This book about queer family creation is written as a poem from a parent to child. “Before I got to hold you close,/I held you in my heart,” the parent says, before explaining, “For some the wait is easy,/and their turn comes right away./With just a mom and dad,/their baby’s born without delay.”
For the narrator parent, however, it took some extra help and some special people. One such person is a doctor, who uses “fancy tricks” with “funny names” like “IUI and IVF.” These are not explained in more detail (which is fine), and we see an image of a mom and dad helped by a doctor to have their baby. That could perhaps be a little confusing for young people who may have interpreted the earlier verse to mean that mom-dad families have babies born “right away”—but it’s ultimately good to acknowledge that sometimes different-sex families need extra help, too.
We then see a two-dad family and a surrogate, a “helper … when a tummy’s what they need.” I would have preferred “womb,” not only because it is the correct term, but also because every person has a tummy. How could any couple be needing that?
Moving on, we learn that some families are given “a little gift” from a donor—an egg or sperm, which are needed to create a baby. We see a two-mom family that was given sperm by a donor to start their family. Some donor-conceived people are pushing back against the use of the term “gift” to refer to gamete donation, however—see the comments on this thread from therapist Jana Rupnow—so this phrasing may not work for all families.
Adoption is next, and the text tells us, “When someone has a baby,/but the timing isn’t right,/they’ll find a mom or dad/to make the baby’s future bright.” An error of timing feels like an oversimplification of the many reasons someone may choose to place a child for adoption; would birth parents always have chosen to keep the child if they had had them at another time? If it’s a matter of timing, will they be ready to care for them in the future (suggesting they could take them back from the adoptive family)? And “a mom or dad” excludes nonbinary parents; “a loving parent” would have been more inclusive.
The overall message of this book is a good one—that sometimes starting a family takes helpers beyond just the immediate parent(s). It is hard fitting nuance into text simple enough for very young children, however, especially when one is attempting to make it rhyme as well. Some of the details, therefore, may not feel right for all families. With a little additional explanation from a grown-up, however, this could be a useful jumping off point for some to talk about the many ways a family forms.
