"When Love, Pride and Youth Collide"

"I think women who kiss women are weird."

I should have seen that coming, but I didn’t. It seemed to come out of nowhere, like a sucker punch. I’d been busying myself balancing my own new family life, career, and extended family responsibilities, but while sometimes you can immerse yourself in one world, you forget there are many.

I know it was like that for my wife, Amy too.

We'd just had a great day. We'd gotten my niece, met our temple friends and their families on the Pier, hung out at a waterpark all day, then packed up to find parking just in front of Washington Square Park on 5th Avenue perfectly poised to rest and watch the dykes come marching in. It was NYC Pride - our first with our newborn son, and our second with my older niece in tow. Afterwards, niece (not completely dried off and in her last change of clothes) was one to the first to dive into the fountain for a refreshing casting off of conformity. I'd expected this conversation at some point but was surprised, unprepared, and, let's face it, a little disappointed, to actually be having it during Pride.

But I mean, she's six.

"Do you think it's weird when guys and girls kiss?" I asked a second before Amy's arm gently but firmly crossed over mine.

"Yeah" she’d said. I sighed. I felt such relief that this might turn out to just be a kid’s aversion to sex thing. "I mean, - no, no, no…" she added. "I thought you said when guys kiss guys." Then, she gathered her thoughts together in perfect succession with the Republican majority, and spoke with the finality of absolutely secure, systematically measured authority: "I think it's weird when girls kiss girls and guys kiss guys."

Kids don't think about things for long. They've got too much to learn. They're too busy growing, stumbling. I knew she didn’t realize what this felt like for me. If a punch is thrown unintentionally, does it hurt? Or maybe that was Amy's arm? My philosophical musings kept me entertained for a while after that.

The car ride home was uneventful, but it was strangely quiet. The dinner after was too. My poor mother-in-law met us for pizza all happy on the warmth of summer and Merlot. She wasn't even aware of how Amy's uncharacteristic snap at Crystal's straw flick (in all fairness, Amy didn't know it was accidental at the time) was fully loaded with the pain of lingering and unprocessed resentment. I took Crystal outside when I saw the tear in her eye. I knew she was playing up the drama, but what's childhood for if not to try out a few personas? We sat propped up on my truck, kicking our feet and looking at the sky. We talked a little about her and her life - nothing too serious. But something had changed. She'd grown, and grown beyond my control. I needed to deal with this. But how?

Later that night, we got the baby into his crib, Crystal tucked into her away-bed, and as usual Amy and I went into each other's arms - a little more restless for the wear this time.

After a long talk about hurt, pain, betrayal, teaching philosophies, childhood memories and circumstances, parenting plans, the state of the world and the future of our family; we finally fell asleep with a plan. I was proud of us as a couple this night.

The next morning, I woke Crystal up. (This is very unusual.)

"We have to start getting ready if I'm to take you home before Amy, Kody, and I go to the parade."

She was still rubbing her eyes before delivering the usual. "Can't I stay with you?"

I stopped, and sighed. "Well, if you want to come we'll have to have a talk about something first."

She leaned back, a little resigned but attentive.

"Amy and I didn't think you'd want to come to the parade today because of what you said yesterday." She looked confused. "You remember what you said?” She shook her head, no. “…about girls who kiss girls and guys who kiss guys?" I paused and waited for recognition. I got it, but I don't think she'd suspected this had affected us at all. "You know how people kiss people they love?" I got nods. "Well, there may be more guys who kiss girls in the world, and that may make it seem like the others are strange or even wrong, but the people you called ‘weird' are often called worse. Sometimes they are even really hurt for this.”
“See” I continued, “It’s easy to judge. It’s even easier when you’re judging something you don’t relate to or have any experience with. But you can’t judge at the same time that you love.”
“You understand people often kiss when they love, right?” (Nods) “It should be easier to love than to judge, but sometimes it’s not. Still, no matter what, - no matter what people do or say, these people love themselves and each other anyway. That's what pride is. It's when you face something difficult and come out better for it. People who don't go through it, can't always understand. Sometimes these people celebrate that love, like when they march together in a parade. That's the parade we're going to today. You know our rainbow flag? You'll see a lot of them. That rainbow flag is every color because it's for everybody. Everybody has a right to love and be loved. This what that flag is about."

"That's what that means?" I know I blushed.

"Yes. It's for girls who love girls, and guys who love guys, and all the people who love and feel proud of those people for loving who they want to love. Now, I know you know Amy and I have been together since before you were born. But I don't think you realized when you called girls who kiss girls `weird,' that you were also talking about me and Amy." I don't know how, but she looked genuinely surprised at this point. I guess Amy and I are less demonstrative around her than I'd thought. "Married people love and sometimes kiss each other. I know you don't see us kiss too often, but you have seen us kiss. It's just that you're used to us being together, just like most people are used to guys and girls kissing each other. They just see that more often."
She was wide-eyed and nodding at this point.

"To be honest, I think you hurt Amy's feelings a little yesterday. Me, I don't care because I am weird in many ways and proud of them" (she laughed) "...but I think Aunt Amy felt very hurt by what you said even though she loves you no matter what. And this is what we really need to talk about. Did you mean to hurt Amy's feelings?"

She shook her head vehemently "No."

"So what do we do when we accidentally hurt some one's feelings?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't really know you guys kiss."

"It's okay. Maybe you can tell her you're sorry when she wakes up. That will make her feel a little better."

Of course, I knew Amy was listening at the door.

At this point, I put her on my lap. "I want you to know that you can think whatever you want. We will always love you." I paused, because I really wanted her to know this. But I felt the need to clarify things I hadn't realized needed clarifying. "Remember how we went to the picnic earlier?" She nodded. "And the water park?" She nodded again. "And how we played with those babies last week in the room with all those mommies? And marched with our friends on the island the week before that?" She recalled all of these. "All those families are like me and Amy. They are all woman who love women, or men who love men." I didn't expect her to comprehend every significance, but what could it hurt? "You know Tia Viviana and Tia Esmerelda?"

"Yes."

"They love each other and are married just like me and Amy."

"They are?"

"Yes. So are all those ladies we were with last week, and all the people we were with yesterday. See, I don't mind you thinking whatever you want to think, but this is a big part of my life. It's a big part that I can't share with you if you are going to call these people `weird.' While I love you, I just don't want their feelings to be hurt. They go through enough."

She was quietly digesting all this.

"Listen honey, you're growing up and have to start making choices about who you're going to be. Remember, you can think anything you want, and the people who call those of us who love each other `weird' can also think - and even say - anything they want as long as they don't hurt anybody. Sometimes people think they are doing the right thing when they say what's on their mind, and I'm not worried about how they feel because I understand. There was a time I felt the same way. It was only after really thinking about it that I was able to realize how much I love Amy. And those people may never feel the same way I do and that's fine. I know that for some of them, their actions stem from love. They may love me, and mean well. They may even someday change their mind about what they think. That's up to them and entirely their business. They just can't march in our parade."

She apologized to Amy when Amy came out, but didn't want any more rainbow tattoos. I took this as fitting and fair enough. She begged us to still come to the parade. After about an hour of hanging out on the back of a parade float off 5th Avenue and Madison soaking up the light and color and atmosphere though, she suddenly turned and begged me for a white baseball cap a vendor was selling on the corner with two women symbols "...like you and Amy" she said

- and the symbols were in rainbow.

I'm not sure I'd ever been as proud as I was that day.

"Daddy" (published in Gay Parenting Magazine Online Blog, June 2013) https://gayparentmag.com/daddy

 ...comes flying out of my 3 year old boy's mouth this year like a dirty word he must have picked up on the street.  My wife and I joke that we don't know where he "picks up that kind of language" but the sting for me goes deeper than our fleeting sarcasm reveals.  Of course, it's directed at me - the bigger, bulkier but-not-so-much-butchier one I guess with the insecurity chip on her shoulders.  Why am I the "Daddy"?  I'm the one who does the dishes.  I'm the one who gets flowers on Valentine's Day.  It was such a catharsis in my life the day my wife asked me to marry her with a beautiful diamond engagement ring complete with a rainbow of precious stones around the band.  She gave me back something that day I didn't realize I'd lost - my sexuality - and boy do I fill the part!  I'm the one who wants to stay up all night when we fight if we have to in order to "talk things out."  I'm the milder disciplinarian. They ask me when they want lollipops for breakfast, and they occasionally get it!  My wife?  She's the breadwinner.  She makes the big decisions.  It's Ema who charts the family's course through this world.  So why does he look up and curiously decide to call me "Daddy"?  She probably wouldn't mind.  This just goes against the narrative of us that I'd designed.

I'm calm though.  I'm a New York City public high school teacher - I can handle anything!  I ignore it.  I ignore it the second time - the third - the fourth. We call this "Planned ignoring".  Anyone know how to make God laugh?  The first day I survive.  The second is when I start losing some sleep.  By the third, I'm consulting Facebook lesbian mommies and our MTM group (Modern Tribal Momas) for advice.  Has anybody experienced this before?  Has everybody survived? What are the causes?  What are the cures?  I don't get too far.  God blessed this lesbian couple quickly ahead of all our friends with not one but two ...boys.  Here I am yet again adrift in a sea of uncharted waters.  This is not unlike my whole adolescence!

One night, it dawns on me to explore his reading library that we began back when we had the luxury of such time and idealism in college.  I'm all too quick to pass up "Heather Has Two Mommies" falsely dismissing it due to the stereotypically butchie carpenter mom and feeling averse to bring linked with that association.  My insecurity already steers me away from the other mother's role of "Doctor".  I find another title in our diversity collection: "Do I have a Daddy?" and wind up in a pinch reading that to my son.  While his eyes were wide with interest and we read together with wild presence we were both disappointed by that mother 's loose retort to her son's inquiry about why Daddy just left them. The only wisdom that mom had to offer my son and I was that she "didn't know" but that she loved him and that was all that mattered blah, blah, blah...

It turns out that a mixture of i-g-n-o-r-e, another look at (and nightly ritual read) of "Heather Has Two Mommies", and some genuine one-on-one chats have thankfully nudged this "Daddy" stage into a phase of the past.  I'm not sure that I went about this the proper way, and there is plenty to be said about the need for some quality children's literature on this subject, but I can tell you that I am "Mom" again. This was compounded just the other day when a song about moms was being sung on television.  I snuggled up around him and he leaned back against me in such a way that I felt we'd successfully settled the issue, and he's been waking me up with a special smile and a "Good morning Mom" that is truly the best part of my waking up!  Each time he says the word "Mom" now it seems to be with renewed conviction.  I know the subject will once again arise in our lives and as they get older they'll demand deeper and deeper explanations of all sorts of issues, but for now I feel pride in the fact that I've dealt with our first direct same-sex parenting issue and survived to tell the tale.  Thank God I managed to navigate this one with my natural genitals intacked.  Who knows what could be threatened next time!