Babytalk Under Fire for Article by Lesbian Mom

Patty Onderko is a senior editor at Babytalk magazine. As such, you’d think an article she wrote titled “A Night in the Life of a Sleepless Mom” would be anything but controversial. The focus of the story is about how difficult is was for Onderko to sleep while pregnant. Turns out, however, that some readers objected to the sentence: “My wife, Emily (I’m married to a woman), says good night and turns off her nightstand light,” and to Onderko’s middle-of-the-night reflections on how to answer the question “But who’s the real mom?”

Babytalk is reportedly getting a flood of hate mail about including such content, especially the reference to marriage, in a “family-friendly” magazine. You can see some people’s opinions, pro and con, over at Yahoo! Answers. Personally, I think those with peanut allergies should object to the fact that Onderko related a dream in which “the twins try and try to nurse, but my breasts will produce only peanut butter.”

Babytalk is no stranger to controversy, having riled people in 2006 with their shocking (Shocking! In a parenting magazine!) photo of a nursing baby on the cover. Still, with at least some readers canceling their subscriptions over the revelation of a lesbian mom in their midst, the editors need to know we support their decision to include all kinds of families. You might even mention this would cause you to choose them over other parenting magazines that have been lukewarm at best about lesbian moms.

Write to Babytalk at: letters@babytalk.com.

(Thanks to the Park Slope Queer Parents’ Group, via Louise Sloan, for the heads up.)