queerparentedkid-blog - Tumblr blog

[queerparentedkid-blog]

How much different do you think you'd be if you had a mom and a dad?

I would’ve grown up unaware of the queer community - or, at least, I wouldn’t have had any personal tie to the community.  And, that is… terrifying to me.  To be honest, this community is incredibly important to me, and being Queer or CuturallyQueer is incredibly important to my identity. 

I wouldn’t’ve had my family’s right to exist challenged. I wouldn’t’ve had to navigate my friends’ political views, nor try to judge how strangers/acquaintances would judge my family.  I would’ve seen my family in books and in school, and I would’ve known other families who were like mine.

But, I would’ve missed out on a lot.  If nothing else, had Mom ended up with a man, I would’ve missed out on all the amazing things my other mother brought to my family.  And, I can’t imagine a family without her. There hasn’t ever been anything missing from my family.  I can only think of all the things I would lose without her in my life - and she is something I would never, ever, ever give up.  I wouldn’t be half the woman I am today without having had her in my life.

[queerparentedkid-blog]

For the kids with queer parents:

I want you to know it’s okay to not always stand up against homophobic remarks.  It doesn’t mean you’re ashamed of your parents or that you are not a good child.  If you don’t feel emotionally safe speaking up - that’s okay.  It is okay to keep yourself safe - physically and emotionally.

You can love your parents very much, and still keep them a secret.  It’s not always safe to tell other’s about the people you love.  It doesn’t mean you love them any less.

(something i wish i’d known when I was in high school and middle school)

[queerparentedkid-blog]

i wish i knew someone else with queer parents.  but i have only met three people with queer parents.  And that was years ago.  sometimes i just wish i had a single friend with a family like mine.  someone who could discuss things from a shared perspective.

[queerparentedkid-blog]

Was an outlaw wedding back o' the barn 100 friends and family doing grievous harm upsetting the government breaking the law was the best time you ever saw!

Outlaw Wedding by Wishing Chair

[queerparentedkid-blog]

before my friends come over, my mom always asks for their pronouns - she has given my friends a safe place to call home and i will always love her for that

[queerparentedkid-blog]

My Family is Not “Perfectly Normal Except For That One Little Difference.”

In the queer community, we can hardly get through a conversation without someone falling back on the old “we’re just like straight people, except… you know, gay” argument; and the same can easily be said of conversations around families with queer or trans* parents. Viewing queer families as “ordinary but for this one tiny thing, just like your family” is a notion that seems to have gained momentum in recent years, propagated in part by television shows like Modern Family and movies like The Kids Are Alright. Although the experience of having a completely ordinary upbringing is something that resonates with many COLAGErs, ordinariness has never been a part of my life or family structure. Although a large part of the lack of the mundane in my life can be attributed to my unschooling (a life and educational philosophy that trusts children, teens, and young adults to learn whatever they want, whenever they want to), growing up in a queer family has also influenced me greatly.

My mother came out when I was only 6 years old, so the struggle for equal rights has always been personal to me. I grew up with a profound, personal understanding of the need to fight hard not only for same-sex marriage, but for nondiscrimination employment laws, anti-hate crime legislation, and transgender medical care. Conversations about equality- not only in the context of queer life, but in a broader sense of the word, have been dinner table topics all throughout my childhood. Healthcare, marriage, hospital visitation and parental rights had a personal meaning to me, leading me to become politically engaged at the age of 11. Peace protests, gay pride parades, rallies and petitions are some of my fondest memories.

One type of activism leads to another. Once I learned about housing discrimination against queer and trans folks, I learned about the even more amplified housing discrimination at the intersection of queerness and disability. Once I learned about transgender identities, I began learning about intersex identities, and through that, hospital malpractice. Having a personal, first hand understanding of activism from an early age has had an incalculable effect on my sense of justice, morality, activism and social change.

I came out as queer at the age of 14, and as gender fluid at age 17. There was never a shadow of doubt in my mind that I would be fully supported, and I was unequivocally correct. Did my parents have any influence on my coming out? Absolutely. Being raised in an environment where gender and sexuality are openly discussed and treated as natural, normal parts of human existence undoubtedly had a great deal of influence on my ability to comfortably self identify with labels that feel natural and right for me. As my queer friends with “perfectly normal” parents struggle with living in not-openly-hostile-but-not-openly-supportive home environments, I’m forced to ask myself: what is so appealing about being perfectly normal?

My family is unique, radical, influential, socially aware, supportive, loving and respectful. I don’t want to be “just like every other family except for that one little difference.” Being part of a queer family has shaped me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

-Emmett

[queerparentedkid-blog]

Family Traditions:

Each December, we wander around a Christmas Tree farm saying ‘i don’t mind’ and ‘anything will do’ but we’re truly so picky we that wander and lightly bicker for a good half hour or more before settling on the ‘perfect’ tree that we will ‘touch up’ at home…  Inevitably, grandparents or mothers share some story of their old tree farm, or Charles, or how grandfather had the neatest, most strictly-measured rows in the county.  How he trimmed the trees carefully and ensured no weeds found space to thrive amongst his little farm.

On Christmas Eve we bake sugar cookies with Mom.  Without fail, we make too much frosting and end up finishing it with spoons a few day later.  We open stockings on the foot of grandparents’ bed, then get up and make pancakes.  Grandparents’ always have orange juice with pulp.  Grandpa mixes the batter, and flips the pancakes with ease.  He and Ann are working on passing down this tradition, carefully watching my sister and I attempt it.  Grandma heats up the maple syrup when it’s time to sit down, and we carve grapefruit in side dishes with butter knives and spoons.

Every year, We buy Ann a pig-related gift.  Apparently, when I was three Mom let me choose a gift for her.  I told mom we needed to get her this stuffed pig because ‘pigs are her favorite.’  That wasn’t at all true, but it became a tradition...  and by now it’s gotten kinda crazy!  you can only have so many piggy banks and pig calendars, so there have been pig earrings, candles, cakes, key-chain flashlights that oink… 

[queerparentedkid-blog]

Beautiful photographs and stories <3 <3 <3

[queerparentedkid-blog]

Rosethorn and Lark have held a special place in my heart since I first read Circle of Magic in seventh grade.  At the time (and for many years afterwards), they were the only queer parents I had ever seen in a story.  Although not directly stated in the text, I imagined that Lark and Rosethorn were like my own mothers - in love and not “just roommates” or “friends” as I often told others.  I cherished the image of this home like mine.  

I remain extremely grateful to @tamorapierce, whose writing offered me an image of a family like mine in the early 2000s when the only other talk of queer families were debates about our right to exist.  The simple, quiet existence of their relationship - completely devoid of debate or threat - was comforting and hopeful in a time I felt so much fear and isolation.

(quote based on this)

[queerparentedkid-blog]

"In Our Mothers’ House” by Patricia Polacco is one of my all time favorite books about queer families.  I cry every time I read it.  It is so incredibly sweet and true and loving.  And it makes me think of my own family very much.  In general, I love all of her books, but this one holds an extra-special place in my heart.

[queerparentedkid-blog]

It feels exhausting to have these battles drag on.  Arkansas wanted to deny us the right of having both our parents on our birth certificates.  Texas wants to deny our families the legal benefits of marriage - wants to reduce our marriages to mere scraps of paper.  Colorado is still seeking to provide loopholes for religious folk to refuse to serve our families....

I knew from the start it was naive to feel the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling marked the end of this... but...  I just feel worn down.  Exhausted.  How long until we have rights that are stable?  That no one is trying to chip away?

[queerparentedkid-blog]

you claim that u don't wish u had 'normal' heterosexual parents but this blog is filled with hurt, anger, pain, loneliness, etc as a result of being from a queer family. does that contradict?? i hope this doesn't offend, i am gay myself and am just trying to understand how those two things fit together. reading this blog hurts my heart a little bit

The big thing is, my family didn’t cause me problems.  Society’s treatment of my family has caused me problems.  In a different setting, these problems wouldn’t exist.  I have had nothing but support and love from my family.  But being rejected, or ignored, or unthought of, or attacked by society - of course that hurts.  That’s what brought me to educational activism eventually - the knowledge that if society changed, these problems would go away.  If people were more aware of the hard parts (and we could deviate from the Poster Child image of queer-raised kids) we could make things better.

There is nothing wrong with my family.  I have never wished for another family or another family structure.  I have wished though, that society was different and that we were treated different.  And I think that is changing, although there is a long way to go.

I hope that makes sense.  It sound like it might be helpful for me to post more about the good-times too.  Don’t hesitate to ask more questions if it doesn’t make sense.

[queerparentedkid-blog]

As a lesbian who is considering having kids one day, I would like to know (if you don't mind me asking)- did you ever feel upset at your parents for being same-sex? Did you ever wish you had opposite-sex parents or feel like you were missing out? Sometimes I worry that having kids would would be doing a disservice to them, even though I believe that kids don't need both a mom and a dad.

Sorry for the delay in responding.That’s a fair question.  I know my mothers were concerned about that too.  Especially with what politics were in the 90s, they really wanted to be sure that I would be safe and happy.  The truth is, I never felt upset with my parents being in a same-sex relationship.  I never wished I had a father nor wanted a “straight” family with a dad and a mom.  It is different sometimes for people who have an LGBT family form through/after a divorce, because divorce is always a really hard thing to go through, but for me (born and raised in a same-sex parented family) I was and am very very happy with my two moms.

For me, having two-moms was the normal.  It wasn’t something I questioned until society told me otherwise.  It has never been anything I wanted to change, even if at times I did not feel safe being open about my family.  I feel like I had a wonderful childhood and that being in a family that is different from the nuclear, heterosexual “norm” is a gift, not a curse.  All differences are hard at times, but I wouldn’t change my family for anything.  :)

Don’t hesitate to message me further if you’d like.:)