how-to

It’s natural for gay parents to feel discomfort about their assimilation into the straight world. While you existed in your gay ghetto, straight people were the enemy. You despised, envied, feared, and longed to be them. You defended yourself against your deep feelings of inferiority by telling yourself you had no interest in their boring, monochromatic lives. “I am living on the edge,” you told yourself. “I am a minority fighting for survival. I have important life and death issues to think about.” These issues included:

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Do you have remarkably supportive parents who fastened on their “I love my gay son” or "My lesbian daughter rocks" lapel pins the minute you confirmed their worst fears? Or do you have parents who summarily shut the door in your face after hearing your news? Now that you have a grandchild, don’t be surprised if some of these parents want back into your life. Grandchildren change all the dynamics. The question is: do you let them in?

In Part I, we learned that your straight children are second language learners when it comes to the language of your gay heritage, and we learned how hard it is to master the idioms of a second language.

In this part, we’ll look at another obstacle your children face—and that is developmental readiness.

The fact that you’re asking this question means you’re not quite as agnostic as you claim. You are probably a lapsed Catholic, protestant, or Jew who eschewed church- or synagogue-going shortly after your confirmation or bar/bat mitzvah but deep down still harbor latent religious impulses that you don’t admit to yourself.

Receiving a one-on-one invitation from a set of straight parents is an indication you have really worked hard to gain acceptance in your school community. You are going on a double date. Congratulations! Now comes the real test of your assimilation. Can you successfully observe straight couples’ socializing conventions?

Do you ever wonder what it must have been like to become a gay parent twenty years ago? Sometimes I stop to consider…and I’m glad we’re not there anymore.

Back in the Dark Ages of Gay Parenting, any gay person who aspired to start a family faced one inquisitorial question, and it reverberated from all fronts: “What in God’s name gives you the audacity to think that you could possibly be parenting material?”