Amy and Mandy are two lesbian moms and “self-made millionaire entrepreneurs” from Indiana who have been blogging for about four months now. Today they are launching the first episode in their weekly Web video series, Big Mammas. They turn the camera on themselves and their two children, seven-year-old Amanda and five-year-old Bradley, to answer the question, “So how do two lesbians conceive and raise their kids in conservative Indiana?”
The answer may soon get more complicated, because Mandy is also pregnant with quads. I’ve written before about lesbian moms-of-quads Cristine Gaiennie and Patsy Lovell, Karen Wesolowski and Martha Padgett, and Karen and Janice (the latter two of whom split the work and had nearly simultaneous sets of twins). I’m beginning to think Helen and I didn’t get our money’s worth when we did IVF! (Just joking, of course, son: You’re priceless.)
They’re taking a very different approach than Helen and I do in our video blog. While we talk about many of our own experiences, the vlog is less about chronicling our lives and more about doing an ongoing video commentary on the culture, media, and resources that pertain to the grand diversity of lesbian parenthood. Mandy and Amy are giving us a detailed inside look at their family. I see value in both approaches, and look forward to watching the first full episode of Big Mammas.
I spoke with Mandy and Amy the other day, and they were kind enough to answer some questions about their inspiration and goals for the project, and their plans to use social networking to build a following for the Webisodes.
What motivated you to launch this video series?
Mandy: I would say the big thing for us was we felt like our family was compelling and exciting enough to grab the viewership of not only gay and lesbian viewers but also the straight audience, to break down a lot of barriers and stereotypes that straight people have about gay families. It was also important, too, to show other gay people that you can have a family and you can do things whether you’re gay or straight.
What were some of the compelling things about your family that you felt would attract viewers?
Mandy: We felt like we’re interesting because Amy stays home with the kids and I’m an entrepreneur, and I’ve always got my hands in something, whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea. We felt like a lot of the TV shows on right now don’t really explore anything other than just the family, and one of the visions we had for Big Mammas was to actually show that aside from just having a “family,” that people do go out and work . . . and kind of show that other side of people. Like John and Kate Gosselin [stars of TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus 8]. I don’t even know if they work anymore, but I know in the beginning John used to work, and we never got to see that side of him. All you got to see was kids running around in diapers, and you see a lot of B-roll of the two older girls, but you don’t ever really get to know the girls, and with Big Mammas, our vision’s different than that. We want to show more layers of us, and even our kids. . . .
We want to show more about the kids and kind of create almost like a Grateful Dead following, like a tribe, where viewers can interact with each other. That’s our whole premise. The trend online is social networking right now, and blogs, and Facebook, and Twitter, and all that stuff. Our goal is to really tie all that into Big Mammas.
Even kids that use the Internet. Our older kids are five and seven. They play on the computer. They’re going to have their own fans, and eventually they’ll be blogging and they’ll be interacting and their fans will be able to interact. For us, it was a bigger scope than just throwing it on TV.
How do your kids feel about the project?
Mandy: They’re excited about it.
Amy: I think we have typical situations going on aside from just that we’re gay, and that our family is different. Our kids are proud of who they are. Yesterday, I was having lunch with Amanda and one of her classmates said, “Now, how do you have two moms?” We have that situation happening every day with us, and so to show how our children grow and explain the way they live and their lives is important for other children in same-sex families. . . .
What are some of the resources that you’ve found valuable for being an LGBT parent?
Amy: We belong to a same-sex parent group, and although it’s helped us a little bit, I can’t say that it’s changed the way we parent. We parent just like I think anyone else does, and we don’t let that we’re a same-sex family stand in our way. . . .
I think, though, that some families, or some gay people or straight people, may even say “I can’t even have a family because I am gay,” or straight families may say, “They’re really different.” They may not understand my life completely, but now that we’ve been in this school system and in this community for so many years, we’ve got so many friends in the community who know we are the same as them, and I think it’s important for everyone to realize that. People who don’t have gay neighbors wouldn’t know that gay families are just like them.
Mandy: You asked what was compelling about us. We are just like them. That’s what’s compelling about us. We’re just like straight people, except we just happen to be two women. We want to show gay people and straight people, because there’s a lot of people who struggle with their sexuality, that it’s really not that big of a deal. We’re not flying rainbow flags everywhere, we’re not wearing leather, we’re just like the rest of society, or a high percentage of society. You don’t have to have four heads and spit green soup to be gay.