Proud Parenting

LGBTQ Parents - Lesbian Moms & Gay Dads

My Gay Heart Always Skips a Beat When…

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Aaaaaah…the parade. Every year it thrills me to witness our culture represented with a myriad of sub-cultures. Folks, it’s not just chaps in chaps. And there is one group in particular that always puts a smile on my face- BESIDES the scantily clad rent boys. Strutting down the street with a stroller derby of mochafrappulatteccino babies and Prada diaper bags it’s the GAY PARENTS!

To celebrate Pride and these remarkable families we reached out to our blogger friends and asked them two easy (like Sunday morning) questions:

* What is the GAYEST thing you’ve done prior to parenthood?
* What is the GAYEST thing since becoming a parent?

Now let the GAY PARENT PRIDE PARADE begin! Click on the following link to view pictures and answers from gay parents in the US and beyond: http://johnandstevearehavingababy.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-gay-heart-always-skips-beat-when.html

WAY OUT PARENTING: On Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day It’s Double the Fun for Children of Gays!

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These holidays are usually celebrated during the preschool years and kindergarten. Children express their love for and appreciation of their parents with a variety of artistic projects that they labor over for days:

• t-shirts stamped all over with their four-year-old hand prints (you’ll end up sleeping in them for the next ten years)
• Self portraits with such primitive genius quality that you’re inspired to invest in expensive framing so the masterpieces will be preserved for all time.
• Glitter-glue cards with precious crayon scrawled invented spellings that boldly document your childrens’s just-emerging literacy skills.

Some gay parents worry that these holidays draw attention to what’s “missing” from their family—a dad or a mom, that is. But there’s no need for anxiety. Chances are, as good gay moms or dads, you’ve been educating your child about different kinds of families since they were an hour old and they don’t feel the least bit inferior because they don’t have both a mom and a dad. While the other preschoolers make their art project for the parent your child doesn’t have, your child will simply make the same art project for you—or they’ll decide to make one for a friend or relative of the appropriate dad or mom sex. And frankly, the other children will be too busy fighting for the right color markers, paints, and glitter to think about it.

And on the holiday when your child must produce two magnificent works of art, the only response they’re likely to get is the envy of classmates who say things like:
• That’s so unfair. She gets to use more glitter than anybody else.
• Can we all paint 2 projects?
• I wish I had 2 moms. You’re so lucky.
• I want 2 dads, too. Can I live with your family?
• I wish my parents were gay.
• I’m going to marry a boy instead of a girl so my child can have 2 dads.

Okay, most of these children will grow up and forget they ever envied someone for having two moms or two dads, but isn’t it fun to know they wanted gay parents once upon a time?

© 2009 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.

The End of the March

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Well it is approaching April and we headed to the Beach House last night. The sleepy New England beach town is still covered in snow and the yard I thought I would be able to get cleaned up is far from awake. The boys slept longer than usual as did I. I always sleep better up here with the ocean air less than 2 blocks away.

My mother’s health albeit abysmal, has stabilized and I am slowly returning to what I consider to be a normal life absent constant upset. I feel as though I have been doing a lot of cleaning up, both literally and figuratively. I let go of some useless relationships and made a decision that to pare down my life was in order. In furtherance of the events of last year, I guess I keep throwing things out so that they do not “Mold” in my life, relationships, fears, papers, old outdated notions and things that tie me back. I feel that it is a positive time in my life despite the constant letting go.

However, I also feel that it is a time of amalgamation. I was recently going through my strong box as I continued to consolidate adn protect things and get rid of things with little to no significance. In the box were lots of pieces of jewelry that I had accumulated over the years. Some of them were parts of my past, others a part of a loved person that had become an angel to watch over me. Through the years I had given some pieces of jewelry to “chosen” family as they had become part of my present (Besides, I am not the type to wear it and drag is was and always be out of the question for me…I would look like Mrs. Doubtfire).

I looked over all of it and realized that unbeknown to me I have all of our birth stones and the stones signifying destiny and eternal love a diamond. So I bagged up all the stuff and took it to a favorite jeweler that I had admired for years. I explained that I wanted to create a family ring out of my past and reminding me of my present and the hope I have for my future. OK, so I gave myself a birthday present. The rendering is awesome and is being crafted now so from the old, I create useless into useful, the gay version of recycling.

I took the day off yesterday to complete an entire page of errands that I have not been able to get to or I did not want to take the kids. For instance imagine sitting at the DMV with your kids…NO WAY! I need a drink by the time I get done there never mind if I had the kids with me. After a day there, having inspections done on both cars, sitting in waiting rooms I then went onto shopping. I went to get the kids new bikes and ended up getting myself one as well…so with 3 bikes a new bike rack and the mini-van, I trod into the realization that I had become what the Christian Right Wing fears most and that, I was about to lose my membership card to the purple mafia!

I also bought Ben a piano (an inexpensive one electronic one) as he is a piano prodigy and get Bryce signed up for T-Ball and got him the stuff he needed for that…and then resigned myself to having no weekends until July! Oh well, it is worth it, but I realized that they are growing up fast and yes perish the thought, I would like another baby! Someone save me from myself. Ok, the boys are hungry (so what else is new) and want to head out to breakfast, so , off we go into the last part of March and hopefully April will just bring flowers as I am so over this winter stuff!

WAY OUT PARENTING: Looking for the Right Church? Take the Church-Receptivity-to-Gays Screener

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You’ve just gotten pregnant and your long dormant spirituality has begun to
awaken. Or you have a high-energy three-year-old and you’re starting to think a little
values infusion couldn’t hurt. It’s time to shop for a church, you decide, but you’re gay so you naturally have a healthy dose of cynisicm, skepticism, and other “isms” when it comes to organized religion. What if you land in a Christian cabal of gay haters and they want to exorcise you? What if they decide to brainwash you back to grace, turn you against your partner, find you a suitable opposite sex mate, and help you discover the joys of Adam and Eve in the garden?

One field trip to a church can tell you everything you need to know about the clergy and congregation’s attitudes toward people who are different. So go on a “mission,” observe carefully, and then take the simple screener below to find out if you’ve found a spiritual home for your gay family.

1. When you stand at the back of the church and survey the heads occupying in the rows of head, what you mostly see are:

A) Various shades of blond highlights and lowlights ranging from platinum to
honey blond but nothing darker than that.
B) blond, brown, black, and gray hair; cornrows; church lady hats; shaved heads; and uncombed locks.

2. The sermon you heard touched on one of the following:

A) The godliness of abstinence before marriage; fidelity during marriage;
wifely obedience; the seven deadly sins; the flaming fires of eternal damnation.
B) The pressures of unemployment; finding new doors when old doors close; reaching out to people in need; the hypocrisy of some “Christians.”

3. During the Passing of the Peace, that time during the worship service when Christians reach out and greet one another, the parishioners:

A) always seemed to be turned the other way when you extended your hand.
B) rushed over and pumped your arms as if to say, “You’re safe here. In this
congregation, we don’t really care about that silly, stupid Corinthian’s passage. “

4. At coffee hour your gaydar

A) remained in perpetual sleep mode.
B) Pinged constantly, even when you were being introduced to “straight” married vestrymen.

5. When you asked about the Tuesday night dinners at church they were described as

A) Alcohol-free events (of course) that begin with a group prayer, include rousing conversations about how to whip up congregants anti gay marriage sentiments before key elections without jeopardizing the church’s tax exempt status, and end with a bible study hour.
B) buffet style feasts where the cheap wine flows and people freely admit, “I’m just here to socialize.”

6. As you observed the Sunday School program, children were:

A) learning that they will burn in hell forever if they don’t pray, go to church regularly, and listen to everything their parents tell them.
B) writing advice letters to the Virgin Mary about how to find a hotel room in Bethlehem rather than hole up at an uncomfortable stable.

7. You overheard some parishioners talking about how the church outreach fund is being used to:
A) build a bigger office for the pastor so he can really spread out and be comfortable as he tends to his flock.
B) run a weekly soup kitchen for the homeless.

8. As you were leaving, you noticed a sign in the church lobby announcing the upcoming visit of:

A) Nigerian ministers who want your church to break away and join their communion.
B) Muslim refugees who need a place the learn English.

Scoring Key:
If you answered A to any of these questions, keep looking.

© 2009 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.

WAY OUT PARENTING: Spending Spring Break with the Grandparents? Good Luck!

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Most families feel obliged to make occasional trips to grandparents who live far away, and in this time of economic uncertainty, vacationing at their home is certainly the frugal alternative to Europe or the Caribbean. And some grandparents really do want you to come. They may even cough up plane tickets to sweeten the pot and go out of their way to deliver a rip-roaring good time for their grandchildren.

But other grandparents only say they want you. They never really expected you to accept an invitation. And the minute you, your partner, and children pull up to the house, their ambivalence kicks in. They’re thinking,Oh, God, how are we going to get through a whole week? Can we just give them the keys and we’ll go to Europe? and you’re thinking, If they lived in California, they would have voted for Prop 8. They are the enemy. Why are we here?”

How do you survive? The cardinal rule is to avoid all topics of conversation you would delve into enthusiastically with anyone else:

• Politics:They voted for McCain and thought Sarah Pallin was unfairly vilified.
• Religion:Their church regularly excoriates gays to get parishioners juiced up just before they pass the plate.
• Sex: They don’t want to think about what you do, and the mere thought of them engaging in intimate acts makes you queasy.
• Child rearing:Your goal is to do exactly what they didn’t do.
• Books: Ann Coulter’s on their shelf; Stephen Colbert is on yours. You can’t even talk about Goodnight Moon without getting into a debate.
• Television: They just love The O’Reilly Factor; you prefer Rachel Madow’s twinkly eyes and intellect.
• Healthcare:They’re convinced Obama will socialize the system, and you’d just like to pay for your partner’s insurance with before-tax dollars , like married heterosexuals do.
• Retirement:They actually have a pension. You can’t pass yours on.
• Marriage:They’re holding their breath you don’t ask them to cough up a $75,000 wedding like your straight sibling got.
•Fashion: They never had any fashion sense, and you’re either too flamboyant, too metrosexual, too masculine, too effeminate, or too something for their tastes.

With all these topics off limits, what is left? Isn’t it obvious? The weather. Here are some conversational openers you probably haven’t ever heard yourself utter, but give them a try:

How about that barometric pressure today?

I felt a distinct light breeze on our way to the pancake house. Did you feel it
too, Ma?

I just love these cloudless days. Look at that gorgeous blue sky, Daddy.

Warning: a full week of these conversations may degenerate some of your brain
cells, and despite your best efforts, you won’t be able to shield your children from Grandma and Grandpa’s true nature. They may have begun the vacation with an idyllic view of their grandparents, but they won’t leave with the same view, and you’ll have to deal with their questions and comments, so get ready:

Why are grandma and grandpa republicans? I though you said republicans are evil, hate-filled homophobes.
Many of them are, including Grandpa and Grandma. Aren’t families wonderfully complicated, kids? Even though we don’t agree about anything we can still spend a week together without killing each other.

There’s nothing to do and they don’t have any premium cable channels.
Yes, but check out the arsenal in Grandpa’s closet. There’s enough firepower in there for twenty HBO action movies. Just don’t pull any triggers. They really might be loaded. Grandpa actually thinks black people are planning a revolution now that Obama is president.

Are you going to act the way they do when you get old?
No, gay people refuse to let that happen to them. Your mommy and mama will be checking into a rainbow assisted living community the minute we see any signs of acid reflux, arthritis, or dementia. All we ask is that you promise to visit us every once in a while—you can stay in a hotel—and remind us that once upon a time we used to be really cool people.

Grandpa still holds my hand when we cross a street. I feel like I’m four.
Have we told you about OCD yet? Well, it runs in our family. Grandpa imagines a big Mack truck running you down every time we cross the street in his cul de sac. The good news is that you probably won’t have OCD even though it’s genetic, because we made sure to pick a donor without that particular psychological issues. We’ve diluted the OCD genes in you.

How come grandma hardly ever talks to you, Papa?
Son, do you remember how we explained that you can make a family in many different ways and that you don’t have to be biologically related to someone to be family? Good. Well, Grandma obviously missed that lesson, but we’re giving her a crash course this week. And she’ll never make the same mistake again—or she just won’t see you anymore.

How come the other kids get to go the Europe while we go to grandma and grandpa’s?
They either have more money than us or they went to their grandparents last year and they’ve decided since their net worth has already dropped forty percent another few thousand won’t matter especially if it keeps them away from their grandparents. Don’t worry, after the trip we’re having we’ll probably be in Europe next year whether or not we can afford it, too.

© 2009 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.

March came in like a lion….

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So I used to think that there were 2 things in a little boy’s arsenal that could leave you swearing in the middle of the night after you stepped on it a matchbox and a Lego. Well, there are new dangers from a toy, seemingly smooth, round and innocent a Bahukgan. Well that is until you find out that during your 3 a.m. trip to the bathroom these little jewels with their little weapons lie open on the bathroom floor complete with their little spears and you step down on one and draw a pint of blood and more than a few choice words from me. So, I am up earlier than normal and with the little time I have had I thought I would catch up on the past month and what has been going on.

The kids are great and growing in leaps and bounds. Bryce is completely conversant and also just as obstinate as ever. He is the cutest little shit on the planet. We celebrated his third birthday with friends and chosen family. His brother hosted the party. I thought by putting each brother in charge of hosting the party it would give them a sense of ownership and then I could reward the host with a gift to avoid the inevitable (sniff….I did not get a present) that way it always give them the responsibility of taking care of each other’s birthday.

I used to think Bryce would never talk, now I have 2 magpies who do not shut up. Benjamin the questioner, he is like living the Socratic method of law school on a daily basis. Bryce is the statement maker…only when he is done making an assessment does it spill out and then there is no changing his mind. They are both leaders in this family and on this planet and for that I am both cursed and thankful.

Speaking of Birthday’s mine was yesterday and passed virtually unnoticed by all. The day before I was bitchy and morose. That was more due to the fact that I got hit with the flu so bad that I had been delirious the day before. My best friends came and took the kids for an overnight as I was too sick to care for my own kids. That was a first; it made me think I need a better disaster plan…but then again there is only so much one super hero single dad can plan for. I will add it to my list of what to do when locusts descend, and the rivers turn to blood. My birthday began with my mother having a heart attatck at rehab and me throwing the kids at neighbors while I flew up there to see what was going on and facilitate a transfer to a local hospital.

I spent most of the month of February with my mother in surgery or out of it in a state of constant pain and bad news just kept coming. I feel horrible for her but the basic fact is that she is in a death and dying process and she needs to attend to it. The rest of my family as usual are on the vacation property we have in Egypt along the river (de-nile) and playing the camel game, with their heads buried in the sand. No amount of reality seems to shake them from this constant state of being. I can say that my kids are at least prepared and are doing well and despite the fact I struggled with how to embark on the venture of explanation as it pertains to death and dying, they are both doing well and I think that has a lot to do with being raised in a spiritual way…OK so the leftist, gay radical dad who fought religion all his life takes comfort in it now as well as community!

WAY OUT PARENTING: Questions straight parents wish they could ask gay parents—Part II

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In Part I, we answered a few burning questions straight parents have about gay ones. But if straight parents could sit down with a live set of gay parents, their questions could go on for hours. What else would they ask? What would you say? Let’s listen in for a while.

Q. How do gay people honestly think they can be moral, upstanding role models for children?

A. It’s because gay people just love celebrities, and we’ve learned so much from them about how to be good parents—and how not to be. For example, Britney generously taught us the importance of strapping our infants into car seats and teaching them to wear underwear. And Courtney, well, without her, we wouldn’t have known that shooting heroin during pregnancy can be so damaging. Now that we do, we gays regularly avoid that temptation. We don’t dangle our children over balconies either, and we don’t carry knives. We remember watching O.J. Simpson’s white van all those years ago, and we learned our anger management lessons. And thank God for Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert and all the other evangelists. A steady media diet of their unravelings really helped us with our own morality issues. We’re good to go now.

Q. Do lesbians really use a turkey baster?

A. Not anymore. The turkey baster was a primitive tool of the mid-to-late twentieth century when no reputable physician would help lesbians. When the medical establishment realized there was money to be made from lesbian assisted reproduction, a new niche market was born. Like all primitive medical instruments, the turkey baster was imperfect and unhygienic (especially if used around Thanksgiving). It has since joined the vast collection of other historical obstetric instruments in the Smithsonian.

Q. Does artificial insemination hurt?

A. No, but it’s not the kind of experience that makes you want to fall into a blissful sleep or light up a cigarette either. After all, you’re lying on a stainless-steel table, your legs are in the air, a thin little tube is threaded through your cervix, and you’re wondering how you’re going to pay for it all.

Q. I’m going to a gay shower. Do gays have a thing against the traditional pink and powder blue baby color-coding system?

A. Gay men have never had a problem with those colors. And the lesbians who object to those colors are usually not signing up to raise babies. Those lesbians are aging out in remote womyn-only trailer parks in Arkansas, but soon they’ll be a distant memory. Go ahead. Buy that pink or blue onesie.

© 2009 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.

WAY OUT PARENTING: Questions straight parents frequently wish they could ask about gay parents—Part I

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You’re a straight parent, and all of a sudden everywhere you turn, you’re hearing about gay parents. They’re on the talk shows. They’re in your magazines. They’re even at your school. You have so many burning questions. Let’s try to answer a few…


Q. Do gay parents try to make their children gay?

A. No. Immediately upon becoming parents, gays foreswear the Gay Agenda and their recruitment efforts cease. They do, however, attempt to hold onto their own gay identities, although many find this to be a losing battle due to their constant contact with straight people at work, daycare, school, church, ballet classes, soccer games, baseball practice, and the pediatrician’s office. In fact, if the goal of Right Wingers is to excise gay people’s gayness, they might want to make it easier for them to become parents. Ease up on adoption rules. Look the other way on foster parenting. Legalize second parent adoption. Ironically, parenting seems to work better than reparative therapy at making gays think like straights.

Q. What will happen if I let my son or daughter have a sleepover at the house of gay parents?

A. The same things that happen on a sleepover at your house. They’ll play, watch a movie, stay up longer than you want them to, wake up earlier than you want them to, play, watch TV, and eat fluffy homemade waffles or pancakes painstakingly prepared by groggy parents who wish they were still in bed like the parents of their sleepover guest. Gay parents do sometimes add a garnish to the plate and sprinkle the waffles with powdered sugar, but these small aesthetic expressions of gayness have no harmful effects. Remember, sleepovers are free babysitting for overwhelmed parents. You’re crazy if you don’t take advantage of them.

© 2009 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.

January is over onto February and the darn gopher!

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So I find myself with a few minutes between conference calls and the like while Bryce is working with his teacher to gather my thoughts and continue writing about this journey. I am calling it a journey as the ground is to uncertain right now t calls it anything else and we just keep moving it along. So, how are you all?

The boys are doing well. Bryce is almost 3 his birthday is in a few weeks and we are having a family party for him. He is FINALLY getting potty trained and I can actually see an end to diapers. I will be so happy for that moment when I can be done with that portion. We finally got all the kids clothes back into the house only to find out that almost everything in the bags was too small. I moved out of the house in July and took little with me and just bought as well went along and continued to wear what we had….Well in 6 months the boys are HUGE. Bryce skipped along and went right to 4 t and Ben is now in 6/7 as he is so tall. He is as skinny as a rail again as he has been going through growth spurts. All my boys do is eat…last night they each managed to shell and consume 2 bowls of pasta and 2 POUNDS of mussels each! It is pretty funny actually. They are happy healthy boys whose imaginations and vocabulary grow daily.

I survived Ben’s surgery. I say I as it was probably the most terrifying thing I have ever been through. I have had open heart surgery but to go through it with your child is probably the most terrifying thing that a parent could do. There are very few times that I loathe being a single parent but this was one of them. No one prepares you for certain things in parenting and you just deal with them when you get there, like when you hold your son down while he screams into a gas mask as he is being put out. I will never forget that. I must have hit the door to the OR at 100 miles per hour and broke into tears the minute I was out of there. But, there was no one there to console me. It is a moment like that where one realizes the bravery it takes to do this and that there are many ways to test a person’s strength, single parenting being one of them. Ben made it through it fine. I was traumatized for about 2 weeks after however. All because of the negligence of others and the failure of a huge bonus paying company to live up to what I pay them for, protection.

Well, my first children’s book is back from the artist. It is beautiful and the testing with4 folks have been positive. I am hoping to find someplace to get it published. Any Ideas? Work is horrible and layoffs are a weekly occurrence at this point. The environment is toxic and I do all I can to shield myself from it. The lawsuits against the insurance companies are progressing at a snail’s pace and I now know why everyone jokes about lawyers. It seems all is in slow motion. So, we trudge along. Additionally, I am tired of winter. My lord, I am such a whiner at this point….LOL!

My mother is having surgery this month and Bryce will turn three. I am hopeful for her but not overly confident at her ability to make it through the surgery and the recuperative period. Think she is just tired and wants to go. I am taking 7 kids for Japanese food on Valentine’s Day as I am giving that as a gift to 4 close friends of mine. I have had my kids out for “Food Adventures” since they were little and I am doing the same with my friends Children. Ben picked the restaurant…LOL, he wants Sushi! We went for Indian food the other night and it was a riot. The waitress was stumped as to how to deal with my little eaters and as to where their mother was. She said to Ben, so where is your mama….to which he replied…”Not everyone has a mom, ya know!”….He was rude and she was presumptuous so I called it even and chuckled as we left. He knows how to stand up for himself.

Oh well, here is to another day and the kids being alright! May your days be filled with “peace of love” and your children happy and healthy! Lastly, may you remain sane during the rest of the winter!

WAY OUT PARENTING: “You’re doing family trees in school? Isn’t that nice…” (Uh-oh, whose family tree?)

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At some point during most children’s elementary years (usually it’s the third grade), they study the many peoples who poured into “this great country of ours” via ports like Ellis and Angel Island to escape poverty, famine, and that “p” word gay people know so much about—persecution.

Most teachers consider this unit of instruction an excellent opportunity for children to delve deep into their own family’s immigration experience. When did their ancestors enter the country? Where did they come from? And why did they make the great migration? So each child becomes a historian and investigates his or her roots. Children bring home blank family trees on which to record parents’, grand parents’, and great grandparents’ dates and places of birth. At school, they will transfer this precious information onto cut-out leaves (which reflect a considerable range of small motor skills) and glue them onto brown construction paper branches of trees which will be displayed on bulletin boards for the whole school community to see.

Once upon a time family roots projects like this posed few complications (except for adopted children). Virtually everyone who participated in these exercises came from a traditional family of European ancestry, and children proudly came to school with “can you top this” tidbits like:

• My great grandpa was the first white person born in his town and the Indians tried to scalp him.
• My grandmother had to escape the pogroms.
• My great grandma Domenica from Sicily met my great grandpa from Salerno on the boat to Ellis Island and eight months later they had a baby. Mom says there’s something wrong with the math. What’s wrong with the math, teacher?
• Our ancestors were indentured servants. I guess they all had bad teeth.
• My mom’s ancestors owned slaves. Oops! I’m not supposed to tell anyone that.

Some subversive gay parents delight in the idea of their child creating the first two mommy or two daddy family tree their elementary school has ever seen. But other gay parents agonize. Their imposter syndromes kick in, and they find themselves thinking:

• But I’m not the biological parent. Can I still be on a family tree?
• Is it time to really have a serious discussion about donors? She hasn’t been receptive to the idea, but maybe we should force it.
• Should we contact the international adoption agency and see if we can get some history? We should have thought of this sooner.
• If only we’d used an open donor. Then we could call him up and get the whole scoop.
• I guess we have to contact the birth mother and get some details, but they aren’t going to be pretty.

Stop right there!
Your child was not asked to map his or her genome back to the cradle of civilization. This is social studies. Your child was asked to document the dates and places of birth of their parents, grandparents, and beyond. You are the parents. Your parents are the grandparents. And that’s how your children sees it—whether or not you are having a sudden crisis of confidence.

Have your child place a call their grandparents—unless those grandparents are still completing the 12 Steps of Parental Atonement and Rehabilitation and therefore have not yet earned the right to tell the family folklore to your child. These phone calls may even enhance the bonding between your child and your parents, which may result in unanticipated side benefits that could include: college fund donations, tuition assistance, invitations to family vacations in Caribbean locations—or just the first Christmas gift your parents have ever bothered to give your child.

There’s really only one things gay parents need to be concerned about with the family tree project. Their dates of birth are going to hang on the walls of their child’s elementary school for weeks. Children won’t be talking about the two mom or two dad thing. They’ll be comparing birth dates and saying to each other things like “One of your dad’s is so much older than the other one,” or “Wow, your mom is almost as old as my grandma.” And other parents will have the opportunity to make those same observations on parents’ night. If you’ve been hiding the age secret, you’ll be outted in a whole new way—but so will the straight parents.

© 2009 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.