Time for this week’s discussion thread. Now that Pride is almost over and the hot weather is upon us, what summer plans do you have for you and your family? Our son is in a few local summer programs for July, but we’re hoping to do family stuff in August, so I’ve left that pretty […]
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.) A long-running study of lesbian families created through donor insemination made headlines June 7 when it published new results showing that teens from these families tend to do better than their peers socially and academically. While these findings from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study are positive, they
Let’s start the week with a roundup. Politics and Law Iceland’s Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir and her partner, Jonina Leosdottir, transformed their civil union into a marriage Sunday as the country’s marriage equality law went into effect. Sigurdardottir has two grown sons from a previous marriage. A Wisconsin appeals court ruled that a woman seeking
The U.S. Labor Department clarified that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) gives an employee who assumes the role of caring for a child the parental right to family leave—regardless of the legal or biological relationship. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at a State Department event commemorating Pride Month, and equated LGBT rights
Did any of you watch Gary and Tony Have a Baby, the story of two gay men starting a family, last night on CNN? What did you think? There have been a variety of opinions about the show (even leaving aside the far-right nonsense)—but if you haven’t read them yet, I hope you’ll leave a comment
Helen and I discuss how we can’t believe we now have a seven-year-old, and why our son’s birthday party means coming out to new neighbors. We also share the adventures in pond life around our house and how teaching science to kids doesn’t necessarily mean knowing the difference between a pollywog and a tadpole. (If
Mombian is my first home for parenting-related matters, but I have also been writing on LGBT issues elsewhere. Here are a few pieces I’ve done round and about that may be of interest to some of you: First, a couple that do touch on parenting: “Homosexuality, Porn, and the Classroom“: Children of same-sex couples should
CNN’s hour-long profile of two gay dads, Gary and Tony Have a Baby, airs Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET. In preparation, CNN has put together a study guide of “Before-Viewing Discussion Questions,” aimed at students in grade 11 and up. They include: “How would you define the traditional American family? Can you think of
Politics and Law The Labor Department will expand its interpretation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to allow non-legal, non-biological parents to take leave to care for the legal children of a same-sex partner. Labor won’t officially announce the news until Wednesday, so stay tuned for further details. The AP reported that the
Five years ago today I began this little blogging endeavor. My son was barely two, just learning to talk; I was barely beginning to realize the full range of things it means to be a mother. Now, he is finishing first grade, reading anything he lays his eyes on, building complicated Lego spaceships, and riding
