As a lesbian mom, I’m always interested in stories by adult children of LGBT parents. Writers such as Abigail Garner have reminded us how important it is for “queerspawn” to have a voice of their own, not filtered through our naturally biased lens of parenthood, however well intentioned. I was delighted, therefore, to see that Pacific Northwest magazine writer Paula Bock profiled four children of LGBT parents about a week ago.
Their stories are all different. Three were born in straight families and found themselves in lesbian ones when their bio moms began relationships with women (two after divorce, another after her husband died). One was among the first “chosen children” of lesbian mothers. Two also survived their moms’ breakups—and that’s part of what I like about the article. It shows LGBT families with all the ups and downs of normal families, dealing with homophobia among a myriad of unrelated concerns. Not only that, but one of the children is bisexual—a nice dose of reality when many articles on children of LGBT parents go to great lengths to assure people that LGBT parents don’t necessarily have LGBT children. Statistically, most don’t—but some do, and we shouldn’t marginalize them.
It’s one of the few mainstream articles I’ve seen that lets the (now grown) children speak in their own words, rather than be summarized and rephrased by a journalist. My only criticism is that all of the parents were lesbian moms. It would be nice to see some children of gay dads, too. Still, it’s worth a read.
On a related note, the Associated Press just ran a column about the influence of “gay youth, their straight friends and children of same-sex parents” on recent legislative victories across the U.S. It’s a good article, but I have to say I think it’s important that we don’t make our children feel pressured into becoming LGBT advocates. If they do, great, but if not, then hopefully they will make their contributions to the world some other way. I do think it’s important to give them a certain political awareness, but then to let them run with it as they see fit.
