Posts of the Week: “Car Musings” and “The (Un-) Zen of Non-Gestational Parenthood”

Please welcome to the blogosphere Charlotte and Betsy, who recently launched one of the best-titled blogs I’ve seen in a while: Turkey Baster and  Bottle of Wine. Their subtitle clarifies: “On being a queer, non-gestational parent.”

The two women are both mothers and partnered, though not to each other. Charlotte lives in Massachusetts and Betsy in North Carolina. In Betsy’s “Car Musings,” she talks about looking like her nonbiological child, the assumptions this engenders from others, and the assumptions she herself has had about people’s reactions to her family.

In Charlotte’s “The (Un-) Zen of Non-Gestational Parenthood,” she discusses the unintentional slights of toddlers and the patience and letting go that parenthood requires. “Parenthood is a spiritual (and often maddening) path,” she writes.

Go give them a hearty welcome to the blogosphere and encourage them to stick around a while.

For more on non-gestational parenthood, I recommend (among others) Polly’s Lesbian Dad and Robin’s The OTHER Mother. I’ve had the honor of hanging around the blogosphere with them for many years now. Both are contributors to the essay collection Confessions of the Other Mother: Non-Biological Lesbian Moms Tell All, ed. Harlyn Aizley, also a recommended read. A third contributor to the volume, Amie Klempnauer Miller, last year published a standalone memoir of her own, She Looks Just Like You: A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood (about which more here).

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