Yesterday I turned to look at myself and realized I was almost completely utterly a straight woman. In her stereotypical form. I had two kids that I doted on. I was a stay-at-home mom. I had long hair and shaved my legs. Most of my friends, at least those I talked with daily, were straight, having somehow found decent, kind, loving and liberal husbands. My grad school experience had been so the opposite, an immersion in a pro-gay world, with my first ever openly gay professor, who was world-famous at that, world famous due to her brilliance. She invented the term “queer theory” for goddess’s sake. She was hot. Most of my friends were gay or actively pro-gay or more progressive politically than I was. But no more. We’d found a real home in the Waldorf community, an easy way to self-select for liberal allies. It was a wonderful relief to be less pro-biotic, less vegan, and less concerned about some progressive or new age cause than a certain percentage of the population there. It's nice not to be carving out your space every second.
And over the past two years I’d added to my repertoire the kickers, the internal signifiers of heterosexuality: I thought more about fashion than I ever had—though I'd never thought about it a lot. Mostly I thought more about how I dressed, instead of just putting on something comfortable and asexual. And I began to think too much about weight. I’d always been thin, or at least fine, I’d always been athletic and hadn’t thought much more about it. I was happy, satisfied, and didn’t know what all the fuss was about with other girls’ obsessions with weight loss. Then in the two years of trying to get pregnant, of obsession with trying to get pregnant, the books told me weight gain was a good sign. And with my tendency to eat to relieve stress, I gained weight even before I got pregnant with Dylan. Then at my pregnant height I was 208 pounds. And not worried about it. But after a certain number of pounds lost after she was born I couldn’t take any more off.
Who knew? I know that apparently the whole straight white female world knows this, but I didn’t know. My need for relief from stress through chocolate was high, especially when the kids were little. It was hard to work out, hard to find the time for myself. It sounds trite but that’s how it was.
The weird thing is that I felt thinking about weight was a straight girl issue—for me it really was. So that I was somehow giving in, or being traitorous, to care about weight. It was not my conception of dykedom to care about weight. Especially to care about calories. I of course had no money or no desire for Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers—that was beneath the athletic carefree me and not something a self-respecting dyke paid attention to. So when a few months ago I sneaked onto the online site Calorie Counter, and actually found it useful, I felt illicit, and guilty, and … straight. My athleticism and my dykedom have always and are still related for me. I am strong, athletic, like having muscles, dykely. It’s a way of loving myself, my body. I know there are plenty of Olympic athletes who are straight. But there is also Martina Navratilova, and Billy Jean King, two of the earliest celebrities to come out when I was young.
Here I was mired mostly happily in the home, with my 2.3 kids (almost) and my dog (well two) and instead of a white picket fence a dilapidated urban fence with too much glass on the sidewalk. Definitely culturally straight, and straight if you watched me coming into the playground or into the grocery store. I had a silver wedding band on instead of gold one, sure. I had the HRC sticker on my car but so many don’t know what that means. So my reluctance to act ‘straight’ by losing weight—such a girly girl thing—helped make me stuck feeling bad. But I realized I had caught myself on the horns of the dichotomy: If dykedom were defined in opposition to straight girlhood, then the binary oppositions lined up like this:
Gay Straight
_____________________
Casual Dressed up
Athlete wimpy non-muscular girl
No make up makeup
No fashion fashion
Rebellious conforming
Athlete sorority girl
Self-defined societally defined
Self-initiating defined by others (men or peer competition)
But also, to my detriment, like this:
Gay Straight
_______________________________
Fat thin
No kids mom
Works stay at home
Doesn’t care Obsesses about
about appearance appearance
Then I went bra shopping. I don’t know why my mom had failed to give me this experience. Perhaps it was mercy. I only know that bras were something I rarely bought, and rarely thought about, pre-kids. When pregnant my breasts blossomed, and afterwards I nursed for many years, so I knew something about nursing bras. During and after that my breasts stayed huge (for me). And while I realized an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with my bras I was too busy to pay attention. Then Susan had a wedding to go to, and her bootcamp friends decided to help her find a great outfit. All well and good, but then they went bra shopping, and I went along. I mean really went bra shopping, we had the name in hand of the best customer attendant at Nordstroms at the Kenwood Mall, and we went in a group, and I was completely out of my element. I’d gone once before, to a bra fitter at Macy’s when I was pregnant and huge…but that was a focused, desperate experiment and I’d gotten only wire-free bras.
In the end, I went three times before I got one underwire I liked, and spent two months studying the HerRoom site online before buying seven bras from them, all but one of which I returned, an athletic bra without wires. How much work being heterosexual is! I did very much like how my breasts looked supported, having never thought about it that much before, since before my breasts were much smaller or I was nursing. Now I was a double D! I felt that if each article of clothing was going to be two months worth of full time work, then I’d never really become well dressed. Susan’s straight friends, on the other hand, her bootcamp buds, spent all day helping her shop for a little black dress—Susan’s first dress in a very long time—three people shopping a bit for themselves but mainly for the fourth, and coming back successful, only to say: well now it’s time to get a bra, and then shoes, and then accessories. So much work, I found it ridiculous, even as I loved the finished look.
All of which is to say that binary oppositions are best challenged and messed with, as Derrida tells us. But that it was hard in such a straight, conservative location to give up even any signs of gayness. If I’d been in San Francisco or Santa Cruz, where multiple representations of lesbiandom, dykedom, femmedom, queerdom, and bisexuality blossomed, then playing with my self image would not have been so hard. Here I felt less free, less able to enjoy the pleasures of my own possible images, perhaps like some black people who choose not to dress down because they think that it will (and it often does) make whites perceive them more negatively. I often felt invisible, and certainly not affirmed in my gayness,much less my gay momdom. What I would have given to have just one other gay parent at our school. So I need to complicate my own relations with my self-image, and de-dichotomize, I suppose. Working on it.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
On My Kids Configuring My Heterosexual(ish) Privilege
I’ve felt this over the years, at various levels of intensity, but it must be said: Kids make me more legitimate in this culture’s eyes. This Cincinnati conservative world. I can feel myself tense as I say the word “partner,” though I do say it, over and over again, refusing to closet myself. I don’t know how anyone does it, frankly—I mean, I do know why and can feel why they do it, at least in part—but there’s so much of my life that is bound up with Susan’s life. How would I refuse to talk about so much of it to my work colleagues? How do I refuse to say “my partner” to the secretary at the doctor’s office, even though I could care less about her and her relationship to gay rights? How can I not say to the nurse “my partner was sick for a while, and then Rylie, and now I think Dylan might have the sinus infection too?” I am gearing myself up to say “wife” now that Rylie said it referring to Susan on my behalf. I want to say that for the kids, also for legitimacy reasons. But it’s more likely to elicit a reaction of confusion, I fear, and possible homophobia. Also in front of the kids.
If I say “partner” with kids in tow, or if I say “my partner” while discussing my kids, I can feel the pull of legitimacy they bring to any occasion. Kids puts us on the heterosexual, normative map. It’s true. And that is a reassuring feeling, whether I want it to be or not. Judith Halberstam talks about and celebrates queers living out a prolonged adolescence in her work, mainly because of the lack of children. I therefore must become less queer, and more adult, for having had the kids, in the cultural view. I don’t mind the “more adult” part, having never been into all the bars and dancing that is supposedly part of a prolonged adolescence. And I am fifty years old, dammit, surely an adult. But the less queer? I don’t like the binary opposition that makes me less queer. And yet, and yet, what I want to talk about today is the relief it sometimes brings me. I walked into the garage of the hospital today, after we watched Susan give her talk at her Point of Care Scholar graduation, and they’d given our car a ticket because they thought an employee—Susan—had parked in visitor parking. I had to talk to three people about it—it was a $75 ticket—and it solved nothing in the end. However, I had kids in tow as I said the words “my partner works here” or I mentioned my kids somehow as I talked on the phone. The little snail trail of legitimacy…two little girls. No nothing wrong with them. They dress very femininely, they are obedient or seem well mannered for the most part, are acceptably cute. They are like carrying an American flag around everywhere, for a Muslim: I belong, I may seem as if a part of me doesn’t, but I do belong. And it works. The family configuration registers on people’s faces.
That increasing legitimacy makes me feel like Cherrie Moraga does when she says she will use her white skin privilege, again and again, if it helps get her and her lover out of bad situations. On the other hand I also have long hair now, and I shave my legs. It used to be I had a more dykely hairdo. But there’s the guilt as well, for passing. And fury, at how rigid people’s expectations are.
The thing is, I feel this I notice this every day I am out in the world with the kids, or even am on the phone making an appointment for one of them. That is an empowering—no not empowering—but legitimizing, a soothing of the ego, a reassurance that I won’t have to fight one more time—it’s shitty, really isn’t it? Think how often the kids legitimize me without me even being aware of it. It separates me from all those ‘adolescent’ gay folk, those rebellious fuck-you queers. And it feels good. Even as I hate the whole dichotomy, and part of me hates being mistaken for straight, especially by people I suspect and hope are gay. Lee Edelman, queer theorist extraordinaire, argues to the extreme, in essence: around the dichotomy, the binary opposition, of gay vs. straight: Well if straight means having kids and gay is its opposite, then gays should be anti-child, be pro-death, to strengthen the dichotomy and alter the valuation of it, to value our side of it. Which is of course absurd, and offensive, but at least it’s powerful, and it’s a direct attack on this invisible—and false—legitimacy I gain just by having children.
More to say…
If I say “partner” with kids in tow, or if I say “my partner” while discussing my kids, I can feel the pull of legitimacy they bring to any occasion. Kids puts us on the heterosexual, normative map. It’s true. And that is a reassuring feeling, whether I want it to be or not. Judith Halberstam talks about and celebrates queers living out a prolonged adolescence in her work, mainly because of the lack of children. I therefore must become less queer, and more adult, for having had the kids, in the cultural view. I don’t mind the “more adult” part, having never been into all the bars and dancing that is supposedly part of a prolonged adolescence. And I am fifty years old, dammit, surely an adult. But the less queer? I don’t like the binary opposition that makes me less queer. And yet, and yet, what I want to talk about today is the relief it sometimes brings me. I walked into the garage of the hospital today, after we watched Susan give her talk at her Point of Care Scholar graduation, and they’d given our car a ticket because they thought an employee—Susan—had parked in visitor parking. I had to talk to three people about it—it was a $75 ticket—and it solved nothing in the end. However, I had kids in tow as I said the words “my partner works here” or I mentioned my kids somehow as I talked on the phone. The little snail trail of legitimacy…two little girls. No nothing wrong with them. They dress very femininely, they are obedient or seem well mannered for the most part, are acceptably cute. They are like carrying an American flag around everywhere, for a Muslim: I belong, I may seem as if a part of me doesn’t, but I do belong. And it works. The family configuration registers on people’s faces.
That increasing legitimacy makes me feel like Cherrie Moraga does when she says she will use her white skin privilege, again and again, if it helps get her and her lover out of bad situations. On the other hand I also have long hair now, and I shave my legs. It used to be I had a more dykely hairdo. But there’s the guilt as well, for passing. And fury, at how rigid people’s expectations are.
The thing is, I feel this I notice this every day I am out in the world with the kids, or even am on the phone making an appointment for one of them. That is an empowering—no not empowering—but legitimizing, a soothing of the ego, a reassurance that I won’t have to fight one more time—it’s shitty, really isn’t it? Think how often the kids legitimize me without me even being aware of it. It separates me from all those ‘adolescent’ gay folk, those rebellious fuck-you queers. And it feels good. Even as I hate the whole dichotomy, and part of me hates being mistaken for straight, especially by people I suspect and hope are gay. Lee Edelman, queer theorist extraordinaire, argues to the extreme, in essence: around the dichotomy, the binary opposition, of gay vs. straight: Well if straight means having kids and gay is its opposite, then gays should be anti-child, be pro-death, to strengthen the dichotomy and alter the valuation of it, to value our side of it. Which is of course absurd, and offensive, but at least it’s powerful, and it’s a direct attack on this invisible—and false—legitimacy I gain just by having children.
More to say…
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The Trouble with Peggy Orenstein's book Cinderella Ate My Daughter
I love this feminist author and journalist, and have taught her in class. I still remember the complete, loaded silence that greeted Peggy Orenstein’s research in Flux that showed that every teenage girl interviewed in the article we’d just read had felt not sure about what gave her sexual pleasure, except for one, who had gotten a vibrator from her aunt. Then Orenstein came out with Cinderella Ate My Daughter… and I gobbled it up. Most mothering books don’t have such an explicit feminist view or pedigree, and I was excited to see what Orenstein would do with the media’s effect on young girls. Her book about her long journey to have a child, Waiting for Daisy, was one I cherished in my own journey and had been a New York Times bestseller. I liked her.
The book generated lots of interest among the school moms and even in our lesbian moms group, and it took a while for it to become available from the library. Peggy Orenstein talks about the recently increasing gender segregation of toys by color as a company-driven phenomenon, so that each family might have to buy two of each toy. She talks about the enormity of the onslaught on our kids by sophisticated marketing strategies, and does a helpful and elucidating riff on Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus and other girls in the Disney factory, and their frequent and worrisome morphing from super good girl-role model to celebrity who uses sex in the most pedestrian and depressing of fashions, as dominant in her persona. But solutions? Analysis?—not so much.
At the end of the book, after traveling through American Girl Dolls, the Disney girls, the Disney Princesses as marketing ploy, and many other good things she notices, her ultimate critique is next to nothing, namely:
"Daisy's mix-up gave me the opening I needed to talk with her ("with" being the operative word) about the way the film had presented girls and women, to solicit her own ideas about it. That, in the end, is the best weapon we parents have, short of enrolling our daughters in one of those schools where kids knit all day (or moving to Sweden; marketing to children under twelve there is actually *illegal*--can you believe it?). We have only so much control over the images and products to which they are exposed, and even that will diminish over time. It is strategic then, --absolutely vital--to think through our own values and limits early, to consider what we approve or disapprove of and why. I can't say what others' personal threshhold ought to be: That depends on one's child, one's parenting style, one's judgment, one's own personal experience. It would be disingenuous to claim that Disney Princess diapers or Ty Girlz or *Hannah Montana* or *Twilight* or the latest Shakira video or a Facebook account is inherently harmful. Each is, however a moment in the round-the clock-all-pervasive media machine aimed at out daughter--and at us--from womb-to-tomb; one that, again and again, presents femininity as performance, sexuality as performance, identity as performance, and each of those traits as available for a price. It tells girls that how you look is more important than how you feel...." (p. 182)
And that’s it. That’s the height of a books’ worth of marshaling of the argument through facts and anecdotes. After this she winds down the book for a few pages and it’s over. For my money, this is a cynical ploy on Orenstein’s part to be mainstream enough, to not be perceived as a screaming, overly political kind of feminist. And it’s worked, this book too is a bestseller. But American Girl Dolls, the Disney girls, the Disney Princesses as marketing ploy, and many other good things she notices, get diminished as she pulls her punches at the end here.
I was furious with her: the main answer to being stuck in this culture is to talk to your daughter about what she sees? After so much work? Individualize the solution? That’s not a legitimate answer. An easy step she doesn’t even take is to say “write your congressperson or join a women’s/mom’s group in advocating for no advertising to kids under 12”. She seems to take advertiser’s right to try to brainwash our kids as their Jefferson-given right to free speech.
And, speaking as a Waldorf parent, I like our school’s emphasis on knitting—and I presume there is a silent dig there at Waldorf’s attempts to have their schoolchildren be media-free.
Dylan as I write is still experiencing the worst sleep anxiety of her life, because she and Rylie saw Disney’s Jungle Book. At the time she said she was fine, the movie wasn’t scary, and for a few days afterwards she was fine. But then —and she is six and a half not a toddler anymore—she became scared. Every night it’s been the same thing: I’m scared of that snake Mommy. That snake can’t really do that can it Mommy? That snake can’t come here can it Mommy? I wish I’d never seen that video Mommy. I can’t stop thinking about that snake. Poor thing. I saw half of it with them, even. It’s known for its songs and as the last work that Disney worked on himself. And I admit I didn’t really see the scary snake. But seeing it through her eyes the movie is just a bunch of chances for Mowgli to get killed or hurt, and how he protects himself or is protected by two father figures.
Peggy: Seriously? Writing your congressperson is too political for you?
My answer: Yes put out a law forbidding advertising to kids under 12. In our family there is flexibility on media. For example, we allow dvds every Sunday morning these days, so the moms can sleep in. But I see how each video becomes part of my kids' vocabulary.
More to say…
The book generated lots of interest among the school moms and even in our lesbian moms group, and it took a while for it to become available from the library. Peggy Orenstein talks about the recently increasing gender segregation of toys by color as a company-driven phenomenon, so that each family might have to buy two of each toy. She talks about the enormity of the onslaught on our kids by sophisticated marketing strategies, and does a helpful and elucidating riff on Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus and other girls in the Disney factory, and their frequent and worrisome morphing from super good girl-role model to celebrity who uses sex in the most pedestrian and depressing of fashions, as dominant in her persona. But solutions? Analysis?—not so much.
At the end of the book, after traveling through American Girl Dolls, the Disney girls, the Disney Princesses as marketing ploy, and many other good things she notices, her ultimate critique is next to nothing, namely:
"Daisy's mix-up gave me the opening I needed to talk with her ("with" being the operative word) about the way the film had presented girls and women, to solicit her own ideas about it. That, in the end, is the best weapon we parents have, short of enrolling our daughters in one of those schools where kids knit all day (or moving to Sweden; marketing to children under twelve there is actually *illegal*--can you believe it?). We have only so much control over the images and products to which they are exposed, and even that will diminish over time. It is strategic then, --absolutely vital--to think through our own values and limits early, to consider what we approve or disapprove of and why. I can't say what others' personal threshhold ought to be: That depends on one's child, one's parenting style, one's judgment, one's own personal experience. It would be disingenuous to claim that Disney Princess diapers or Ty Girlz or *Hannah Montana* or *Twilight* or the latest Shakira video or a Facebook account is inherently harmful. Each is, however a moment in the round-the clock-all-pervasive media machine aimed at out daughter--and at us--from womb-to-tomb; one that, again and again, presents femininity as performance, sexuality as performance, identity as performance, and each of those traits as available for a price. It tells girls that how you look is more important than how you feel...." (p. 182)
And that’s it. That’s the height of a books’ worth of marshaling of the argument through facts and anecdotes. After this she winds down the book for a few pages and it’s over. For my money, this is a cynical ploy on Orenstein’s part to be mainstream enough, to not be perceived as a screaming, overly political kind of feminist. And it’s worked, this book too is a bestseller. But American Girl Dolls, the Disney girls, the Disney Princesses as marketing ploy, and many other good things she notices, get diminished as she pulls her punches at the end here.
I was furious with her: the main answer to being stuck in this culture is to talk to your daughter about what she sees? After so much work? Individualize the solution? That’s not a legitimate answer. An easy step she doesn’t even take is to say “write your congressperson or join a women’s/mom’s group in advocating for no advertising to kids under 12”. She seems to take advertiser’s right to try to brainwash our kids as their Jefferson-given right to free speech.
And, speaking as a Waldorf parent, I like our school’s emphasis on knitting—and I presume there is a silent dig there at Waldorf’s attempts to have their schoolchildren be media-free.
Dylan as I write is still experiencing the worst sleep anxiety of her life, because she and Rylie saw Disney’s Jungle Book. At the time she said she was fine, the movie wasn’t scary, and for a few days afterwards she was fine. But then —and she is six and a half not a toddler anymore—she became scared. Every night it’s been the same thing: I’m scared of that snake Mommy. That snake can’t really do that can it Mommy? That snake can’t come here can it Mommy? I wish I’d never seen that video Mommy. I can’t stop thinking about that snake. Poor thing. I saw half of it with them, even. It’s known for its songs and as the last work that Disney worked on himself. And I admit I didn’t really see the scary snake. But seeing it through her eyes the movie is just a bunch of chances for Mowgli to get killed or hurt, and how he protects himself or is protected by two father figures.
Peggy: Seriously? Writing your congressperson is too political for you?
My answer: Yes put out a law forbidding advertising to kids under 12. In our family there is flexibility on media. For example, we allow dvds every Sunday morning these days, so the moms can sleep in. But I see how each video becomes part of my kids' vocabulary.
More to say…
Saturday, May 28, 2011
A "Do You Want a Dad" Conversation
I am almost asleep in our co-sleeping bed. I am wishing I were asleep and pretty tired. Susan is in the bathroom doing something useful. I am lying in bed with my eyes closed. And suddenly I hear, from D&R sitting close to me on the bed playing, they’ve been playing for a while:
“Do you wish we had a dad?”
“I don’t know do you wish we had a dad?”
Dylan: “Yah…no…” A pause. “Dads tell jokes.” A little wistfully, like that part would be fun, but also like that is the main dad role as far as they’ve discovered that is different from what they already have. I am deeply amused, feel unfunny for a while there.
Then our usual day starts.
“Do you wish we had a dad?”
“I don’t know do you wish we had a dad?”
Dylan: “Yah…no…” A pause. “Dads tell jokes.” A little wistfully, like that part would be fun, but also like that is the main dad role as far as they’ve discovered that is different from what they already have. I am deeply amused, feel unfunny for a while there.
Then our usual day starts.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
On Schnozz-Kissing and Girls with Short Hair
We are getting out of the car I after picked up Dylan and Rylie at school. Dylan is telling a story. She said she invented schnozz kissing. Schnozz kissing is when a boy takes his schnozz and touches a girl’s face with it. “That’s a schnozz kiss, and I invented it Mommy,” she says.
Oh, I say, great. Then as I close the car door and we head for the stairs I say oh so casually, and what about two girls, can they schnozz-kiss too?
And she says, “Yes but one of them has to have short hair.” Which is as close to talking about butch/femme (or Susan’s short hair versus my long hair) as we’re ever likely to come for a good long while.
Oh, I say, great. Then as I close the car door and we head for the stairs I say oh so casually, and what about two girls, can they schnozz-kiss too?
And she says, “Yes but one of them has to have short hair.” Which is as close to talking about butch/femme (or Susan’s short hair versus my long hair) as we’re ever likely to come for a good long while.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Ry's Class on Gay Moms
I was in Rylie’s classroom, visiting, because I had been taking photos for Dylan’s class photobook, and felt obliged to spend some time with Rylie as well. Two things happened that I wanted to mention:
First, everything is so peaceful in the room, Miss Cathy, sitting in the rocking chair, focused on the kids, some kids in a “house” right in front of her made of playstands, some kids fingerknitting, some kids playing on the margins, Miss Cathy clearly at the center, holding everything. Rylie is so happy to see me we are playing, she and Jack and Sayeeda are showing off their fingerknitting to me, Akmal too, Ry gives me two to put on my wrists right then. Then Jack says, happily, “Rylie, come on, I’ll race you in fingerknitting!” Even though Ry says no, my pleasure in the moment is not less: racing in fingerknitting???!!!
Second, I am sitting next to Rylie, my back to the half of the class at the other table, at snack. There is an argument going on behind me and I don’t catch it all, but I catch someone (a boy’s voice) saying “Yes two girls can too marry… Rylie’s moms are married.” And then a jumble and then another boy says, in our general direction, “ My two uncles are married.” Or something which implies a gay male partnership. I let it slide, I get to let it slide. Our presence here, my presence here, Ry’s presence here, is enough to change the dynamics.
First, everything is so peaceful in the room, Miss Cathy, sitting in the rocking chair, focused on the kids, some kids in a “house” right in front of her made of playstands, some kids fingerknitting, some kids playing on the margins, Miss Cathy clearly at the center, holding everything. Rylie is so happy to see me we are playing, she and Jack and Sayeeda are showing off their fingerknitting to me, Akmal too, Ry gives me two to put on my wrists right then. Then Jack says, happily, “Rylie, come on, I’ll race you in fingerknitting!” Even though Ry says no, my pleasure in the moment is not less: racing in fingerknitting???!!!
Second, I am sitting next to Rylie, my back to the half of the class at the other table, at snack. There is an argument going on behind me and I don’t catch it all, but I catch someone (a boy’s voice) saying “Yes two girls can too marry… Rylie’s moms are married.” And then a jumble and then another boy says, in our general direction, “ My two uncles are married.” Or something which implies a gay male partnership. I let it slide, I get to let it slide. Our presence here, my presence here, Ry’s presence here, is enough to change the dynamics.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Nightmare
So we saw Lisa Meeks, the lesbian and pro-lesbian lawyer, last Monday morning at 9:30 after Susan dropped the kids at school. It felt normal and like about time. I had forced us to do it because of two things: First, last August when Dylan had sprung open her chin on Amanda and Jenn’s pool, the people at Children’s were so kind but immediately it was all about who was the “mom,” who was the guardian, and we were terrified. Even though we were both there and it would be all right. We were terrified. We must have signed “responsibility’ signatures about six times over the course of the visit. It was the biggest WHAT IF ever, what if I hadn’t been there, what if next time it was Rylie and Susan couldn’t be there. We sort of had powers of attorney, but didn’t carry them…. It turned out on looking we never did one for Rylie at all.
In any case. The one that put me over the edge was Karen, at Waldorf, asking for “proof” that Rylie lived in the house with me (who could show proof of residency) or Susan (who couldn’t at first because all the utilities were in my name). This was in order to get the EdChoice scholarship from the state that makes it possible for our kids to go to Waldorf. If Ry lived in the house then why was Susan listed as her Mom. Etc etc. All to say, we found the mortgage statement that Susan is on, and that was good enough. Karen said it wasn’t prejudice there were so many people trying to game the system that they just had to follow their rules. Karen didn’t know that second female parents couldn’t adopt in Ohio. Didn’t know. I walked out trying to contain my sudden fury and fear.
So we saw Lisa Meeks on Monday. And at first it seemed so normal and then after about five minutes I got so choked up that I was close to tears the whole rest of the hour and 15 min we were there. So fearful, so angry that some rules challenged our family and someone felt the right to. So frustrating. And that was before the very last thing, I showed her the contract Susan had signed as egg donor with the infertility clinic, and she ended up saying that according to Ohio law, if there’s a known egg donor then the child rightfully belongs to that parent, so that Dylan is Susan’s and not mine, despite my name on the birth certificate and my having given birth to her. Lisa went so far as to say, “Some judges might decide to go back and change that birth certificate.” I was beyond shell-shocked.
So last night I dreamed that my ex and I had broken up, and that I had to share the kids with her, fifty-fifty. And something about it seemed fair, but something else about it seemed so unfair. I’ve blocked a lot of the dream already, but on waking I thought it was about the Lisa Meeks thing, and having no rights to my own children and being so scared and angry about that. I think the feeling, the screaming feeling in the dream, was about loss of the kids, and how awful that felt. Nightmare.
In any case. The one that put me over the edge was Karen, at Waldorf, asking for “proof” that Rylie lived in the house with me (who could show proof of residency) or Susan (who couldn’t at first because all the utilities were in my name). This was in order to get the EdChoice scholarship from the state that makes it possible for our kids to go to Waldorf. If Ry lived in the house then why was Susan listed as her Mom. Etc etc. All to say, we found the mortgage statement that Susan is on, and that was good enough. Karen said it wasn’t prejudice there were so many people trying to game the system that they just had to follow their rules. Karen didn’t know that second female parents couldn’t adopt in Ohio. Didn’t know. I walked out trying to contain my sudden fury and fear.
So we saw Lisa Meeks on Monday. And at first it seemed so normal and then after about five minutes I got so choked up that I was close to tears the whole rest of the hour and 15 min we were there. So fearful, so angry that some rules challenged our family and someone felt the right to. So frustrating. And that was before the very last thing, I showed her the contract Susan had signed as egg donor with the infertility clinic, and she ended up saying that according to Ohio law, if there’s a known egg donor then the child rightfully belongs to that parent, so that Dylan is Susan’s and not mine, despite my name on the birth certificate and my having given birth to her. Lisa went so far as to say, “Some judges might decide to go back and change that birth certificate.” I was beyond shell-shocked.
So last night I dreamed that my ex and I had broken up, and that I had to share the kids with her, fifty-fifty. And something about it seemed fair, but something else about it seemed so unfair. I’ve blocked a lot of the dream already, but on waking I thought it was about the Lisa Meeks thing, and having no rights to my own children and being so scared and angry about that. I think the feeling, the screaming feeling in the dream, was about loss of the kids, and how awful that felt. Nightmare.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Dylan's Class on Gay Moms
Dear friends/family,
I wanted to share a story that Ms Colleen, Dylan's kindergarten teacher, told me on Friday, their last day of school, at the very end of the day when the kids had run off to play in the snow and she had me alone for a minute.
Now I love Ms Colleen, and Dylan does too. She is kindly, older, short and a bit plump, quiet but heart of love, full of integrity, a wide, pale face with softly red-dyed hair, Irish complexion and heritage. When I do drop-off or pick-up at the playground every day, she is usually too busy managing kids to talk. You can tell she knows her profession inside and out and loves her charges.
Colleen says that she'd wanted to tell me a story that had happened earlier that same week, Wednesday or Thursday. She is always telling her assistant teacher, she says, to let the kids work it out, to give them a chance, let them talk it through. So one kid, Aidan (the most-likely-to-get-in-trouble tough boy who loves football and war games, sensitive but often overly energetic) tells Piper (a girl), that he wants to marry her. Colleen says that that's old news, he's said that to her and about her again and again, he's had a crush for a long time. So Piper says "No, I don't want to marry you, I want to marry a reindeer."
And some kids say, "You can't marry a reindeer, it has to be a person."
And Piper says, "Well okay, I'll marry Camilla," who is one of her best friends (and female).
Then Aidan says, "You can't marry another girl, you have to marry a boy." And then Colleen says that all the kids in the class turned as one and said that that wasn't true, that she could marry a girl, that look: Dylan had two moms.
Calvin, shaggily blond and blue-eyed, perky as ever, adds, "Yes it's true; I've been to their house on a playdate and I've seen them."
And Nico, who Colleen says has been reading for two years now (rare especially at Waldorf), adds, "And it's been legal in some states for a while." I doubt Dylan or any of the other kids understood quite what that meant, but it was lovely for me to hear.
Colleen was obviously so proud that they came, as a group, to that conclusion, and that Dylan herself wasn't put on the spot. It was a good story for me to hear on the last day of school.
XOXO,
Yvonne
I wanted to share a story that Ms Colleen, Dylan's kindergarten teacher, told me on Friday, their last day of school, at the very end of the day when the kids had run off to play in the snow and she had me alone for a minute.
Now I love Ms Colleen, and Dylan does too. She is kindly, older, short and a bit plump, quiet but heart of love, full of integrity, a wide, pale face with softly red-dyed hair, Irish complexion and heritage. When I do drop-off or pick-up at the playground every day, she is usually too busy managing kids to talk. You can tell she knows her profession inside and out and loves her charges.
Colleen says that she'd wanted to tell me a story that had happened earlier that same week, Wednesday or Thursday. She is always telling her assistant teacher, she says, to let the kids work it out, to give them a chance, let them talk it through. So one kid, Aidan (the most-likely-to-get-in-trouble tough boy who loves football and war games, sensitive but often overly energetic) tells Piper (a girl), that he wants to marry her. Colleen says that that's old news, he's said that to her and about her again and again, he's had a crush for a long time. So Piper says "No, I don't want to marry you, I want to marry a reindeer."
And some kids say, "You can't marry a reindeer, it has to be a person."
And Piper says, "Well okay, I'll marry Camilla," who is one of her best friends (and female).
Then Aidan says, "You can't marry another girl, you have to marry a boy." And then Colleen says that all the kids in the class turned as one and said that that wasn't true, that she could marry a girl, that look: Dylan had two moms.
Calvin, shaggily blond and blue-eyed, perky as ever, adds, "Yes it's true; I've been to their house on a playdate and I've seen them."
And Nico, who Colleen says has been reading for two years now (rare especially at Waldorf), adds, "And it's been legal in some states for a while." I doubt Dylan or any of the other kids understood quite what that meant, but it was lovely for me to hear.
Colleen was obviously so proud that they came, as a group, to that conclusion, and that Dylan herself wasn't put on the spot. It was a good story for me to hear on the last day of school.
XOXO,
Yvonne
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Ry on Gods and Goddesses
It was September 12, 2010. Dylan, Rylie and I are sitting around having a slow lunch after school. We are chatting chatting it’s toward the end of the meal, and Ry says (something like): “I want ketchup on my head” (being silly)…then she looks at me and says, “I am asking the gods (hesitation) and goddesses… and (in a slightly higher squeal) Mr Nobody!” Then laughing… “Mr. Nobody please give me ketchup on my head… Mr. Nobody will give me ketchup on my head!”
I am amused, both by “goddesses” (which is because of me) and by the parallel between gods and goddesses and Mr Nobody, who is a creature they learned about from the kids at school, who say he is always the one who breaks things, or doesn’t put things away, or otherwise does things wrong.
I am amused, both by “goddesses” (which is because of me) and by the parallel between gods and goddesses and Mr Nobody, who is a creature they learned about from the kids at school, who say he is always the one who breaks things, or doesn’t put things away, or otherwise does things wrong.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
