Year of Dog: Posessing the Best Traits of Human Nature

Subtitle: Not the Year of the Rat: "People born in the Year of the Rat are noted for their charm and attraction for the opposite sex."

Eight and I are reading Year of the Dog, by Grace Lin.

We got hooked by her books a few years ago. BioMom bought me a few of the board books (for readers 4-6) for Father's Day because the father in the stories is called Baba. After that, we've just loved the stories and only recently found these two newer books for older readers (Year of the Dog and the Year of the Rat). Once we even took the book Dim Sum for Everyone to a dim sum restaurant to make sure that we were trying all of the kinds of dim sum that we had been reading about!

Year of the Dog is really an interesting read. It is about a young girl (I suppose she is around 10) whose parents were born in Taiwan. She has decided that, being the year of the dog, that she will 'find herself' -- or at least discover her talents, maybe what she wants to be when she grows up. The chapters are peppered with her Mom's great little stories about growing up in Taiwan.

Last night though, one of the chapters tackled the issue of race in America in such a subtle and expert way that I forgot I was reading a children's book.

In the chapter the girl is excited about trying out for Dorothy in her school's upcoming production of the Wizard of Oz.

She is so excited about the tryout that she practices "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" day and night and thinks about the production constantly.

At one point a friend of hers says incredulously: "YOU are trying out for Dorothy?" and then follows up with "Dorothy is not Chinese!!"

Our protagonist doesn't question her friend, does not end up trying out, and, ultimately, plays the part of a dwarf (were THEY Chinese???). She asks her Mom that night why Chinese people aren't important, explaining that she doesn't see Chinese people as the main players in any movies, books, or television shows.

I literally teach this (as it pertains to women and/or people of color in the labor market and/or women in economics), or attempt to, in my Gender and Economics class. But I should give up, because I can't do the subject an ounce of the justice that Grace Lin did in that one, short (3 page?) chapter.

Eight and I started discussing what that would feel like, to be Chinese, or African American, or some other minority and to not see yourself on television, or in the movies or whatever.

Then, I asked, not so subtly, if she ever felt like that because she had two moms.

Me: How does that make you feel?

She: I guess I feel like it makes me unique. We're different, and I like that.

I let it sit a bit.

She: Can I tell you something that happened?

Me: Sure!

Aside: this is the largest (and only) piece of parenting advice that I can give someone. If you give them the space, they MIGHT talk. Without it, they WON'T.

She: [Snotty, OVERderprivileged girl at school with a cell phone and divorced parents in Second Grade*] said '[a]re [Eight's] moms LESBIANS??????'

My heart skipped a beat in the way that it used to when I was in high school and heard that word and just KNEW that it wasn't about something or someone good.

Then it resumed. We have started using the words 'gay' and 'lesbian' with Eight, in a fairly natural way. As in, "Ellen is a lesbian like your mom and I. You know, she dates women, instead of men. . . . Isn't she cool???"

Me: Oh. . . And what happened? How did that make you feel?

She: And another time, I overheard [another girl] saying something to someone like '[d]on't be so gay!' and I said to her '[girl], you know I have two moms. . . Why would you say that?'

Me (beaming inside): Wow. . . ! I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself! Did you ever say anything to [first girl]?

She: No, a friend of mine told me she said that about me, so I couldn't talk to her without hurting my friend.

Me: Well, I want you to know that I've known about myself for a really long time. Maybe since I was 11 or 12 years old. . . And I am comfortable being a lesbian. . . I am proud of who I am.

She: . . .

Me: You might hear people using terms like 'gay' or 'lesbian' to be mean to other kids. . . . I guess what I'm saying is that you don't need to protect us. . . Okay? We love you and want you to be happy and comfortable.

She: I know. . . I know. . .

*I wasn't judgmental about this girl, well not THIS judgmental, until I heard this story. Now all hell's broke loose.

The Lesbian Parent Trap

Today was Lounge-Around-the-House-Day.

We rented movies, and hosted the neighbor's dog. Ate what was in the house, and visited some friends as they moved into their new home in the neighborhood. HFRM#1 came over for leftovers and we didn't get in the car once.

While Big napped, we settled into a DVD I got for Seven, hoping she'd enjoy the old 1961 film, The Parent Trap.

Being somewhat of a pop-culture imbecile, I didn't realize that I had picked up the 1998 version of the old film, this one starring Lindsay Lohan.

It was actually quite good, being an ultra innocent story (as compared to much of the television we ban Seven from watching) and being that it was the pre-rehab days for Ms. Lohan.

BioMom, Seven, HFRM#1 and I were all engrossed in the movie until the scene where Annie, the twin who usually lives with her Mom in London, meets her dad. What follows is the dialogue they have in the car on the way home from the airport:

Dennis Quaid as Nick Parker: Why do you keep saying ‘Dad’ at the end of your sentences?

Lindsay Lohan as Annie James: I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was doing it, Dad. . . Sorry, Dad. . . . Do you wanna know why I keep saying 'Dad'? The truth?

Nick Parker: Because you missed your old man so much, right?

Annie James: Exactly. It's because, in my whole life. . . I mean, you know, for the past eight weeks, I was never able to say the word 'Dad'. . . Never. . . Not once. . . . And if you ask me, I mean, a Dad is an irreplaceable person in a girl's life. Think about it. There's a whole day devoted to celebrating fathers. Just imagine someone's life without a father. . . Never buying a father's day card. Never sitting on their father's lap. Never being able to say 'Hi Dad!' or 'What's up Dad?' or 'Catcha later, Dad'. . . . I mean, a baby's first words are usually 'Dada', aren't they?

Nick Parker: Let me see if I get this, you missed being able to call me dad?

Annie James: Yeah. I really have, Dad.

This whole scene lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like a half-an hour. I kept thinking: Okay! We got the point! Move on!

I kept watching Seven to see if she would exhibit any outward sign of a reaction to the scene.

And the line Just imagine someone's life without a father. . . ran through my head like Marsha, holding her nose and hearing her mom say 'Don't play ball in the house!' in that Brady Bunch episode.

So far she seems unaffected. I suppose it's like everything else in the world to her. How, for example, most stories, kids movies, etc. etc. don't really represent her life or her reality. I wonder if kids of GLBT parents are like GLBT people themselves in that they learn, somehow, to compartmentalize these experiences. To make them seem normal, somehow, to NOT feel like Lindsay Lohan's character was questioning her (Seven's) life also. Not just the character who, until that point, had not known a father, but Seven who does not know a father either. Whereas we GLBT people may look back and realize that we had been, for example, imagining ourselves in the opposite gender's lead (see Lesbian Dad's post on The Sound of Music when she says "What? Doesn't everyone?") or other similar techniques to put our round bodies into the square holes that society had formed for us, I wonder if Seven will adopt similar tools to feel more comfortable or less at odds with the world around her.

Or maybe it was just a movie.

Intentional Families

Both LesbianDad and Dana Rudolph over at Mombian commented on the New York Times piece titled "Your Gamete, Myself" which explored "issues surrounding conception via an egg donor" and overlooked LGBT families.

Dana highlights (as quoted by LD) that "'intentional' parenthood characterizes some, but by no means all families in the current 'gayby' boom. Many kids are born into heterosexual families, before one or the other parent comes out and continues to raise them. Significantly, at least as of the moment, families planned and realized from within LGBT community skew towards the white and the middle class on up..."

I am very interested in the outcomes for kids of GLBT families and have noted the difference between kids who are born of heterosexual parents who later come out (actually the General Social Survey shows that there is no significant difference in number of kids of GLBT families and heterosexual families due to this phenomenon) and kids whose parents were "intentional" in conceiving them within the GLBT relationship.

In the book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner make the argument that Roe v. Wade explains much of the precipitous decline in crime in the 1990s. They argue that the kids who would have been born pre-Roe, to women who, given the choice, would have aborted them, were more likely to participate in criminal activities. They make the argument that these kids were somehow less wanted and the parents were less likely to "invest" in them (in all ways that parents invest in kids).

The corollary argument is that parents who intentionally have kids are more likely to invest in their kids and are likely to have better outcomes (however defined). This intentional GLBT group falls into this category.

Great argument for gay marriage, huh?

This is my next research project, given that I can locate some decent data.

Coming Out All Over Again

The other day Big and I attended a weekly event at our local branch of the public library. It was a little "story time" for kids, hosted by an animated librarian (who, incidently, I saw later that week at the Harry Potter Seven release party at our local women's bookstore).

While there, Big started goofing around with a kid about his age and his mother and I got to talking about the things that that SAH(M/MO/D etc.) talk about. She seemed interested in getting the boys together and talked of having us over for a play date.

It is at this point that I feel full disclosure is necessary. A) if someone is homophobic, I don't want to waste my time and b) if someone is homophobic I don't want to waste their time.

Coming out in this context still feels so strange and awkward to me. At one point during my "out and proud" twenties, I instated a personal moratorium on "coming out" because I felt that it was somehow confessional in nature and I had given up the Catholic Church and all of those sorts of rituals. Furthermore, I had had enough with educating.

I know that sounds immature, but gimmie a break. I was in my twenties.

I still don't usually formally come out to my students. But the reasons are different. It is probably just laziness at this point. Or maybe an assumption that everyone knows.

After attending my twentieth reunion this weekend, I came to the lovely realization that noone gave a rat's ass about it at all. It's so strange. In high school everything mattered. A bad hair day was significant (thanks to High School Friend and Taggert for processing this insight with me). And being glbt mattered in high school--on many levels.

So while discussing future school choices with the gal at the library we got to discussing the catholic school that Seven attends which happens to be only a few short blocks from both the library and this woman's house. She asked if non-catholics attended and I reassured her that yes, they did and that we were a glbt family and that we felt welcomed.

For me, now, it is all about Seven and Big. I'll cover over every crack in the China where their parent's sexuality is concerned to make them feel safe and secure in us, their family, and themselves.

Skirting Society?: The Name Game Continues

So, overnight it seems, Big's lanugage (receptive at least) has blossomed. After months and months of reading the same books, and pointing to the same pictures and identifying the pictures and colors, he seems to be actually getting it.

BioMom, pointing to the "red" page, and pointing to the raspberries: Where are the raspberries?

Instead of his usual blank look, or insistence on turning the page, he reaches out his little finger and actually points to the raspberries.

This literally happened over night. He went from not being able to identify anything, to identifying everything. Everything in that little book, obscure parts of other books (where are the pilots?) to all of his body parts.

Wow.

During one ID session, BioMom asked: Where's Mama?

I wasn't in the room and, according to her, he looked around and couldn't find me and didn't point to her.

We're still trying to go with the "Baba" for me and "Mama" for her thing, but Seven has not really adopted the "Baba" moniker, so all big hears her call me is various forms of "Mama" (usually followed by a "will you" to the extent that I am sure he'd call me "Mama will you" if we didn't play our little ID games.

He and I often read this book about airplanes. One picture shows a jet with people lining the windows. I always ask him who the people in the windows are:

Where's grandma? (he points to someone -- 'grandma' changes every time we read the book)

Where's grandpa? etc.

Once I asked Where's Mama? As she was sitting next to us, he just pointed to her.

And then: Where's Baba?

He smiled and turned his eyes up to me as if to say, Don't you know where YOU are?

Is It A Happy Father's Day When the Lesbian Father Out-Mothers the BioMother?

In this past Sunday's Modern Love column in the New York Times, Amy Sohn writes about her reactions to her husband's stay-at-home dad-ness. This is a topic that, in its own variation, comes up at our house quite a bit. I sometimes (somewhat unwillingly, rarely purposefully) "out-mom" BioMom.

Sohn writes "[A]fter we married and began to talk about having children, I realized that a child could have a side benefit for our relationship. If Charles took care of the baby full time, he would be providing care that would otherwise cost at least $25,000 a year. . . He wouldn't have to take on the small jobs he hated, like landscaping and carpentry, and I could stop griping about the credit card bills. We wouldn't have to leave our child with a stranger, and I could feel secure knowing that she would be in the care of her loving father. In this radical-feminist vision, I was little more than a vessel for the baby."

...

"As I began to realize that I liked being a mom, Charles started to see that he needed to be more than just a dad...Besides, I found myself thinking, if Charles and I split the child care on the days we don't have the sitter, then the baby will never love him more."

....

"Our arrangement, of course, has all the stresses of traditional marriage roles, even if we're reversed. Like the archetypal working father, I constantly feel the pressure of being the primary breadwinner and worry that one day my work will dry up, we'll have to sell our apartment and leave the city, and it will be my fault. But the upside of my financial burden is that I never feel guilty about working. . . And I've stopped worrying that my daughter will love Charles more. The other day while she was toddling around the living room, she accidentally knocked a wooden chair down hard on to her foot. I rushed to comfort her . . . and she said, 'Daddy.' I handed her over and watched as he stroked her head, kissed it and told her she was O.K. . . . A year ago I would have seethed with jealousy. But as a mother of a toddler I know that her preferences change and it has little if nothing to do with me. As Charles sat in the armchair and held her, I watched from the floor. Then I reached for her again, and this time she came."

BioMom have faced similar issues as I (a little over a year ago) slid into the primary caretaker role for Seven and, mainly, Big (as he is in need of much more primary caretaking). Like Sohn and her husband, it made sense for us at the time for various reasons; I could easily take a year off of work, my work involved a regular, weekly commute that involved two nights spent away (from which we were both anxious to see a hiatus), she earned more money, etc. etc. So, reading this was all fine and dandy for me at least until I got to this quote:

"At the time I was seeing a 92-year-old Austrian psychoanalyst, and whenever I expressed concern about the financial inequity of my relationship, he would shake his head and say, 'For the relationship to survive, you must be the woman, not the man.'"

We've thought about this too. For our relationship to survive, must I be the Baba and she the Mama?

Sure, the changes involved sacrifices that were unexpected: while her career vamped up, mine has been put somewhat on hold and Big comes running to me--often pushing BioMom aside--when he is hurt or in need. What I don't think we expected were the reverberations of the reversal of gender roles that we had never truly consciously adopted.

Sure, she falls a little on the more femme side and I fall a little on the more butch side. We joke about the butch-femme continuum (see this blog entry from last year, ironically, when I first embarked on what I then called Stay-At-Home-Babadom). Here's an excerpt:

In fact, BioMom and I have our own 'butch-femme' scale with 10 being "highly feminine" and 1 being "highly butchy" and we will rank each other's actions or outfits based on a) our subjective determination and b) our desires for any particular event! On average though, I'd say I'm about a 4 and she's about a 6. We have speculated that sustainable relationships usually aggregate to a 10 on this scale. In other words, if the individual's butch/femme scale is much below 10 (say, two "3" butches) or much higher than 10 (say two "7" femmes) would not engender a sustainable gender-balance and would, therefore, be doomed to failure.

It turns out that this shift in our professional and personal lives (me halting work temporarily, she gearing back up in a heretofore unprecedented manner) has resulted in many unexpected consequences. I, for example, have unexpecedly fallen in love with being a SAHB. But, this has had some repercussions on our household's delicate gender balance. How does one, for example feel butchy, or masculine (an identity one has carried throughout life and that permeates all of their socio-psychological persona) after spending a day changing diapers, attending all-female baby classes and singing songs like "the wheels on the bus" and "bumpin' up and down in my little red wagon?" And, in the reverse, how are one's partner's feelings altered by this shift? Especially when she has kicked her career into high gear?

So here I am, a year into the reverse of Sohn's story, the stay-at-home-Baba who unexpectedly out-mom's the BioMom. Have we (like Sohn's) fulfilled the radical feminist vision?

I think that through this blog I am beginning to see strains of several "big questions" that I have about life as a SAHB and our kids. One of these questions really gets at the differences between GLBT families and their heterosexual counterparts, indeed, if there really are any. This strain is just another mirrored facet on that disc-ball that is that BIG QUESTION. In being a Stay-At-Home-Baba, are we fulfilling the radical feminist vision that Sohn talks about? Or am I just another woman who stays at home with her toddler (for the most part)? Are there consequences to what I'll call the "reverse specialization" that Sohn struggles with when we're dealing with same-sex couples? In short, do lesbians "do" gender?

What can gender roles do for us?
Gender roles can act like other social institutions as a behavioral short-cut. Instead of negotiating each task, each moment of the day, it is just easier when you know who will do what. Economists would say that gender roles decrease "transactions costs" in the sense that new negotiations are not necessary for each task: Are you mowing the lawn today? No! I thought you were going to. I changed the poopy diaper and emptied the dishwasher. Isn't that worth a lawn mow?
Why shouldn't lesbians take advantage of this shorthand, ending some of the mundanity of the everyday negotiations?

How can gender roles against us?
Of course, gender roles hurt us as a society when they become immutable. When they dictate that women can't become firefighters or high-security prison guards and men nurses, regardless of their abilities.

Do lesbians "do" gender?

The fact is that GLBT people have grown up in a society with gender roles (let's face it, while gender roles are immutable, changing over space and time, they still exist and while they can evolve in the course of a single generation, they are powerful and imposing). They/we soak them in like the rest of us.

Furthermore, as stated, "doing" gender can sometimes actually be efficient.

However, what's fun about creating families that fall outside of the societal norms, is that you can pick and choose which societal norms suit you. You can choose to reject all of them, or you can choose to not reinvent the wheel in other cases. (Of course, at some level, this is making lemonaid out of lemons. It'd be a helluva lot easier to just be able to get married and have all that legal stuff taken care of, voila!)

I am very interested in the interplay between how couples (het and homo) "do" gender, how they divide labor in the household (and by that I mean not only the mundane every-day chores as well as the public/private split. That is, how do couples make decisions about careers, breadwinning, and (when kids are involved) child rearing/stay-at-home-ness. Are decisions purposeful? Do they match or reject societal cues? Or is there economic logic behind the decisions that focuses on efficiency over equity? If so, in the case of a lesbian household, is it possible to create an efficient division of labor?

In a couple of papers (here and here) I have explored the idea that lesbian and gay households are not as politically correct as they may seem to the casual observer. Most research indicates that lesbian households tend to be more equal than are households of heterosexual couplings and there is some theory to back up that observation. Because social institutions don't generally support glbt unions, we have less protection in the event that our relationships dissolve. What this translates into is that we (as glbt partners) may be unwilling to, for example, become stay-at-home parents (i.e. strictly specialize labor such that one person becomes the breadwinner while the other performs non-wage labor in the home) because they have no legal recourse in the event of "divorce". Sure, we can proxy some legal amenities, but this is more costly (both money and time-wise) and it doesn't cover everything. But in a small sample of qualitative interviews, I found that some lesbians in some places actually did gender in the way that hetero couples did. And, although my sample was not big enough yet to show this, I suspect that had I interviewed enough couples with kids, this effect would be exaggerated.

As it turns out, I'm not sure the gender continuum is adequate. At least not for this butch-turned-SAHB. Masculinity and feminininity are not either-or's in any one person. We can be both high masculinity and high femininity. For us, the gender-role-short-cut wasn't clear cut and now we find ourselves again, paving a new path along a road less travelled.

2nd Annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day

In honor of the 2nd Annual (International!) Blogging for LGBT Families Day * I am going to write about BioMom, her bravery, and the effects it has had on our school choices thus far for our kids, Seven and Big.

It was a few short years ago when we were considering which kindergarten Seven (then four) would attend. I, being an educator and aware of the blind-numbing effects that traditional Deweyesque forms of education have on ourselves and our children, was inclined to the extreme, new-agey sorts of educational paths which, in their uniqueness also end up being extremely expensive and attract a less-than-economically-diverse clientele (which was a major drawback for us). BioMom, having attended Catholic schools through college (the only reason she didn't go to a Catholic law school is that she didn't have the grades or the LSAT scores. . . She'd admit to this), was more inclined to the local catholic schools. I implored that they weren't the place for us. At the time, the pope had just come out and said publicly that GLBT parents were abusing their children, and I felt that the schools would follow the doctrine and our kids would hear a negative message about their family. BioMom took it on herself to go and talk personally to all of the principals in the nearby catholic schools.

BioMom: Will our daughter be in an environment that teaches her that her family has been made in the image of God like all the other kids?

The nun-principal at the Catholic school across the lake (the one that I preferred actually due to its start-time and because there was a bus that would drop her off and pick her up neatly at our corner) actually responded:

Nun-Principal (uncomfortably and with bugged out eyes according to BioMom): Oh, uh, well, uh, we've never had this situation before but. . . I think that you would be allowed to attend the school. . .

Needless to say, that was all it took for us to put the kebosh on that school.

BioMom's bravery in consistently questioning teachers and other authorities in our kids' lives about being sons and daughters of GLBT parents felt second-nature to her. Being a GLBT parent is, somehow, like coming out all over again, except now with more responsibility. In many ways it is similar to the realization that you should start taking vitamins and exercising when you have kids. Your decisions carry a greater weight now.

At the same time though, we walk that strange tightrope of not making too much of being our kids' GLBT parents. Our kids are more than just the sons and daughters of GLBT parents and I hope that they are not defined by that gradeschool rant (that we hear, thankfully, only occasionlly): You can't have two moms!?!

In the paraphrased words of bell hooks: Forget that I am a black woman but don't ever forget that I am a black woman.

*Check out this site for links to other posts in celebration of Blogging for GLBT Families.

"My Family Loves Me"

I just received via email the most darling e-book.

It is a collection of personal drawings of kids in GLBT families.

You can find a link to it here.

Seven entered into the contest with a little drawing of her own. Sometimes you just get lucky and stumble on something great. Thanks to Jennifer Chrisler of "Family Pride" in Washington for coordinating the wonderful 'event'!

Comments on Mother's Day

Many apologies for the lack of posts as of late. I just turned in my final grades for the semester (!) and am only now able to let my mind wander to the creative. Also, happy 17 mo. birthday to Big, an irregular newsletter will be belatedly posted.

From Wikipedia, the definition of "Mother" include the following interesting snippets:
a) "A mother is the natural or social female parent of an offspring."
b) "Mothers typically fulfill the primary role in the raising of children"
c) "The title mother is often given to a woman other than biological parent, if it is she who fulfills this role."
d) "Currently, with advances in reproductive technologies, the function of biological motherhood can be split between the genetic mother and gestational mother, and in theory neither might be the social mother."
e) "The term mother can also refer to a person with stereotypical traits of a mother such as nurturing and other-centredness."

Although I missed last week's ECFE class (Seven and I gave a final exam instead) BioMom reported that the discussion focused on Mother's Day and how the GLBT couples there celebrated the two upcoming parental holidays on the calendar. It seemed that the consensus was that the couples usually each shared the single holiday, either Mother's or Father's Day.

One lesbian couple argued that they "both want to be mothers."

In our house, BioMom gets Mother's Day and I get Father's Day. Its really never been an issue with us. I guess I am used to not exactly fitting in with the social world, either through its social/religious celebrations, or its normative sexuality/family structures. As an economist, I recognize that most seemingly historical celebrations and social connotations are actually contrived occasions with the goal of consumption and increased profits for corporations (see any history on DeBeers and the creation of the social institution of diamonds given as engagement rings).

So how should GLBT families respond to these parental days (or, how can we have our cake and eat it too?)

1. The Separatist Solution: Not celebrate either day.
My response: No cake, and thus, no eating cake. What fun would that be?
2. The Semi-Separatist Solution: We could create our own day. This has, actually been done. See the Blogging For GLBT Families cite, June 1, 2007. My response: A different kind of cake and you get to eat it.
3. The Conformist's Solution: Share Mother's or Father's Day.
My response: At least you get to eat half the cake. This both gets the "word out", and you get at least 1/2 of a day's worth of celebration.
4. The Libertarian-Meets-The-Conservative View: Each GLBT parent gets their own day, Mother's or Father's.
My Comment: Eat the whole cake. This is what we do, and this is where it gets a little weird for me. On one hand, it is a radical solution. A woman is celebrated on Father’s Day? On the other hand, by keeping the existing socially recognized holidays it somehow reifies the normative (at least in theory) nuclear family structure.

In actuality, again based on information from Wikipedia, Mother's Day in the US was founded by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870) as a call for peace and disarmament. Here is an exerpt apropo for our day:
" From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: 'Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.'
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace... "