Family Voices III

This week’s Family Voices interview is with lesbian mom Ruth, who lives in San Antonio with her partner Della and their eight children. Ruth writes “We have kids created nearly every way but alien abduction.” Although they live in a fairly conservative area of the country, their experiences with the legal and medical systems and the Catholic Church are not what you might expect.

As with the previous families highlighted in this feature, they are members of the Family Pride Coalition’s OUTSpoken Families program, and committed to speaking with their local communities and media (and the occasional blog!) about their lives and the need for LGBT equality.

1. Tell us a little about your family. Who is in your immediate family? Anything particular you’d like to share about yourselves?

My immediate family includes my wife and partner of nearly 22 years, our eight children (seven girls and one boy) and whatever pets live with us at the time. Right now it is a dog, a cat and a rabbit.

My parents and all of my six siblings, their spouses and children live in Indiana and we see them once a year.

Della has a sister in San Antonio, her brothers and father live in LA and her mother is dead.

2. How did you create your family? What advice would you give to other couples taking this route? Any resources you found particularly helpful?

We have kids created nearly every way but alien abduction. I have two bio-kids from a previous heterosexual marriage (ages 30 and 28, both girls). Della had two bio-kids with assisted insemination (ages 16, a boy and 14, a girl) that I have second-parent adopted. We have one child we privately adopted together as an infant, a girl age 10. Della also received custody from the state of her sister’s three children seven years ago (all girls, now ages 18, 14 and 9)

We didn’t find any resources particularly helpful other than prayer and perseverance. It is NOT easy to have children and yet we have ended up with eight.

We were told that there was a good chance that, because of our relationship, I would not get custody of my bio-kids in the divorce BUT I did. We were told that it would be hard to get a fertility clinic (in 1989) to assist with the insemination, BUT they did. We had heard that there were no healthy babies available for private adoption BUT we were offered a child when we weren’t even looking to have another one. We were warned that in the conservative area of East Texas, there was no way that the judge would give three kids to an openly gay family member BUT he even complimented us that we had formally united our family with a church ceremony even though it held no legal merit when the bio-parents of the kids “never even bothered to do that.”

3. What has been the most challenging thing you’ve faced as a parent? How did you handle it?

Our most stressful time was when we added the three additional children (Della’s nieces) to our already sizable family of five kids. The three had come from a tragic homelife, then a year in foster care and then to us. The kids really didn’t know us because their mother “dropped out of sight” for a couple of years. Our house really wasn’t big enough to handle three extra kids, we had just over a week to prepare for their arrival which required that everyone’s bedroom be moved. Then, in a period of that one week, our second daughter Joey, got married; and Della’s brother Daniel was murdered three days before they arrived. We had a houseful of extra guests who had come for the funeral, it was the week before Christmas and the first thing the “new kids” did was have to go to a funeral for someone they never met. How did we handle it? I really don’t know but we did!!!

4. How have your children dealt with having two moms? Have they experienced any negative reactions at school or elsewhere? Any particularly positive ones? What was your response?

Most of our kids have never had much dealings with life other than in a two-mom household so that is all they know. How do they deal with it? A lot like all kids deal with their parents. Sometimes in their eyes, we are great and other times we are pretty darn stupid. We spend more time in the “stupid” category while they are in middle and high school but we seem to get smarter again once they go to college.

We have been exceptionally blessed with the elementary school our kids attend. It is a public school and they often get a bad rep but it is staffed by the most wonderful, loving people and both of us have always been accepted. You couldn’t ask for a better school or a more loving environment.

The kids have always attended the middle school that my wife teaches at and there have been no problems with our acceptance there from faculty and staff. Since Della teaches there, she takes care of the little or everyday problems. If there is a serious issue, since it is also HER workplace, I deal with it. Kids at this age are pretty cruel and mean to each other and our kids sometimes get some hassle there. We remind the kids that nearly all kids get teased for something, their “issue” is just easier to find. Also, if we feel that the kids are NOT being adequately protected in school, we will go to the school about it. Our kids have a right to a safe place to be educated in and we will demand it.

5. Your family is Catholic. The Catholic Church has a reputation for being anti-LGBT. What has your own experience been? How important is it to you that religion is part of your children’s lives?

The hierarchy of the church is often quite judgmental but the Catholic Church really gives you a “get out of jail free card” if you actually understand the catechism. We believe that the final authority for what is wrong and right is your own God-given conscience. If, after deep conversation with God, you know that the choices you made are from God, you CAN’T be wrong. Della and I both believe that if (1) you believe that God doesn’t make mistakes and (2) God made us like we are, then how can anyone say that we are wrong.

Also I take great comfort in the idea that it took centuries for the church to admit that excommunicating Galileo for saying that the sun was the center of the universe, not the earth was wrong. Their harsh attitudes toward GLBT people is not their FIRST major mistake.

Also we don’t usually attend a “standard” Catholic church. We are very active in Dignity, a nationwide group of GLBT Catholics. We have regular Masses, presided over by “real” priests who are supportive of our cause. All of our children have been baptized, most have received First Communion and those that are still at home attend Mass with us every week. They are surrounded by a group of people who love them and care for them, like a church community should.

6. Can you share any advice for managing the schedules of eight children plus two adults?

Advice as to how to keep up with all of them? Well, we are very involved and very busy.

Monday is Girl Scouts, Tuesday is Boy Scouts, Wednesday is Catechism or Liturgy committee, Thursday is dance lessons, counseling (when they needed it) was Saturday, church is every Sunday. How do we do it? Well, ideally, both of us are at everything like band concerts or PTA or whatever but that doesn’t always work. Sometimes we have to split up and go different ways with different kids. Also–on the rare occasion that there are THREE things (or more) on a night that needs to be done, we ask our second daughter (age 28 and living here in town with husband and world’s most beautiful grandson) or one of the kids godparents from church to be a “designated parent.” No matter where you are or what you do, SOMEONE will be there cheering for you.

7. Why did you choose to be part of Family Pride’s OUTSpoken program?

We did it more for the middle-aged kids than for ourselves. We had gotten pretty good at telling our story but we wanted the middle and high school aged kids to have some training at telling their story. Also, we wanted them to have some facts to help them tell their story well.

8. How else, if at all, are you involved in your community or in LGBT activism/politics?

In our community: Della and I are both Girl Scout leaders for 20+ years. We also both teach school (middle school). We are as supportive of the Boy Scouts as they will allow is to be with their homophobic policies. We belong to the PTAs at all our kids’ schools.

In our church: Della and I are both on the liturgy committee. I am the church treasurer. Daniel (age 16) and I are on the executive board that decides policies for our Dignity community. Daniel, Samantha and Stacie all play in the church musical ensemble. Della sings in the choir.

9. What’s your favorite: a) family activity; b) children’s book?

Favorite Activity: We take the kids on an extended (2-3 week) vacation in the summer where we travel all around and camp. We listen to books on tape in the car as we drive and actually talk about things from the books or that we have seen on our journey. We have been in more than half the states and have been to fabulous museums and landmarks in Washington, DC twice, New York City, Chicago, St Louis, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Memphis and Niagara Falls.

Last year we took the “Civil Rights Tour” and went to Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham, Atlanta and Memphis to see sites of our nation’s struggle with equal rights as well as the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC to see that struggle.

Favorite books: Most of the kids are anxiously awaiting Harry Potter’s newest adventure coming out in July. We listened to that whole series on tape the year we drove from Texas to Niagara Falls and back.

Personally, I am a Little House fan. Della likes mysteries.

10. If you had a parenting motto, what would it be and why?

We don’t really have a motto yet but since you asked about it, I will give it some thought so that if anyone should ever ask again, I will have an answer.

I guess our “philosophy” is that we don’t have to do things the way others do them, we just have to know that what we are doing is in the kids’ best interest.

For example, they don’t have TVs in their rooms and they really watch very little TV but, boy are they sure great readers and there is always time for another trip to the library. They don’t have a lot of “stuff” like iPods and such but they have a lot of knowledge about the world through our trips. They don’t have a lot of high-fashion expensive clothes but they are dressed appropriately and comfortably and they are always supported by a parent or someone who loves them at everything that they do.