Helen and I tell viewers what parents don’t want people to get their kids for the holidays. (Remember this vlog is also published at After Ellen, where there’s a higher percentage of non-parents.) We then offer some ideas for presents that fit these tough economic times and probably won’t get returned. Plus: why our Christmas […]
The Wall Street Journal (via DailyKos) reports that President-elect Barack Obama is vetting community organizer and labor leader Mary Beth Maxwell for the position of labor secretary. Maxwell is also a white, out lesbian mom with an adopted black son. Not that any of those identities necessarily qualify her for the job, but I’d like
The guinea pigs have had the spotlight this year, as picture book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding has faced several attempted challenges from library patrons who wanted to remove or reshelve it. The penguins of And Tango Makes Three are not out of danger yet, however, as a school board meeting in Ankeny, Iowa made clear. Cindy
(Originally published in Bay Windows, November 20, 2008. This has less to do with parenting than most of my pieces, but may be of interest to those of you who have children in college, were/are involved in collegiate LGBT groups yourselves, or are lawyers.) OutLaw, the LGBT student group at Boston University School of Law,
Today is World AIDS Day. AIDS has impacted many people we know and communities of which we are part. Since this is a parenting blog, however, I thought I would highlight some recent statistics about AIDS and children. The numbers, of course, don’t capture the personal stories, the parents who must watch their children die,
Another blow to the “it’s unnatural” argument against same-sex parents: Two male penguins at a zoo in China are so desperate to become parents that they are attempting to steal other penguins’ eggs and replace them with stones, reports Britain’s Daily Telegraph. The zookeepers have separated the pair from the rest of the group, but
Happy early Thanksgiving to all of you celebrating it tomorrow. Posting will be light for the rest of the week as I plan to spend it in a tryptophan-induced haze. If you want to get a jump on your holiday shopping, and like me, try to avoid anything within a five-mile radius of a mall
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman today declared Florida’s 30-year-old ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians unconstitutional, saying, “It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person’s ability to parent.” ‘Bout time they realized that. State lawyers have already said they will challenge the decision. At the moment, however, it
The 17-year-olds participating in the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) “demonstrate significantly higher social competence” and “significantly lower total problem behavior [than the standard population]. This is a very high indication of mental health,” asserts Dr. Nanette Gartrell, principal investigator of the NLLFS and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California-San
In our vlog last Thursday, Helen and I spoke about whether to take kids to the recent LGBT rallies and protests. I also wrote an article about kids and protests, which appeared today on 365gay.com. In it, I look not only at the question of whether to take kids (short answer: it depends on the
