My parents divorced when I was in elementary school. But I was still surprised when my mom told me that she had fallen in love with a woman. I got over it pretty quickly. I knew her partner because she and my mom had been friends for a couple years already. It was Boston in the 90s so the lesbian community was pretty comfortable being “out.” No one really even bothered me about having “two moms” tho I didn’t think of it that way and neither did they. My mom was my mom. My dad was my dad. My mom’s partner was her partner. My dad’s wife was his wife.
I liked my mom’s partner. Her name is Tracy and she’s really tender-hearted and kind. And they are actually still together and I’m 30 so more than 20 years. But they are pretty much the only ones. There was a whole group of women who hung out in those early years and many of them were partnered up. But over time they would split up and then often start a relationship with another woman in the group and then split up again. Some of them ended up dating and marrying men later so when I hear people say that you can’t change your orientation I just laugh. But my mom and Tracy are still together.
Some people think that my parents divorced because my mom was gay. The truth is that the divorce was complicated and my mom is gay because it’s safe. Growing up she learned that men weren’t safe and she would tell you that she wasn’t “born gay.” You would not look at my mom and be like- “lesbian.” Tracy, yes. My mom, no.
My mom is a great mom. I’m still really close to her. She’s always been really kind and so compassionate to everyone so she’s an inspiration to me. I want to be like her even now. I am friends with Tracy too. But my mom and I have a strong bond.
I guess the thing I think about marriage and parenting is this. My mom and Tracy are stable (tho most of their friends weren’t really) and there wasn’t a lot of drama or friction or anything growing up with them. But when people talk about how all kids need is love, and gender doesn’t matter I’m like “no.” I needed my dad. And it’s a good thing that I still saw him a lot after the divorce because I know that he kept me out of trouble. I read about girls going off the deep end when their father isn’t around and I know that could have been me. I think Tracy is great but she just couldn’t substitute for my dad. She couldn’t. Good thing she didn’t try because then we could just be friends.
There is really something special about the father-daughter bond I think. His opinion mattered so much. And that he liked me and came to my speech meets and volleyball games- that was everything. When I disappointed him, that’s when I knew that I needed to shape up. My mom was always great too but she didn’t talk the same way to me as my dad and I really wanted his attention and wanted to please him. I had friends who didn’t have a dad at all and I know that they envied how my dad would take me out on father-daughter dates when I visited him on the weekend.
I think that lesbians and gay men can be good parents. I know they can because my mom was a great mom. But when people say that two moms can replace a dad or two dads can replace a mom I am like “You don’t even know.” You don’t know how I needed my dad. And my mom and Tracy are both great!! But they cannot be my dad.
But I can’t say this anywhere. I wrote this only because I didn’t have to share my real name. One time right when the Supreme Court was going to rule, I said that kids need their mom AND their dad and then I had people calling me a homophobe and saying that I hate my mom. I was like, WTH. But I did want to share this because people need to know that you can love gay people and still say that kids need their mom AND their dad.
Uhh some people are bisexual. That doesn’t mean they change their sexual orientation just because they switch between a relationship with a man and then a woman or vice versa. It simply means they are attracted to both men and women.
Because that’s the most important takeaway from this article…seriously? Whether her mother is bisexual or lesbian because it’s safe is beside the point. Children need their actual mother and their actual father. Anything else is experienced as loss. Mom’s lesbian partner could never replace her father. Her father’s new wife could never replace her mother.
It seems to me the writer of this article had a relationship with both her actual mother and her actual father. She also had step-parents. Not unlike the children of many heterosexual parents who divorce and re-marry. I really don’t see how this article is a good argument for the anti-gay beliefs Them Before Us exists to promote. (By the way, hiding behind children to justify your own faith-based bigotries is a hideous form of cowardice. Much like racists used to do: “I’m not against interracial marriage; but what about the children??”)
You, Joseph, don’t really understand what you’re talking about, do you. Them before us brings you studies, case stories and arguments to show that children need mother and father. That fathers father differently than mothers mother is a scientific fact. That children fare poorly, when in any other kind of a family than that of their biological father married with their biological mother is a fact. That some of them want to speak is a fact. That gay-lobby won’t let them, is a fact. That Them before us is trying to hide an anti gay agenda behind these children is for one your baseless blame to avoid answering the real issues (which makes you actually the one hiding behind children btw.) and for other completely irrelevant on the fact, for example that Cassie recalls her friends envying her for her having a father. That Cassie is not a homophobe and that Cassie is a perfect person to tell you the meaning of a father to a daughter. Also your baseless charges could be multiplied on LGBTQ-movement. Have you ever seen, for example a gay-documentary that didn’t use children of gay couples as mascots? I remember several that do. And there was a gay-lobby’s Youtube-video which consisted solely of footage of these children targeting anti-PRIDE people with hate speak their “guardians” had no doubt put in their heads. Isn’t that using children for an agenda? Also, if you look carefully you’ll notice that them before us is also against surrogacy and other forms of producing fatherless/motherless kids when done by straight couples. How is that anti-gay bigotry?
Lassi Peltomaa, You said it very well. The author’s point is that children need, and have a right to, BOTH bio parents. The fact that she says, flat out, that she has a relationship w Tracy, BUT no one can replace her dad, shows that’s it’s more complicated that than the LGBT lobby wants us to think. I find it unsurprising that the LGB community sees bigotry in every shadow. They think they’re looking at a mirror. The narrow-minded hypocrisy and flat out hatred, of anyone who isn’t shaking pom poms is frankly unbelievable. Especially from a community that claims to have been “oppressed”.