Tag Archives: Mother’s Day

Apr 7 2015

The Mommy Man Guide to This Year’s Awesomest Mother’s Day Books!

Whether you celebrate Mother’s Day, Other’s Day and/or, like my family, you double down on Father’s Day, it’s time to start thinking of gifts for those important parental figures in your life. If you’re a Mommy Man fan, I have great news, because I have some awesome books to recommend, two of which are released today… and two of which feature me!

LTYMbook1. Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now – Edited by Ann Imig

In case you haven’t heard, Listen To Your Mother is a storytelling series run by Ann Imig and performed in various cities every year around Mother’s Day, where people share their tales of motherhood. If you haven’t seen a Listen To Your Mother live show, you’re missing out. I know, because I performed in one. (My story was more about what my family came up with in place of motherhood. You can watch my reading here.) When I did the show, I got to meet some amazing women, who were also amazing writers and storytellers.

Now, Ann has collected some of her favorite stories from over the last few years in this anthology. Some are funny, some are sad and all of them are great reads. Best of all, I’m in it, with a story called, “More Than an Aunt, Less Than a Mom”. I’m so proud of this story and of being associated with this book and all the fantastic, big-shot writers in it. Definitely check it out!

gummibears2. Gummi Bears Should Not Be Organic: And Other Opinions I Can’t Back Up With Facts – Stefanie Wilder-Taylor

One of the best parts of performing in Listen To Your Mother was getting to meet Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. I’d known of her as the hilarious and insightful writer behind such bestsellers as Sippy Cups are Not For Chardonnay and Naptime is the New Happy Hour and one of the staunchest advocates of (some might even say the pioneer behind) the two-martini playdate. I was hardly prepared for the story she read that day, a raw, heartbreaking and yet still hilarious piece about coming to grips with the fact that actually, she had an alcohol problem.

Now you can read Stefanie’s story “Cocktail Playdate Dropout” in the Listen To Your Mother book above (and you should — it’s fantastic). And if that’s not enough Stefanie for you, you can see that she’s just as witty and wonderful on the wagon in this brand new book of hers.

I’m telling you, you can’t go wrong with some SWT, and your mom will love it, too.

MommyManCover3. Mommy Man: How I Went From Mild-Mannered Geek to Gay Superdad by Jerry Mahoney

I may have mentioned this one before.

It came out last year just barely under the wire for Mother’s Day, so you might’ve missed your chance to buy this for the moms in your life. Well, it’s not too late! Mommy Man is as mom-friendly as ever, full of jokes that’ll make her laugh, a few that’ll make her blush and plenty of emotional reflections on parenthood that’ll make her gush.

If you didn’t buy my book for your mom last year, this is your chance to redeem yourself, before this happens…

May 1 2014

5 Reasons to Give Your Mother “Mommy Man” this Mother’s Day

MommyManMothersDay1. Because she’s a raging homophobe, and my book will really piss her off.

2. Because you’re gay, and she’s afraid you’re never going to give her any grandkids.

3. Because she’s already laughed her ass off at Scary Mommy’s and Baby Sideburns’ books, and she wants to read something endorsed by both of those awesome ladies.

4. Because families are families, and if she loves her family, she’ll love reading about mine.

5. Because it has “Mommy” in the title, and that’s more thought than most people give to their Mother’s Day gifts.

Want to buy it? It’s not hard! “Mommy Man” is now back in stock on Amazon, as well as Barnes & Noble, IndieBound and pretty much everywhere. See more ordering options here. But hurry! Mother’s Day will be here soon!

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If you don’t mind waiting until the very last minute, then join my Amazing Chart Twerk 2 by ordering or picking up a copy of “Mommy Man” on Thursday, May 8 as close to 12pm Eastern Time as you can.

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Once Mom has the book, upload a picture of her holding it to the official Mommy Man Facebook page and you might win another copy you can keep for yourself!

May 16 2013

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the M-Word

specialauntsdayThere’s a dirty word among gay dads. The M-word. I’ve written about it before, and I’ve done everything I can to avoid saying it around my kids. Back when Drew and I first decided to pursue surrogacy, the head of the surrogacy agency himself told us to write it out of our vocabularies. An egg donor is an egg donor, not a “biological mom.” And a surrogate is just a surrogate, not a surrogate m-word.

It makes sense, in a way. If we’re going to have a non-traditional family, we should embrace who we are, both with our kids and with the world. Nope, no Mommy here. Try the next family. It might be hard on our kids at times, but it’s better for them to appreciate what’s different about our family than try to force ourselves into some rigid ideal of what families are supposed to be, which will never really fit us.

So we’ve been very clear. We have two dads and two kids, and that’s our family. We also have two very special aunts, our surrogate and our egg donor. (Sure, we’ve broadened the definition of the term “aunt” so it doesn’t just mean daddy’s sister, but let’s not be nitpicky.)

It’s been very easy to explain to the kids, because, of course, they’ve had no idea what the hell we’re talking about. Sure, they picked up pretty quickly on the fact that most families have a mommy and we don’t. But “surrogate” and “egg donor” have always been pretty empty terms to them, since they’re way too young to understand what those things mean.

They’re starting to, though.

We’ve made a point of celebrating Special Aunts Day (a/k/a Surrogate and Egg Donor Day, or Other’s Day) the day before Mother’s Day. It’s a way to remind the kids of where they came from, to show them how proud we are of our family and to honor two incredible women whom we love dearly. Plus, this way, the kids don’t feel as left out when all the other kids at school are making Mother’s Day crafts.

We’d lost touch with our surrogate a bit since we moved away from California. Drew and I still felt incredibly close to her, but our 3 1/2 year olds hadn’t seen her for nearly half their lives. We don’t want them to forget her,  so we decided to fly her and her son out this year to spend Special Aunts Day with us and the kids.

(Selfishly, I’ll admit I had an ulterior motive, which was to have her take publicity photos for my upcoming book — coming Spring 2014! It just so happens Aunt Tiffany is an amazing professional photographer.)

We also invited Aunt Susie and her daughter to make our Surrogate and Egg Donor Day complete. We decided to make a long weekend of it. It would be great to spend the extra time with them, but that left a troubling prospect looming over our heads.

Our surrogate and egg donor, who are arguably m-word adjacent, wouldn’t just be spending Surrogate and Egg Donor Day with us. They’d be here for Mother’s Day as well.

We started prepping the kids for the upcoming visitors months ago. “You know two daddies alone can’t make a baby, right?” we’d say. “So Aunt Susie donated her eggs and Aunt Tiffany carried you in her belly, and they helped us make you.”

babybookWe read them a photo book we’d made about their conception and birth. We wanted to make sure they knew the role their special aunts had in making our family — what it was, and what it wasn’t.

It had been almost three years since we were all together, but there’s only one way to describe how it felt to have them with us again. It felt like family.

The kids are currently at that awkward age, roughly between 2 and 27, when they get shy around people they don’t know very well. We feared that might happen with Aunt Tiffany, who has yet to figure out how to use Skype. Apparently, though, all the preparation made a big difference. Despite the fact that they hadn’t seen her in years, the kids welcomed her instantly with big hugs.

specialauntsday-1We spent Surrogate and Egg Donor Day at Legoland. (Good thing we’ve forgiven Legoland.) Bennett gave it his usual review of “Best day ever!”, and I concur.

Still, I was afraid of how the next day would go. We couldn’t ignore it. Aunt Susie and Aunt Tiffany were both moms themselves, and they’d brought their kids with them. They deserved to be honored for their role in their own families.

So we did it all over again. We spent Sunday in Times Square, where we rode the Toys R Us ferris wheel and I got testy with some of the costumed creeps, (“Hey, Spiderman, go away! You’re scaring my kids.”). We didn’t shy away from the M-word, because that’s what the day was all about. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever said the M-word more in one day.

“Isn’t Aunt Tiffany a great mommy to Gavin?” we’d say. “Isn’t Grace lucky to have her mommy?” “Let’s give a toast to two great mommies!”

Just that quickly, the M-word was back. It’s a beautiful word, and my kids deserve to hear it, see it and respect it. Despite what I always feared, I think it will only make them appreciate our family more.

timessqelmoI know my kids are still young, and I know there will be times in the future they’ll be sad that they don’t have a mom. Maybe when they hear it in certain contexts, it might sting a bit.

But for now, this year, things were just perfect. Sure, it helped that the weekend was a non-stop funfest. It’s hard for a three-year-old to be sad about anything when he or she is meeting Elmo live, in the fur.

But if I had any doubt about how my kids felt toward their special aunts, it was erased every time I saw Sutton hug one of them. She wrapped her arms around them, smiled a smile that was somehow twice as wide as her face and squealed a very special message just for them.

“Thank you for making us!” she said.

Apr 30 2013

5 Ways to Celebrate Mother’s Day… Minus the Mom

othersdaymugI had a great chat with my kids’ teacher yesterday about how to handle Mother’s Day. (She actually raised the topic with me, so she gets an A+ in my book.) I told her in our family, we celebrate Special Aunts Day, so she’ll be directing our kids’ craft projects toward their surrogate and egg donor and letting the other kids know that there are many different types of families. Have I mentioned how much I love my kids’ school?

Like I said, though, there are many different types of families, so what we’ve chosen to do isn’t going to work for everyone. Therefore, I wrote a new Lifetime Moms post with a few different suggestions for people whose family may not fit the Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day) mold but who want some ideas for how they can join in the celebration. I hope it’s helpful.

You can check out the Lifetime Moms post here, and if you have any suggestions of your own, please leave a comment.

May 3 2012

Happy Other’s Day!

There are work-arounds to not having a mother in your family.  Our kids drank formula rather than breast milk.  We make adjustments to forms when necessary.  And when our twins are overly cranky, we tell them “Save the drama for President Obama!”  But I’ll admit, Mother’s Day is a tough one.

What are my kids going to do when their classes are making macaroni and glitter cards and milk carton bird feeders every mid-May?  Sit in the corner and do long division because they have no one to give theirs to?  I don’t want them to feel left out, and I would never want a school to cancel Mother’s Day for their benefit.  It’s a great holiday.  I even have a mother myself.

Actually, my problem with Mother’s Day started before the kids were even born.  Three years ago, around this time, our surrogate, Tiffany, was pregnant with the blobs who would eventually become Bennett and Sutton.  She did everything a pregnant woman is supposed to do – ate well, got regular check-ups, stayed off crack.  For her diligence, she was rewarded with non-stop morning sickness, a fetus who kicked the crap out of her uterus, Braxton Hicks contractions and eventually, 24-hour bed rest, all for the sake of someone else’s kids.

For that alone, I’d say she earned a bouquet of flowers once a year, but it doesn’t make her, you know, an m-word.

Then there was Drew’s sister, Susie, who’d gone through the hassle and discomfort of egg donation, who’d injected herself with needles on a daily basis, flown across country about five times – at the risk of losing her job – and forked over her DNA to make a couple of kids who would always call her “Aunt”.  What would Mother’s Day represent for her?  Just another Sunday?  An annual unacknowledged reminder of her sacrifice?

It didn’t seem right.  But using Mother’s Day to honor Tiffany and Susie didn’t seem appropriate either, because we were very clear about our family structure and who was in charge.  Fear not, Right Wing.  I have no desire to redefine motherhood.

After thinking it over for a while, we invented our own holiday, Surrogate and Egg Donor’s Day, which we celebrate on the Saturday before Mother’s Day every year.

The timing is significant, because it keeps our kids from feeling left out of Mother’s Day weekend, and it allows our surrogate and egg donor, both of whom now have kids of their own, to celebrate Mother’s Day with their own families, while still being honored for their contribution to ours.  Because they’re such amazing people, they get a whole weekend of love.

We’re not the only non-traditional family who can use this extra holiday.  Plenty of special women fall outside the definition of the word “mother” but still deserve recognition for their contributions to families.  It could be:

  • Your adopted kid’s birth mother
  • The woman who raised you in your mother’s absence
  • A stepmother
  • Your family’s long-time nanny
  • A trans parent who’s not sure where they fit in on Mother’s/Father’s Day
  • A co-parent
  • A mean green mother from outer space

Mommy?

Or whoever you think deserves a special day to honor her for her role in your family.

The same goes for special men, who you might want to celebrate the day before Father’s Day, rather than, you know, not at all.

In writing this piece, I realized I’m not the first one to use the term “Other’s Day”.  Some people are even offended by it, which is fair enough.  But the distinction is totally up to you and your family to make.  If someone’s special to you, you can celebrate them on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or Other’s Day.  If Other’s Day sounds off-putting to you, call it Special Women’s Day or Special Men’s Day or even something clumsier, like Surrogate & Egg Donor’s Day.  Every family’s different, so we can all celebrate in different ways, too.

My kids are still a little young to understand the meaning of our special holiday, but I look forward to getting them involved in it as they get older, doing art projects, Skyping, or sending flowers.  It’ll be a great excuse to retell the incredible story of how they were born and to acknowledge what makes our family special.  Maybe it’ll also be a reminder of how corny their dads are, but I’m fine with that, too.

Again, I’m not trying to redefine anything, but I think it’s only fair that non-traditional families have a way to honor the people who matter to them.  I know, the last thing we need is one more holiday on the calendar, but if Hallmark wants to put out a special card with some schmaltzy sentiment aimed at surrogates or egg donors, they’ve got their first customer right here.