Sitting on the rusty red couch in our dining room the other morning, my seven year-old asked, “Who had the babies? I mean, how did L and J’s moms get the babies?” His twin friends have two younger brothers and two moms.
Well, I answered after reminding him which mom had been pregnant with which child or children, if two women or a single woman wants a baby, some sperm is necessary. A dad isn’t required. I’m not sure how they got sperm, but you know, what you need to make a baby is an egg and some sperm. Remy brushed aside my reminder about not needing a dad. He said, “Obviously, you just need a loving parent.” In Northampton, where we live, that’s such old news he doesn’t think it bears repeating. So, for a few minutes, we reviewed sperm, egg and semen and known donors and sperm banks (at sperm banks, his eyes widened). He made one comment somewhere in there about how kissing seems gross, punctuating it with a wonderfully crumpled nose. I made the kind of mom comment I make in those situations, which is someday you might not find kissing gross. And we moved on to other topics.
We spent maybe a whopping five minutes on how babies without dads are sometimes made.
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Our whole family eagerly anticipates our town’s biggest civic parade, Northampton Pride. The promise of Purple Pride ice cream at the end (Herrells makes this but once a year, black raspberry ice cream with rainbow sprinkles blended in) adds to the excitement. So do the drag queens and the dykes on bikes and the elaborate floats. But really, the fun of Pride is, I think, the way we get to participate in this affirmation: love doesn’t come solely in a one-size-fits-all-boy-girl-man-woman way.
Family Diversity Projects’ depiction of photographs and stories about gay and lesbian families was entitled Love Makes a Family. That said the march began before there were so many lesbian families in this New England town (or anywhere, out, en masse). It has grown to include love making the family. During its first years participants were asserting (against hostile counter-protestor crowds, no mayors marching with the queers, much less being queer) the imperative to respect identity and the right to love the person you love. Maybe as my older children are hitting teen and ‘tween stages—and their friends are, too—it’s no surprise that I’m thinking a lot about that message Pride carries along with its wonderful and critical celebration of families.
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Information like how babies are made is important, I think, to be shared freely—and often. In order for a child to become comfortable with that information No stand-alone talk (or, as parents so coyly tend to put it, the talk) can achieve this. As a parent, my goal (one my dear hubby shares) is to nurture a sense that sexuality isn’t a taboo subject. I want to assure my kids that it’s a natural part of all of our lives. I believe that’s especially important to do this in a world where “sexy” is flying fast and furious and information about birth control is not necessarily offered in school and 11 year-olds like Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover can be tormented by accusations of being gay so mercilessly and without adequate adult intervention that they may be compelled to desperate measures.
My parents, who never really wanted to talk about sex—except to say, don’t—thought their responsibility ended there and that preventing pregnancy was pretty much the biggest issue a girl faced. My generation of parents, I hope, knows that pregnancy is just one of many issues, including prevention of sexually transmitted infections to address. Messages I impart are about taking your time, refraining from cyber or other bullying and telling an adult if you are being bullied, about the affirmation that you can love who you love and you can explore sexuality all by yourself, too. That’s a start. Sometimes, openness is challenging when adolescent discomfort enters the mix, and those early morning sperm and egg conversations might not simply happen so spontaneously. That doesn’t mean, as parents, we shouldn’t look for openings to talk—and more importantly—to listen.
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I know this: on Saturday, I’ll be grateful that my family—all six of us—is somewhere in the Pride-filled crowd, where Love Makes a Family and chants of We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used to it converge. I bet I’ll think about how our family’s new mantra, inspired through open adoption—More Love is More Love—fits in beautifully. And we’ll probably get some new Mardi Gras beads, too.
