Step Parent Adoption; Married still need one?

Step Parent Adoption; Marriage means I don’t need one?

Step Parent adoption is still a must to secure your family, even after marriage equality.  Marriage equality was a long fought battle and a much celebrated victory for gay and lesbian couples across the country. Now that it is the law of the land, many people mistakenly believe that their marriage alone will secure their family. Unfortunately family law has not caught up to the realities of how we create our modern families.

For both gay and lesbian couples, securing the legal rights of a non-biological parent is crucial to create the kind of emotional, and legal, security that most other families take for granted. The legality of both parents relationship to their child is often assumed. Parents are parents, regardless of the biological connection to your child. In New York State, the law doesn’t agree.

Married lesbian couples in many states, New York included, can list a non-biological mother name as a parent on a child’s birth certificate if they are married at the time of the birth of the child and they use an anonymous sperm donor. While a name on a birth certificate is an important goal, it in itself does not create a legal relationship, only through step parent adoption can they be acheived.

Step Parent adoption is still a must to secure your family, even after marriage equality.

In New York County, Surrogate Judge Kristin Booth Glen, in a case entitled In the Matter of Sebastian, discusses the issue of establishing parental rights for a non-biological parent specifically.  The case involves married lesbian couple who used an anonymous sperm donor to have a child. Glen concludes, when discussing the non-biological mother’s relationship with the child that, “the only remedy available here that would accord the parties full and unassailable protection is a second-parent adoption pursuant to New York Domestic Relations Law (“DRL”) § 111 et seq.”  Glen further states, “that a judicial order of adoption in one state must be afforded full faith and credit in every state, and that there can be no “public Policy” exception to that mandatory recognition…”.

While it is true that many states have what is called a “martial presumption of parentage,” the truth about this is that it is applied differently in different states.  For instance, in New York State, where I practice, there is specific case law that holds that the marital presumption of parentage does not apply to same-sex couples.  That case is called “Matter of Paczkowski v. Paczkowski.”  In that case, the appellate division of the Second Department of New York, the state’s intermediate appellate court, held that the “presumption of legitimacy… is one of a biological relationship, not a legal status.”

In essence, the court says that a marriage does not create a legal right between a non-biological parent and a child.  While it may be an indication of intent to be a parent, as would a non-biological parent’s name on a birth certificate, the only way to actually create the legal relationship that guarantees the security that all same-sex families need, is through an adoption order, and in some states, a parentage order.  Unfortunately, New York currently does not have the capacity to issue a parentage order but there is legislation in committee in Albany that may change that. 

Surrogate Options & Known Donors Complicate the Legalities of Chosen Families

One further compounding variable is that many lesbian couples are now choosing known sperm donors. While the desire for a child to know their biological heritage and have a father figure makes sense to many couples, adding another potential parent into the mix can create problems if an adoption does not take place to terminate the donor’s rights to the child and create the intended, non-biological parent’s rights to their child.

For male couples who want to have biologically related children, surrogacy is the only real option. Surrogacy is an emotionally, and financially, exhausting process.  It is a true leap of faith.  Couples considering surrogacy must juggle a myriad of concerns, the least of which being the cost.  With gestational surrogacy tabs running as high as $180,000.00, budgeting is a must.  Lawyer’s fees are often lumped together in surrogacy accounting statements, and some agencies do not include the cost of a second or step parent adoption in order to keep the numbers low.  Often, the cost of a pre-birth order is less than a second parent adoption.

step parents adoption, step parent adoption, adoption step parent, adoption for step parents

In some cases, depending on where your surrogate mother gives birth, her name may be removed from the child’s original birth certificate by a proceeding called a pre-birth order.  Some states do not provide for pre-birth orders.  Those that do may or may not replace the surrogate’s name with that of the non-biological intended parent.  California, for instance, does offer the ability to include the non-biological parent’s name on the child’s original birth certificate, and that very significant step is often mistakenly viewed as a replacement for a second parent adoption, which is the only definitive way to establish parental rights between a non-biological parent and a child born through surrogacy.

In order to understand why a second parent adoption is vital if you have a pre or post-birth (or parentage) order, you must understand what that order is, and what protections it provides.  Pre and post-birth orders are court orders that are obtained by filing a petition in the appropriate court in the state in which the child will be born.  Often, these petitions are not filed in the county where the carrier lives, but in a county which has a judge who understands the importance of these orders and grants them upon the motion of an attorney representing the intended parents.  This in itself may create a problem.

Some states may not recognize the relationship created by the pre-birth order because of the lack of a full judicial process attendant to a parentage order.  For an issue to be precluded from challenge, for instance the issue of a non-biological parent’s relationship to a child born through surrogacy, the court looks at the process by which that issue has been established.  The reason why adoption orders from one state are valid in every state, regardless of the gender of the parents, is because the judicial process of the adoption.  The state, for all intents and purposes, becomes and “adversary” to the adoptive parents in the adoption process.  The state performs background checks, it orders that fingerprints be taken, mandates that a home study is performed by a licensed social worker to ensure that the child’s prospective residence is safe and clean and essentially verifies all adoption requirements submitted by the petitioning parent, or parents.  The adoption order is the product of a fully litigated judicial process.  Because this rigorous process is not part of a parentage order proceeding, states which do not offer such orders may not recognize a relationship created in one.

Furthermore, some courts, through a parentage order, will add the name of the non-biological parent to the original birth certificate if that person is married to the biological parent.  For same-sex couples, this can present an issue, particularly if the non-biological parent’s relationship to the child is being challenged in a state that resists same-sex marriage.  These situations usually arise upon the dissolution of a relationship and during the custody/visitation/support aspect of that process.

Protecting our families may seem like navigating a ship through a sea of legal, financial and emotional waters.  But what is more important than the security of knowing that every child has a legal relationship with their parents that cannot be challenged for whatever reason. Every parent deserves that security as well.

by Anthony M. Brown – September 16, 2015

Anthony M. Brown, Esq. currently is an associate with the law firm of Albert W. Chianese & Associates heading their Nontraditional Family and Estates Law division serving unmarried individuals, couples and families in Manhattan and on Long Island.  Anthony is the Executive Director of The Wedding Party and has been a Board member since its inception in 1999.   The Wedding Party is a non-profit educational organization that educates the public about marriage and its importance to all citizens through outreach programs and strategic media placement. Anthony is the founder of TimeForFamilies.com, a web environment dedicated to assisting gay and lesbian couples create their own families. Anthony is the Board Chairman of Men Having Babies, a non-profit organization created to assist gay men looking create families through surrogate options and is a legal consultant for Family By Design, a co-parenting information and matching website.

 

 

in Adoption / Anonymous/Known Donation / Featured Articles / Known Donor / Legal / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Adopted Kids: From Guatemala,Complicated Legacy!

Adopted Kids: For US adoptees from Guatemala,

It’s A Complicated Legacy!

 

Scattered across the United States are more than 29,000 adopted kids born in Guatemala and adopted by U.S. families before that troubled Central American nation shut down international adoption in 2008 amid allegations of rampant corruption and baby-selling.

Today, as adopted kids come of age, many want to know about their birth mother and why she gave them up and wonder about the murky circumstances of adoption. Some have traveled to Guatemala to investigate.

“Guatemala was all I could think about,” said Gemma Givens, a 25-year-old adoptee in California, who has made two trips to the country to learn what she could.

“I was just a mess,” she said, “the questions, the wondering, the pain, the desire to heal and to figure it out.”

International adoptions from Guatemala began to surge after a 36-year-civil war ended in 1996. Tens of thousands of civilians disappeared or were killed during the conflict, leaving legions of children without care. Orphanages overflowed, and American families seeking to adopt soon learned there was a vast supply of infants being made available.

By 2006, more than 4,000 Guatemalan children annually — about 1 of every 100 babies — were being adopted by American families, and the small country became the second-largest source of adoptees after China. Huge sums were at stake — American families routinely paid $30,000 or more to Guatemalan lawyers to arrange an adoption.

Then, as evidence of corruption mounted, the pipeline closed. Adoptions to the U.S. dropped to 27 last year.

Roughly half of all the adoptions by Americans entailed some type of impropriety — from outright abduction of infants by Guatemalan racketeers to baby-selling to various types of coercion and deception that induced mothers to relinquish their children, according to Carmen Monico of Elon University. The professor of human service studies has conducted extensive research on adoption in Guatemala.

Monico expressed empathy with adopting families, saying, “They had their hearts in the right place.” But she also has documented the experiences of Guatemalan mothers who believe their children were abducted to meet the demand.

“Some of these women have been searching for their children for years,” Monico said. Uncertainty also has weighed heavily on adoptive parents.

“After we brought our son home, I became more and more concerned,” said Laura Hernon of Seattle, who with her husband adopted a boy from Guatemala in 2008, just before the shutdown. She wondered, “Is there a mom who was duped out of her baby?”

The couple investigated, and determined anew that the adoption was legitimate.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

September 6, 2015 – by David Crary – TheNewsTribune.com

NEW YORK

in Adoption / In the News / International / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Gay Parent Adoption: Their Perfect Family!

Here’s How These Two Dads Created Their Perfect Family, a Story of Gay Parent Adoption

I guess you could consider it just another average slice of American life when Ted, a screenwriter and game developer (gamers take note, Ted was a senior developer for the seminal “Elder Scrolls” series) from Ohio, and his husband, Ian, a merchandiser from England, attended a recent potluck lunch celebrating cultural diversity at kindergarten with their adopted, multiracial child, Mikey.

What was their contribution? Well, how exactly does one best represent Ohio/England/African American ancestry? Why, casserole, of course, says Ted. A blend of noodles, chicken and vegetables seems an appropriate choice for this potpourri of a family. You could make the argument that such families are appropriately representative of new wave multiculturalism in America — a country once famous for its open doors.

Food is somewhat central to this story. Ian and Ted met at a friend’s dinner party in Venice Beach in October of 2005. They had their commitment ceremony with about a hundred friends at their place in April of 2007, and they were married just last year.

They talked about being parents very early on and investigated ways to make that happen — including gay parents adoption, gay parents adopting, gay parent adoption, adoption for gay parents, surrogacy. Ultimately, they felt that the process was overly expensive and that their own DNA was not that precious when there were kids in foster care that needed parents.

Additionally, Ian and his sister were adopted and Ian was very comfortable with not needing “blood” relations. They met Robyn Harrod and Sylvia Fogelman at the Southern California Foster Family & Adoption Agency (SCFFAA) and started to take all of the required classes. Those initial classes, Ted explained, were somewhat therapeutic for Ian. Going through the thoughts and planning that his adopting parents went through gave him a fuller understanding of the love and commitment given to both him and his sister.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

By JAmesMichael Nichols – HuffPostGay via @raiseachild – September 11, 2015

There are all kinds of kids in the foster system. This Huffington Post Gay Voices RaiseAChild.US “Let Love Define Family®” series installment presents one child whose sweet nature and quick wit adds a lot of spice and laughter to the lives of his two dads. RaiseAChild.US contributing writer David Humiston shares the story.

in Family Stories / Foster Parenting / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

LGBT Families: Parenting & Second-Parent Adoption

LGBT Families: Parenting and Flaming Hoops of Second-Parent Adoption

LGBT Families and their personal stories are both moving and informative when planning your own family as a gay couple. At 30 weeks pregnant, my favorite time of each day is the moment when I lie down in bed and watch my stomach curiously shift as my daughter turns and rolls beneath the surface. “Look! Look!” I tell my wife when I can feel a movement is imminent, and she will place her hand on my belly, eager to make some early connection with the little creature that will be the center of our lives in ten short weeks. Each day we talk about how excited we are to meet our daughter — to see her, to feel her, to learn about her personality and if you’re my wife you will talk elatedly about teaching her how to throw a football.

In the midst of this excitement about our new family, we are beginning another new process — a second-parent adoption, so that my wife can also be recognized as our daughter’s legal parent. Although my wife’s name will be listed on our daughter’s birth certificate, and although we are legally married in New York State, and although we carefully chose our sperm donor together and although she will change a thousand poopie diapers and fall asleep reading Dr. Seuss books to our daughter one day — she will not have legal status as a parent to our child until we complete an extensive and expensive adoption process. Straight couples sometimes also choose to do second-parent adoptions, but this typically only occurs among unmarried straight couples when one is not the biological parent of the child. However, for the thousands of married same-sex couples like ourselves who have chosen to start a family and have children together, marriage or parental names on the birth certificate are not enough to secure our families.

LGBT Families of all kinds have second parent adoptions

We began researching second-parent adoptions for same-sex couples once we found out I was pregnant. We weren’t entirely convinced it was necessary; we live in and mostly travel to states with marriage equality laws in place and it seemed far-fetched that we would find ourselves in an unfriendly hospital where my wife would be barred from visiting me or making decisions on behalf of our daughter. And yet, all of our LGBT parent friends have gone through the adoption process, and even our LGBT friends without kids — including lawyers, nurses, activists and policymakers have encouraged us to do it. Only my moms, two lesbians who raised me and my siblings in New England years before any state recognized gay marriage, questioned the necessity of a second-parent adoption. “Listen honey, if you are ever in an emergency — you will find a way. Nothing will keep you guys from your child,” was my mother’s trusting advice. Yet LGBT families have faced these types of challenges for years and will continue to face them as long as there aren’t federal protections in place.

Despite last year’s momentous Supreme Court decision finding the Defense of Marriage Act’s (DOMA) ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, LGBT families still face what is often referred to as a “patchwork” of laws and regulations across the United States, including those that can prohibit a “non-recognized” same-sex parents from covering their child on their health insurance plan, visiting a sick child in a hospital, or from consenting to necessary medical care. In the worst of cases, a child could be removed from the family home if the legal parent dies and there’s no second-parent adoption in place.

In states that do allow LGBT parents to petition for second-parent adoptions (and at the time of this writing only 14 states and D.C. allow this), the adoption process can vary regionally, and even from judge to judge. This type of arbitrary consideration for a child’s “best interest” is likely to happen more with the passage of any federal legislation such as the recently introduced bill which would allow adoption and foster care service providers to “refuse to work with families with whom they have personal, religious, or moral objections.” As the attorney who is working on our adoption told us, “Less than half the states currently recognize same-sex marriages. If you were to leave NY for any purpose, there could be issues. Although you and your wife are in concert on this, if you were in another state and became disabled or died, she might have to deal with interfering relatives or an unfriendly Child Protective Services, medical or court system. A birth certificate is not proof of parentage and not entitled to full faith and credit in all states. A court order is your best protection.”

Click here to read the entire article.

 

by Allison Auldridge, huffingtonpost.com, August 15, 2015

in Legal / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Becoming A Surrogate: The Quest For Pregnancy

Becoming A Surrogate: The Quest For Pregnancy

Mardi Palan is a hair dresser. She has a partner and a one-year-old son Forest. As a surrogate, she hopes to get $30,000 for a down payment on a home. But first, she has to get pregnant.

Back in July, a huge box arrived in the mail, filled with medications, hormones and syringes.

“I was kind  overwhelmed.”

The box came with a calendar and a list of all the medications she needs to take to help her synchronize her cycle with an egg donor.

“So each day, prenatal vitamin, aspirin, antibiotic and then a shot,” she said. “And then they send you a video of how to inject the shots. And each shot has a different needle, too. So the one that I’m doing right now is just a baby needle. And then later on the progesterone is inter-muscular. So it’s a huge needle. So it’s kind of scary to look at. I’m like, ‘Oh!’”

The first shot is Lupron and it’s used to decrease Palan’s natural hormones. Essentially, it stops her from ovulating.surrogate, surrogate attorney, legal surrogate, legal surrogacy, surrogate nyc, surrogate lawyers, surrogate lawyer

Palan also takes aspirin, to thin her blood. Clots can be a problem when taking hormones.

And she was taking birth control pills to make sure she doesn’t get pregnant before the eggs are transferred, but she stopped taking those last month.

Finally, both Palan and her partner, Caleb Weidenbach, have to take an antibiotic.

Although he agreed to take the pill, Weidenbach said he questions the requirement.

“I understand that if there is some kind of infection, they probably don’t want that to be shared with the egg,” he said.  “But I feel like maybe they should do a test, to see if there’s an infection, instead of just kind of handing out the antibiotics.”

The medicine is used to treat bacterial diseases like pneumonia and urinary tract infections.

Palan is working with Oregon Reproductive Medicine in Portland. It’s one of the area’s biggest in vitro fertilization clinics and has clients across the globe.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

by OPB | Aug. 19, 2015

in Family Stories / International / Parenting / Personal Stories / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

The Transgender Dad: Paths to Gay Fatherhood

The Transgender Dad: Paths to Gay Fatherhood

Transgender dads obviously come to parenthood in the same way as many lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals, via adoption, foster care and surrogacy. But as we detailed in a Gays With Kids article this past February, some trans men also choose to have their own biological children by carrying them themselves.
“Trans men who are considering fatherhood potentially face an extra layer of discrimination in various levels of the family planning process,” Sion told me, who is a trans dad featured in that article. “Fertility clinics, prenatal health providers and adoption agencies may all discriminate against a person for being transgender.”

Stephen Stratton, another trans man featured in that article, also bemoaned the lack of education and support in the medical and fertility fields when it comes to transmasculine pregnancy. “There is never any guarantee that the people you need to work with are going to be sensitive, understanding or knowledgeable,” he wrote to me via email. “The hospital we birthed at was so welcoming and the nursing staff respected our birth plan and made us feel at ease and at home.” But, he said, not everyone has a “rainbows and transgendersunshine” experience with their health care providers.

Of course, the social stigma attached to being a trans man who is also pregnant extends far beyond the walls of hospitals and fertility clinics. For proof, one need look no further than the tabloids and media circus that erupted after Thomas Beatie publicly announced his pregnancy as a trans man several years ago.

“Not everyone was warm and accepting of how we created our family,” Stephen said. “Some people did and said hurtful things.” Despite the challenges, though, Stephen says he wouldn’t change a thing. “I have an amazing child who I love more than anything, I would… do it over a hundred times to get to be her Papa.”

While acceptance of trans people and parents is certainly increasing in the United States, there are added things to think about, Sion said, when a trans man is considering having a biological child. “Some doctors are not educated on the effects of hormone treatment and may offer a trans patient inaccurate medical advice because of that,” he wrote. “It’s tough.” He also noted that parental rights can often be brought into question for trans men going through a divorce since some lawyers still make the case that being transgender is a mental illness.

Click here to read the entire article.

gayswithkids.com by David Dodge, August 14, 2015

in Family Stories / Parenting / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Egg Donation or Sperm: kids have a right to know ?

Do children have the right to know if they’re the result of a stranger’s sperm or egg donation?

Although she has two half-sisters from her dad’s previous marriage, there was nothing in Jess Pearce’s childhood to make her doubt her biological origins. She tanned, her father tanned; he was tall, so was she. Yet when she was 28, her mother dropped a bombshell.

“She sat me down one Sunday afternoon and said she had something she wanted to tell me,” Jess recalls. “She looked quite upset, and I thought, ‘She’s going to die.’” Instead, her mother told her, “Your dad isn’t your real dad.”

Jess’s father had undergone a vasectomy after his first marriage. When he met her mother he tried to get it reversed, but the operation failed and they opted for sperm donation through the NHS. Jess was conceived on the third try at St George’s Hospital in Hyde Park Corner; all her parents knew about the donor was that he was from Middlesex. The clinic advised Jess’s parents to keep the insemination a secret. “No one knew,” says Jess. “It was literally just my mum and my dad and two of their best friends.” This was the norm back then, says Olivia Montuschi, co-founder of the Donor Conception Network. “The vast majority of [parents] were told not to tell their children… They just thought it was in everybody’s best interest that the secret was kept – go home, make love, and who knows?”

Olivia herself has had two children through donor insemination because her husband is infertile. They had resolved to be honest with their kids from the outset. “I remember telling this to a nurse when she was inseminating me, and getting a very odd look as if to say, ‘Why would you do that?’” she says.

Reactions range from shock and horror to “That’s interesting; I thought there was something odd going on,” says Montuschi. “More often than not, you will find that there have been odd discrepancies in things that parents have said,” she says. “Or [the child] will wonder about the complete lack of physical likeness or [shared] interests with the non-genetic parent.”

Though some parents feel under pressure to tell their kids about their genetic heritage, many decide to keep the details of their child’s conception under lock and key. A 2003 survey by the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge found that 47 per cent of parents of kids conceived after egg donation had no intention of telling. It’s not just the child’s feelings at stake. Even a genuine desire to tell can create tensions with grandparents or other family members who think it should remain a secret. Then there’s the wider taboo of where babies come from. “A lot of people find it really difficult to talk about, not necessarily because there is a genetic difference in the family, but because the discussion takes them into areas of parenthood where they wouldn’t normally have to go,” says Petra Nordqvist of the University of Manchester. “They’d have to say, ‘My sperm doesn’t work and we’ve had to undergo five years of IVF.’ Some people just hate having that kind of conversation with their families.”

Click here to read the entire article.

theindependent.co.uk by Linda Geddes, August 10, 2015

in Anonymous/Known Donation / Egg Donation / Ethics / Parenting / Science / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Kids of gay parents fare well, 3 more studies find!

3 (more) studies find children of gay parents fare well

NEW YORK — On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, new research suggests that children raised by gay parents are well adjusted and resilient, HealthDay reports. Four new studies were scheduled to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Toronto that set out to assess the psychological and sociological health of children raised by same-sex couples. One study looked at the experience of 49 pre-adolescent youngsters adopted by either two-dad or two-mom households. The children’s average age was 8.

Led by Rachel Farr, a research assistant professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, researchers interviewed both children and parents. Nearly 80 percent of the boys and girls said they felt “different” from other children because of their parents’ status, the study found. But less than 60 percent felt they had been stigmatized because of their same-sex family structure. And 70 percent appeared to respond to adversity with resilience, demonstrating an upbeat attitude about their family, the researchers found according to HealthDay. A second study compared rates of anxiety and/or depression among 3- to 10-year-olds raised by 68 gay male couples with those of youngsters raised by 68 heterosexual parents. The team led by Robert-Jay Green, a retired professor of clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco, found that all of the children were psychologically healthy.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

Washington Blade – by Staff, August 7, 2015

in Parenting / Science  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

For Two Moms, a Battle to Be on a Birth Certificate

July 14, 2015 – Yahoo Parenting by Esther Crane

Spouses Keri Roberson and Molly Maness-Roberson of Texas, married in 2012, are now fighting for the right to have both of their names on their son’s birth certificate. (Photo: Facebook)

Most parents don’t give a second thought to filling out a new baby’s birth certificate. But for some same-sex spouses like Keri Roberson and Molly Maness-Roberson, who have been legally married since 2012, this routine state document has become a battleground.

Maness-Roberson gave birth to son Boston earlier this month; he was conceived from Keri Roberson’s egg, and donor sperm, according to the Dallas Morning News. Yet the Fort Worth–area couple’s bliss over Boston’s coming into the world was overshadowed by the fact that Texas law currently does not permit both women to be listed as Boston’s parents.

“It just really breaks your heart, that’s the only way I can describe how I felt,” Maness-Roberson told the Dallas Morning News. Roberson and Maness-Roberson did not respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment.

Just like birth certificates in many other states, Texas’ birth document has one line for the name of a father and another line for a mother; there’s no line for two parents of the same gender. The recent Supreme Court decision affirming marriage rights for same-sex partners forced Texas to amend its marriage license — but an equally important document, a child’s birth certificate, still reflects a pre–marriage equality era.

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Why Children of Same-Sex Parents Should No Longer Feel Invisible

by Ariel Chesler, Time.com June 23, 2015

The world still doesn’t know nearly enough about the estimated six million children with an LGBT parent

babyAs I nervously await this month’s Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, which may extend same-sex marriage to all 50 states, I’m thinking about what comes next. As a child raised by two women during my formative years, I’ve previously written about the invisibility and non-recognition of my family in media, culture, and law, and how my silence about my family led to a deep and unnecessary shame. Regardless of the Supreme Court’s ruling, there is still much work to be done to make sure the children of same-sex parents are no longer invisible.

Don’t get me wrong. We’ve come a long way in what seems to some like a short amount of time, although those who have been part of the struggle for 30 years or more may beg to differ. But, truthfully, I am, in a way, jealous of children currently being raised by same-sex parents.

In the 1980s, when I was getting teased on the playground for having two moms, we didn’t have shows like Glee or Modern Family or films like The Kids Are All Right. This was way before Orange Is the New Black, with its diverse cast of characters, and even well before Will and Grace appeared on our screens. There were no revolutionary legal rulings recognizing gay families, and anti-sodomy statutes were still on the books in some states.

We also didn’t yet have the classic children’s book Heather Has Two Mommies, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. That book, and the many others like it that now exist, would have been so helpful to me. While I didn’t have the opportunity to see that aspect of my family in book form, I do recall reading Megan’s Book of Divorce by Erica Jong, which normalized my status as a child of divorce, and helped me work through the pain and frustration of not having my father in my home.

So, in many ways, the kids of same-sex couples today are so much more all right than I was because they can see themselves in books and on screen—which both validates and changes how they view themselves. Hopefully very soon they will see themselves and their families protected equally by the law.

But even with all this progress and with much of the focus of the same-sex marriage legal battle on the children of gays and lesbians, the world still doesn’t know nearly enough about the estimated 6 million children in America with an LGBT parent, and, speaking as one of those children, we don’t necessarily know enough about each other.

Enter organizations like COLAGE, which unites people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents into a network of peers, supports them, and allows them to share experiences and create community. This is such important work because allowing us to see other children with common but also unique family stories strengthens us and allows us to be seen as well.

Gabriela Herman, a Brooklyn-based photographer whose mother is gay, is also aiding the cause of visibility by collecting portraits of and interviewing people raised by gay parents. She describes each portrait and interview session as therapeutic and says she found that, as diverse as their experiences were, they all shared the feelings of silence and isolation.

Click here to read the entire article.

in Family Stories / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments