Seeking Donor Perfection Part III: The Family Minefield
In a lot of ways using an anonymous donor keeps things clear when it comes to our families. There's no real live person for anyone to inappropriately latch onto. There's no one to become DAD in the minds of our parents.
Using a known donor makes everything much more muddled, and especially one we intend to be a regular part of our child's life from the beginning. We're asking everyone to change their way of thinking, to shift our donor from being DAD to being uncle, or friend. To shift the non-biological parent to being MOM, a term traditionally bestowed because of biology and not because of intention. We're redefining family and we're asking our own families of origin to come on that linguistic and society bending ride with us. And unlike a lot of things in the lives of queers, there's no wiggle room on this.
Families of queer folk have to learn to be flexible. They start by losing their (heterosexual) dreams for their children. They learn to readjust, to change their point of view to incorporate new information and new realities. Now they must learn to think of family in an entirely new context. For us, that family will include our donor but our baby will be parented by two women.
This is where I know I'm entirely misguided but I still hold onto my dream. Because I love M., I love my parents, I love my in-laws, I love DtD, and I really want to believe that we'll all find a way to be a happy family.
There's a high risk of everything blowing up in our faces, but when has family not been a minefield?
posted by Sacha @ 11:39 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I was worried about our families treating our KD as "dad" especially since he is part of our lives. I didn't want him at the hospital at our birth since I didn't want people congratulating him instead of me. (And when we announced our pregnancy at a party that he was in attendance at, there were people who turned to him (in front of me) and congratulated him and then realized what a horrible mistake they had made when he looked at me and told them "I'm not the one you should be congratulating."
You're right about families of Queer people having to be flexible. So far we haven't had any problem with people we care about treating or KD as dad and me as unrelated to the child. If anything, we have to work harder on making our families realize that KD is not interloping or pushing where he should not be.
The worst part is everyone in our family (ok, mostly my mother) insisting on Kristin and I picking unique titles for ourselves -- like we both can't be "mommy" one of us should be "mama" or "mor" or whathaveyou. It's not that she doesn't think we both equally mothers, but it is a residue of the whole "a child can't have 2 moms thing" after all, if we're both "mom", then how does Julia know who she's talking about? So, we picked titles (I'm mama, she's mommie) but we don't really use them.
Here's me, again with the super long comments. I should just be emailing you, oh wait, I can't email from work anymore...
Well you know I can relate by DP and I have discussed this to length and since neither one of us had the "american dream" of a family her and I are both of the mind there can never be to many people to love our child. No not everyone will understand but who cares that is not what matters it matters what you make of it.
I will be Mamma and my DP will be Mom or mommy no issue and KD will be dad we can't use that title so why can't he. A name does not make a parent. I was raised with my aunt and uncle and my mom and dad and well I was closests to my aunt why because of title no because of love and the time she put in with me. The same goes for my partner, her mother had an affair and got pregnant to another guy as her husband couldn't have children and well my DP only knew her dad John, not the guy that got her mother pregnant he was just the source. But her true and only father in her eyes was John the guy who took her places and did things with her.
As Queers we don't have to play by the same rules as other people do, we can alleviate stress but accepting we are different and things will be different in our world and you know what the best thing is we dont' have the stigma of having to be what a man wants us to be in order to be desirable all we need is our confidence and our sense of self. And I think that will come into play with having children in "our own families" titles are meaningless it is the love that a child recieves that means everything.
Trista - you may always leave super-long comments on our blog. I understand that pressure to not both be 'mom'. M. and I have felt that coming from ourselves. As we've gone further on our journey I've come to the conclusion that we don't have to make some big declaration that one of us is mom and the other momma. The kid will help us with that when the time comes.
Lori - I think it's cool that your donor will be 'dad'.
In our state there was just a ruling from our supreme court that established defacto parenting (came about because of one of those nasty lesbian break-ups and bio mom was using biology to keep nonbio mom away from the kid). What this means is that if you call yourself dad, you can be counted as DAD in the courts. I think the burden of proof is a little harder, like the defacto parent has to live with the child and contribute monetarily as well.
Anyway, the concept of parent is changing in our society, and it's because of US, because queers are pushing for our right to have families. It's very exciting.
It's hard to make your families understand about your situation. Our families were fine with us being gay, but bringing a child into it was just wrong. So some of our family doesn't associate with us any more. It is your family, you can do what you want. Everyone else just needs to respect your choices.
Mainly my MIL was weird with S.'s brother about calling him the dad and congratulating him. No one else really. I have found that in theory it is harder for people than in practice. ONce we had LM it was so clear that we were the parents, and no one else. But it helps that S's brother would have been the uncle anyway.
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