Lesbian Family and past Blogging for LGBT Families Days

Webster Groves

We have already written to encourage everyone to support Mombian’s 8th Annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day.  I thought I would share some of Lesbian Family contributor’s past posts (click on the links for the full post as I am just highlighting pieces).  Add your past submissions in the comments!

7th Annual (2012)

• Evening Time (Polly): “I sing the lullabies as slowly and as gently as I possibly can, to elongate the moment.  One never sees anything so clearly or treasures it more exquisitely than when it’s slipping away.  As goes the day, so goes this boy’s still-wide-eyed innocence, and his uncluttered love, and my centrality to his life.”
• A Child Shall Lead Them – A Sea Monkey is Less Likely (Vikki): “One night several months ago, we were talking to our kids about anti-gay bullying and our wish that GLBT youth knew that things get better just like things had gotten better for us. Miguel nodded knowingly and Zeca gasped audibly, “OH. MY. GOD. You’re gay?!”

6th Annual (2011)

• Absence of Malice (is not enough) (Polly):  “I was (in the living room of the beloved’s and my first wee home, on a laptop) when I ran into Mombian.com for the first time, and shouted “Eureka!” What a revelation. I was  just a half-year into my parenthood at the time, and was already starved for what she had to offer, astounded that she was offering it up. For free. On the internet.”
• Families by Choice (Clare): “I sit writing this, waiting for the arrival of my daughter.  As a bisexual woman married to a man, I worry about educating my child.  I worry how to create a home environment that is safe, a place where she can grow up without shame, knowing who she is and who her family is.  I worry about the best ways to help her grow in a bilingual, biracial household– especially when that is located in a third culture. I ponder how my messages can be stronger than societies.  I worry about everyday stuff and big picture stuff.”
• Happy Accidents (Deborah): “Well-meaning friends asked how I could possibly consider another child. “Well, we’ve got to hedge our bets. The more children we have, the more likely one of them will like us,” I said. On paper, the idea was madness financially, but I just didn’t feel finished in the same way some other mommies did after they had their last. “Sometimes, I feel like two are not enough and three are too many,” I told my friend with one toddler and twins on the way. “That’s how I feel about martinis,” she answered. I wish having a baby were as simple as ordering a martini. “Stirred, not shaken, please.””
• Head Lice Don’t Discriminate (Vikki): “This is a crazy week but, then again, every week is crazy for parents. This morning, I spent a few hours at my daughter’s school making balloon animals for 1,638 children under the age of 6. Okay, there weren’t really that many but it sure felt like it.”

5th Annual (2010)

• Face-making Place-holder (Polly): Just click on the link for this one to see a great photo!
• Because of a Little Piece of Paper (Clare):  “So often I feel this unearned privilege of having married a man thrown in my face.  What if S had been a woman? My life partner very easily could have been a woman.  And what protections would she have been given?  The unfairness of it all burns.  And, you think I exaggerate, but writing this, my eyes are welling with tears.”
• Bad news, Good news for LGBT Families in 2010 (Liza): “The good news I’ve been thinking of this weekend is every bit as good as the bad news was bad. This weekend welcomed to the world an adorable baby boy, Walden, son of another of my law school classmates and her partner. It also welcomed an adorable baby girl, Cady, daughter of one of my undergraduate classmates and her partner.”

4th Annual (2009)

• If they know us, the don’t vote against us (Polly): “This love (of LGBT families) is all-powerful. Ironically, anti-gay ballot initiatives try to prey on that very feeling of parental protectiveness. It’s been a predictable strategy, in 30 of 30 successful such battles nation-wide. But until we tell the stories of our own families, the only children in need of protection will appear to be the children of straight parents, not ours.” 
• Of Produce and Lesbians (Vikki): “Visibility is powerful and I blog to claim that power. I have no way of knowing what, if any, impact my words have on those who stumble across my little patch of the virtual world. Maybe people read something here and see themselves in the story, see the ways in which we are similar rather than the differences that keep us apart. Maybe people come here simply because they’ve never known a gay person before and are curious. Maybe people don’t even notice the lesbian thing and read because it makes them feel better about their parenting (which, by the way, is why I watch Super Nanny). And maybe, just maybe, Luisa and I are a couple of lesbians, kids in tow, kissing in the produce aisle and, if someone is watching, I hope that we make them feel just the tiniest bit less alone.”

3rd Annual (2008)

• Child of the Week (Polly): “See, our child was Child of the Week last week. It would be fair to say that I took on the campaign with a zeal of presidential proportions. What happens when you’re Child of the Week, you ask? Well! When you’re Child of the Week…”
• Blogging for GLBT Families (Liza): “The topic I’m going to tackle this year is in some ways, not unique to LGBT families, but we have our own stressful twist on the matter: money, specifically saving for the window of time when new parents are not working outside of the home because they have a new baby.”

2nd Annual (2007)

• Same difference (Polly): “There’s an odd paradox about every civil rights struggle. The aggrieved group, in agitating to receive the civil rights to which others are entitled (e.g., access to the institution of marriage and its legal protections), is ultimately demanding not special treatment, but ordinary treatment. The absence of discrimination equals the presence of ordinariness.”
• Blogging for LGBT Families (Clare): “Karen Atala, a Chilean judge with three children, had her children taken away from her by the courts in 2004 when she moved in with her partner. The courts granted custody to the father, he ex-husband. Ms. Atala, being a lawyer and judge herself, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Chile which ruled on the basis that, “[the children] would suffer psychological harm living with Ms. Atala and her partner…[and that] they would become confused about gender roles and suffer from discrimination and isolation.” The court then nullified all her rights as a mother and gave permanent and total custody to the girl’s father forever. She is still fighting, now on an international front, to have her children returned to her.”
• My Heart Is Just Breaking (Liza): “A lesbian mother who had legal custody of a little girl for a year was not only denied her adoption petition, but her daughter was taken away and put into foster care, only because the custodial mother was a lesbian.”
• The Journey Starts Yesterday (Liza): “Yup. As of yesterday, we are officially Trying to Have Another Baby.”
• Fact and Fiction (Vikki): “Last year on Blogging for LGBT Families Day, I posted a video of my son singing a song that he wrote called, “Two Moms”. Two days ago, someone posted the following comment on the video onYou Tube: He has a mother and a father. Anything else is fiction.  At first, I simply sighed dramatically and rolled my eyes. I then made some sort of dismissive comment about the person’s originality. I mean, if you must be a bigot, please add some passion and humor to your offensive remarks.”

1st Annual (2006)

• Two Moms (Vikki):  Click on this like to see the video of Miguel singing a song that he wrote and performed at school entitled “Two Moms”!
• Happy Blogging for LGBT Families Day (Polly): “June first’s Blogging for LGBT Families Day, the brain child of Dana Rudolph, who publishes Mombian: Sustenance for Lesbian Moms. An exciting idea, especially for me who is: (a) still fairly recently a parent (lil’ monkey is clocking in at 22 mo. old later in June); (b) still fairly new to bloggery; yet (c) decades into a dedication to civil/human rights advocacy & community network building, via whatever means works best. And obviously the uncensored, unmediated, under-the-radar, into-your-home access of blogs would be a very effective means.”
• Great Article on the Law (Liza): “I’ve just read a fantastic article on the state of the law governing our children: “The Legal Parentage of Children Born to Same-Sex Couples: Developments in the Law” by Courtney Joslin of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. It talks a lot about what we can learn from and use from case law that was developed in the context of heterosexual couples who have children using assisted reproduction, as most of us do.”
• Blogging for LGBT Families (Vikki): “I have written on occasion about my tendency to take my life here in Minneapolis for granted. We are so fortunate that our family is accepted, not simply tolerated here. I also forget sometimes the power of coming out. My 20th high school reunion is at the end of this month. We won’t be able to attend but I still wanted to be counted. So, this week, I submitted my bio. I wrote about my partner and our children and sent along a picture of our family. I felt nervous because my high school is in Kansas which is not known for its progressive politics. This was a small act but I wanted to make sure that my family is seen.”

Don’t forget to click on over to Mombian to check out this year’s submissions!