Gayby Boom

12/28/09

Trying Twice as Hard

The old adage about women in the workforce, that we have to work twice as hard as men to be thought half as good, is sort of how I've seen lesbians take on parenting. Except we're working twice as hard as heterosexuals, hoping to be considered good enough.Or maybe that's just my generation of gayby boomer. The I-think-I-can decade of lesbian moms, instead of the of-course-I-can generation that is filling up the mommy and me classes and exchanging phone numbers in the grocery store with other single pregnant lesbians. We thought we had to have an ideal household: stable, monogamous, enough money to put food on the table, jobs with health insurance for the family, semi-receptive Grandparents, a mortgage, a mini-van and a Labrador Retriever.Nowadays, lesbian moms don't seem so demanding of...

Posted at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/21/09

That is So Not Gay

We can’t really call it a “man-cave” with a 3 - 2 ratio of females to males in our household, but our basement television room is occupied by large gatherings of adolescent males on a regular basis, shooting things (onscreen), each other (with Nerf guns), and making weapons out of duct tape and PVC piping. They also play Dungeons and Dragons, manufacture chain mail, hang out and watch kids’ movies with wry commentary and purposeful misinterpretation. And swear a lot; often while I’m walking through the room.The boys freeze, eyes darting side-to-side nervously, until our teenage son says “she doesn’t care,” knowing perfectly well I’ve heard it all, and they go on with whatever game they’ve got going, be it D & D, Mario...

Posted at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/14/09

You’ve Got the Power

It is an enormous and overwhelming responsibility to be in charge of creating happy holiday memories for your kids. Think of your own, and how they loom large on your emotional landscape, and imagine having to sow, nurture and harvest those without coming up short, leading to emotional starvation and years in therapy for which we are ultimately responsible.Jesus Christ, who’d choose to be Santa Claus if they had a choice?I am certain Martha Stewart’s kids were chained in the basement weaving placemats and hot-gluing juniper berries while our backs were turned during her holiday home specials; in the actual world (not on TV with a big budget and minions galore), creating the perfect, wholesome, holiday atmosphere can turn any parent into a Scrooge or a slave-driver, leaving...

Posted at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/07/09

Homework, Again?!

One of the many unpleasant things you aren’t warned about before having kids—like that throwing up and having bowel movements during labor is normal and that your vagina will never forgive you—is that kids come with homework.Not only the “homework” you did prior to having them, the wills, powers of attorney and adoption paperwork you put into place to avoid emotional disaster in the unpredictable future, or the parenting books you read feverishly in the months both before and after having them. But literally homework.From kindergarten on, you’re on the homework treadmill alongside your kid, like it or not.I don’t. Wasn’t that the joy of graduating from college—no more homework? And now, just because I have a six year-old in first...

Posted at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

12/02/09

Just Say No to Hypocrisy

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a… wait, I can’t really preach that can I? Selling marriage before sex as a lesbian mom is already a sticky situation—friends of ours managed to convince their children they were married before producing them—but most kids catch on to that legal lie fast, especially when our lack of marital rights makes front page news almost every day.Luckily we have a sense of humor about it at our house. We have a running gag that starts with my wife saying, “Bastard,” when one of the kids does something really rascally, and the kid responds, “And whose fault is that?”Yes, according to the legal definition, they are indeed bastards, born out of wedlock, and, ironically, we are one of the...

Posted at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

11/23/09

The Redundancy of Lists

I’m a Virgo, so I make lists. Detailed lists for monthly goals, daily lists, lists for someday if I find the time. Dealing with stuff is always on the list, every list—because stuff happens with kids.I thought we were burdened with inordinate amounts of objects before we were parents—my wife was a compulsive yard sale and thrift store shopper during our early days—but I had no idea how full a home could get with seemingly necessary or desirable things.It started before the first kid arrived—the crib that was never used, the borrowed changing table that was used to death, the bassinet that became mine to bestow on the next generation. Then there were the clothes, receiving blankets, snot suckers, nail clippers, stuffed toys, safety devices and pacifiers that...

Posted at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments: 1

11/16/09

Lesbian Moms Get Laughs

Last night I got to take the stage at a comedy night at Portland’s Q Center. It was one of a series of comedy nights hosted by TIME OUT: The Mother of All Comedy Shows and comic Jacki Kane. I’ve done it three times before, talking about dropping my thong on the second grade classroom floor, being a stoner slut in high school, the vast menagerie that has passed through our home in the name of our children. Those times, I was the only lesbian mom on tap—the token dyke. But at Q Center, the theme was "Mom, Meet My Same-Sex Partner. We're Having a Family!" so it was three lesbian mamas and Jacki, who says she’s a same-sex parent because she and her husband always have the same sex.One of the performers was Naomi Morena, who I realized was formerly Naomi...

Posted at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

11/09/09

The Dietary Dilemma

You can drag a toddler to organic, hormone-free milk, but you cannot make him drink.The irony of feeding children is that you can make the best meals, choose the choicest ingredients, do the smartest research and receive the sagest advice, but it is the kid who ultimately decides what goes down the gullet.We were no different from other parents before having a baby—we were totally judgmental about the food choices other parents made. We knew there would be no fast food passing his lips, no sugary treats like lollipops to eat away his teeth and hype him up before bedtime, no saturated fats or red dye number whatever to break his genetic code or harm his system in unknown ways later, leading to guilt, guilt and more guilt. We were self-confident idiots.There are dedicated parents...

Posted at 02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

11/02/09

Two Words: Flu and FAFSA

Two Words: Flu and FAFSA.The free application for federal student aid seems so distant when your biological clock goes off, but you can’t get far from these two constants once you’ve got a kid.Currently we’re sandwiched between both. Our oldest son started his senior year with swine flu, missing the entire first week and getting academically behind from the get go. Our daughter saved her week of influenza for the middle of October (miraculously missing it the first go-round thanks to my strenuous efforts at isolating our son, who was only allowed out of his room after a sponge bath with antibacterial wipes). Our youngest son will no doubt get it during Thanksgiving break (right about when we arrive at the grandparents’ house) or maybe at his big brother’s...

Posted at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

10/22/09

Joining the Gayby Boom

I’ve been out of work for eighteen years. Or at least that’s what Social Security thinks, since freelance writing assignments and portrait painting rarely raise my income to the point where a tax return is required. Eighteen years ago I went on maternity leave from my forty-hour sit-down job at Airborne Express answering phones and pleasing irate customers in microseconds (following a grossly underpaid stint in retail and fine art), to have an eight-pound, ten-ounce baby boy. Never went back to work. Dr. Clark handed our naked, vernix- (that sticky white stuff that keeps babies from shriveling up like prunes inside the amniotic sac) covered boy to me, I looked into his open eyes, looked into my wife’s face and said, “I’m not going back to work,” and...

Posted at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

	12/28/09 Trying Twice as Hard The old adage about women in the workforce, that we have to work twice as hard as men to be thought half as good, is sort of how I've seen lesbians take on parenting. Except we're working twice as hard as heterosexuals, hoping to be considered good enough.Or maybe that's just my generation of gayby boomer. The I-think-I-can decade of lesbian moms, instead of the of-course-I-can generation that is filling up the mommy and me classes and exchanging phone numbers in the grocery store with other single pregnant lesbians. We thought we had to have an ideal household: stable, monogamous, enough money to put food on the table, jobs with health insurance for the family, semi-receptive Grandparents, a mortgage, a mini-van and a Labrador Retriever.Nowadays, lesbian moms don't seem so demanding of... Posted at 06:49 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	12/21/09 That is So Not Gay We can’t really call it a “man-cave” with a 3 - 2 ratio of females to males in our household, but our basement television room is occupied by large gatherings of adolescent males on a regular basis, shooting things (onscreen), each other (with Nerf guns), and making weapons out of duct tape and PVC piping. They also play Dungeons and Dragons, manufacture chain mail, hang out and watch kids’ movies with wry commentary and purposeful misinterpretation. And swear a lot; often while I’m walking through the room.The boys freeze, eyes darting side-to-side nervously, until our teenage son says “she doesn’t care,” knowing perfectly well I’ve heard it all, and they go on with whatever game they’ve got going, be it D & D, Mario... Posted at 05:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	12/14/09 You’ve Got the Power It is an enormous and overwhelming responsibility to be in charge of creating happy holiday memories for your kids. Think of your own, and how they loom large on your emotional landscape, and imagine having to sow, nurture and harvest those without coming up short, leading to emotional starvation and years in therapy for which we are ultimately responsible.Jesus Christ, who’d choose to be Santa Claus if they had a choice?I am certain Martha Stewart’s kids were chained in the basement weaving placemats and hot-gluing juniper berries while our backs were turned during her holiday home specials; in the actual world (not on TV with a big budget and minions galore), creating the perfect, wholesome, holiday atmosphere can turn any parent into a Scrooge or a slave-driver, leaving... Posted at 01:13 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	12/07/09 Homework, Again?! One of the many unpleasant things you aren’t warned about before having kids—like that throwing up and having bowel movements during labor is normal and that your vagina will never forgive you—is that kids come with homework.Not only the “homework” you did prior to having them, the wills, powers of attorney and adoption paperwork you put into place to avoid emotional disaster in the unpredictable future, or the parenting books you read feverishly in the months both before and after having them. But literally homework.From kindergarten on, you’re on the homework treadmill alongside your kid, like it or not.I don’t. Wasn’t that the joy of graduating from college—no more homework? And now, just because I have a six year-old in first... Posted at 12:38 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 1
	12/02/09 Just Say No to Hypocrisy First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a… wait, I can’t really preach that can I? Selling marriage before sex as a lesbian mom is already a sticky situation—friends of ours managed to convince their children they were married before producing them—but most kids catch on to that legal lie fast, especially when our lack of marital rights makes front page news almost every day.Luckily we have a sense of humor about it at our house. We have a running gag that starts with my wife saying, “Bastard,” when one of the kids does something really rascally, and the kid responds, “And whose fault is that?”Yes, according to the legal definition, they are indeed bastards, born out of wedlock, and, ironically, we are one of the... Posted at 04:10 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 1
	11/23/09 The Redundancy of Lists I’m a Virgo, so I make lists. Detailed lists for monthly goals, daily lists, lists for someday if I find the time. Dealing with stuff is always on the list, every list—because stuff happens with kids.I thought we were burdened with inordinate amounts of objects before we were parents—my wife was a compulsive yard sale and thrift store shopper during our early days—but I had no idea how full a home could get with seemingly necessary or desirable things.It started before the first kid arrived—the crib that was never used, the borrowed changing table that was used to death, the bassinet that became mine to bestow on the next generation. Then there were the clothes, receiving blankets, snot suckers, nail clippers, stuffed toys, safety devices and pacifiers that... Posted at 11:33 AM \| Permalink \| Comments: 1
	11/16/09 Lesbian Moms Get Laughs Last night I got to take the stage at a comedy night at Portland’s Q Center. It was one of a series of comedy nights hosted by TIME OUT: The Mother of All Comedy Shows and comic Jacki Kane. I’ve done it three times before, talking about dropping my thong on the second grade classroom floor, being a stoner slut in high school, the vast menagerie that has passed through our home in the name of our children. Those times, I was the only lesbian mom on tap—the token dyke. But at Q Center, the theme was "Mom, Meet My Same-Sex Partner. We're Having a Family!" so it was three lesbian mamas and Jacki, who says she’s a same-sex parent because she and her husband always have the same sex.One of the performers was Naomi Morena, who I realized was formerly Naomi... Posted at 02:01 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 1
	11/09/09 The Dietary Dilemma You can drag a toddler to organic, hormone-free milk, but you cannot make him drink.The irony of feeding children is that you can make the best meals, choose the choicest ingredients, do the smartest research and receive the sagest advice, but it is the kid who ultimately decides what goes down the gullet.We were no different from other parents before having a baby—we were totally judgmental about the food choices other parents made. We knew there would be no fast food passing his lips, no sugary treats like lollipops to eat away his teeth and hype him up before bedtime, no saturated fats or red dye number whatever to break his genetic code or harm his system in unknown ways later, leading to guilt, guilt and more guilt. We were self-confident idiots.There are dedicated parents... Posted at 02:00 AM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	11/02/09 Two Words: Flu and FAFSA Two Words: Flu and FAFSA.The free application for federal student aid seems so distant when your biological clock goes off, but you can’t get far from these two constants once you’ve got a kid.Currently we’re sandwiched between both. Our oldest son started his senior year with swine flu, missing the entire first week and getting academically behind from the get go. Our daughter saved her week of influenza for the middle of October (miraculously missing it the first go-round thanks to my strenuous efforts at isolating our son, who was only allowed out of his room after a sponge bath with antibacterial wipes). Our youngest son will no doubt get it during Thanksgiving break (right about when we arrive at the grandparents’ house) or maybe at his big brother’s... Posted at 05:56 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0
	10/22/09 Joining the Gayby Boom I’ve been out of work for eighteen years. Or at least that’s what Social Security thinks, since freelance writing assignments and portrait painting rarely raise my income to the point where a tax return is required. Eighteen years ago I went on maternity leave from my forty-hour sit-down job at Airborne Express answering phones and pleasing irate customers in microseconds (following a grossly underpaid stint in retail and fine art), to have an eight-pound, ten-ounce baby boy. Never went back to work. Dr. Clark handed our naked, vernix- (that sticky white stuff that keeps babies from shriveling up like prunes inside the amniotic sac) covered boy to me, I looked into his open eyes, looked into my wife’s face and said, “I’m not going back to work,” and... Posted at 05:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments: 0

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