In honor of mothers today, here are a baker’s dozen of memoirs by and about lesbian moms. They are not just for lesbian or LGBT audiences, however, but shed light on many of the universal challenges and blessings of motherhood.
Not one, but two memoirs by lesbians have come out recently that weave together stories of food, family, and personal growth. Like two dishes at a well-planned meal, each has its own flavor, and they complement each other well. A third new memoir, though not food-related, adds yet another flavor with the tale of a lesbian couple facing the ups and downs of infertility during the height of California’s marriage equality battle.
NBC’s The New Normal, a sitcom about two gay dads and their surrogate, premieres in a week. ABC’s sitcom Modern Family, which includes two gay dads, has won an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. I therefore thought I’d post a list of some of the funniest true memoirs by lesbian and gay parents. Humor can be a coping, teaching, and entertainment mechanism, and the authors below use it in all three ways.
Choosing You: Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own by Alexandra Soiseth (Seal Press: May 2008), chronicles the author’s journey to becoming a single mom by choice. She is not a lesbian, but I wanted to review her book here because of the parallels between straight single moms by choice and lesbian moms, partnered
Andrea Askowitz is pregnant—and she’s grumpy. In My Miserable Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy (Cleis: May 1, 2008) she shares her cantankerous journey to parenthood as a single mom, complete with weight gain, leg cramps, hormone-induced depression, and well-intentioned friends who never quite do the right thing.
