibly tied to that particular sobriquet. “Dad” was a term of love and respect for me, a part of all my memories of childhood and a crucial element of how I defined my family. The problem, when I actually became a dad, was that my partner Drew wanted to be called “Dad,” too — or, in the early years, “Daddy.”

“You can’t both be Dad,” a million people warned us. “That’ll be so confusing for your kids.”

They suggested we go by “Daddy” and “Papa,” which seem to be the go-to designations for gay dads these days. No matter how much we considered it, though, “Papa” felt like the consolation prize, and neither of us would agree to settle for it. We both grew up with dads whom we loved very much, so that’s what we wanted to be. Finally, we found someone who gave us the answer we were looking for.

“We’ve never had a problem,” a business associate of Drew’s told us one day. He and his partner had an eight-year-old son who called them both “Dad.”

“Is it ever confusing?”

He shrugged. “When it is, he finds ways to differentiate.”

So we went for it. Before they could even understand speech, our twins heard the word “Daddy” thousands of times. To them, “Daddy” came to mean two different men and one common function. They called for Daddy to kiss their boo-boos and to break up their disputes, not knowing for sure whether the tall guy or the short guy would walk through the door. When they didn’t get the Daddy they were hoping for, they made their displeasure known.

My kids will turn 4 this summer, and already, they’re pros at differentiating between their two dads. Their favorite way is to use modifiers like “Silly Daddy” or “Funny Daddy”, and in those cases, we all know instantly who they mean — not me. When they take the extra effort to throw in a compliment like that, they’re always talking about Drew. I’m just plain old “Daddy.” Some days, Papa doesn’t sound so bad to me anymore.

I want to plead my case: “Remember when I sang Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’, but I changed every word to ‘poop’? Didn’t we have a lot of laughs then?” But I don’t want to end up as “Desperate Daddy,” so I keep my hurt feelings to myself.

I’m the stay-home parent, so while the kids and I do have fun together, I’m also the guy who enforces naptime and who makes them take off their dress-up clothes while they eat their healthy dinners. At night, when Silly Daddy is at his most uproarious, I’m groaning and trying to rush them to bed, because I’m exhausted from all the unfunny things I do all day.

… which brings me to the one distinction that hurts more than Silly Daddy vs. Just Daddy. At some point, my kids started calling my partner “The Daddy Who Goes To Work” and I became “The Daddy Who Stays Home”. Was that how they saw things? Drew was defined by his job, but I was defined by my location, by the fact that you could usually find me within 20 feet of the bed where I slept last night?

These kids didn’t know me before I was Daddy. I used to have a career, too, one that I enjoyed, and that allowed me to live a lot more comfortably than I do now. I took vacations. I saved for my retirement. I saw movies in the theater.

I thought I was trading that in for something better, a more interesting and adventurous life path. I was going to be a dad — a professional dad — and a gay dad at that. Take that, status quo!

Instead, I’ve ended up like most stay-home parents, the clichéd unappreciated house-spouse. I’ll find myself cracking privately to friends, “You know what they should be calling me? The Daddy Who Gave Up His Life for Us!”

It turns out that deciding who I would be to my kids wasn’t as simple as choosing what they would call me. I still love being referred to as “Daddy,” but I’ve come to accept that that term doesn’t mean the same to them as it did to me when I was growing up. For my kids, “Daddy” is an ever-evolving designation, one that requires adjustment at times, complete overhaul at others.

Recently, they decided that “The Daddy Who Stays Home” wasn’t quite working for them anymore. Without notice, they gave it a subtle twist, one that probably seemed minor to them but which brought me instantly out of my funk. It materialized as my daughter drew pictures of two men’s faces, which looked very similar except that one had spiky purple hair and one had a red crew cut. “This is the Daddy Who Goes to Work,” she said, pointing to the first one.

“And this,” she said, holding up the other picture proudly, “is the Daddy Who Takes Care of Us.”

"The Daddy Who Takes Care of Us"

“The Daddy Who Takes Care of Us”

*****

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Jul 1 2013

How to Talk to Kids About the Supreme Court Decisions on Same-Sex Marriage?

Image

Yes, that’s a question mark at the end of that post title. Anyone have any ideas?

When news broke that the Supreme Court struck down DOMA and Prop 8, I’m sure a lot of straight parents were stumped about how to discuss the subject with their kids. In the past, I’ve had a lot of sympathy for straight parents who wanted to explain gay parents like me and my partner to their kids. Well, this is one instance in which I say to straight parents, you’ve got it easy. For you, it’s as simple as, “They decided everyone should be treated equally. Hooray!”

As a gay dad, though, I need to have the exact opposite conversation. Before I can tell my kids how great it is that we’re now considered equal, I first have to explain why we weren’t equal to begin with. Our kids have always known that couples come in all varieties of gender combinations — woman/woman, man/man, man/woman, lady/tramp. What they don’t know — and gratefully, are still too young to understand — is that not all of those groups feel comfortable sharing plates of spaghetti in public.

ImageI wrote in a Lifetime Moms post how I don’t want to tell my daughter she can do anything boys can do, because, y’know, duh. Since I wrote that post, there have been a couple of times she’s heard from other people that girls can’t do something, and I’ve had to let her know that those people are horribly wrong, and also just plain horrible. As a result, my extremely girly little girl swears she’s going to be a construction worker when she grows up. Success.

I’ve always felt pretty much the same way about homophobia that I did about sexism: I’ll wait for the kids to encounter it, and then it’ll seem as bizarre and unfounded to them as it should.

Luckily, that plan has served me well so far, because my kids have yet to experience any direct homophobia. All of my fears about parents refusing to set up playdates with us, schools turning us away or landlords refusing to rent to us have been, so far, unfounded. There are the occasional moments we get some extra attention because we have two dads in our family, so my kids briefly get to feel like celebrities. But no one’s thrown any rocks through our windows or given us any negative attention. For the most part, we get treated exactly the way I want to be treated.

It’s not that I don’t want my kids to know about homophobia. It’s just that I’m not sure they’d believe me.

SupremeCourtJusticesThat may be the best part about being a gay parent, that my kids are the only people I’ve ever known who I didn’t have to come out to, who didn’t know about or assume the shame and fear I grew up with. To them, I’m just “Dad”, and the fact that I love “Other Dad” isn’t just natural and wonderful, it’s a fundamental part of their world view.

So, sure, I want to tell my kids about the Supreme Court’s ruling. I want them to see all the people celebrating and all the couples like their dads who are now getting married. There’s just no way they’d appreciate what a big deal it is and no way to do it without exposing them, just a tiny bit, to exactly the thing I’ve been trying to protect them from. I don’t want my kids to feel like victims, and I don’t want them to think they have to be fighters, either. I just want them to be themselves, and so far, they’re doing an awesome job of that.

This is undoubtedly an historical moment, but I’ve decided this is one bit of history they can wait to learn about until their high school history class, because the world the Supreme Court just brought us one step closer to, is one my kids already live in.

*****

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