2 Dads, 2 Daughters, 1 Big Day

July 20, 2011 – New York Times – By FRANK BRUNI

Even in a city as diverse as New York and a neighborhood as progressive as the West Village, a little kid knows that having two dads is different. Eight-year-old Maeve certainly did.

She knew, too, that the world didn’t see her family exactly the way it saw others. Her dads, Jonathan Mintz and John Feinblatt, could tell.

“She understood that there was something, for lack of a better word, second-class about her family,” Mintz said.

And, as she wrestled with that, her frustration was distilled in a question that she and then her sister, Georgia, 6, began to ask more and more often.

Why aren’t you two married like our friends’ parents?

For a long time Mintz and Feinblatt avoided an answer because, while they didn’t want to lie, they also didn’t want to focus their daughters’ attention on the blunt truth: that New York, like most states, forbade it. So they perfected stalling tactics, asking Maeve and Georgia if they thought a wedding would be fun and whether they envisioned being flower girls and on and on. Anything to keep the conversation happy and the girls from feeling left out.

On Sunday, their family will be at center stage. The first same-sex weddings will take place in New York, and Mintz and Feinblatt are saying their vows at Gracie Mansion, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a longtime friend, will officiate.

And while the two men are thrilled for themselves, it’s on behalf of their daughters, who will indeed carry bouquets and stand with them and the mayor, that they’re positively ecstatic. The men care deeply that the girls feel fully integrated into society and see it as just. Sunday’s ceremony goes a long way toward that.

Outside New York there’s less cause for celebration: Twenty-nine states with constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and plenty of people who interpret a formal validation of same-sex relationships as an assault on “family values.”

So I invite you to look at the values of the Mintz-Feinblatt family. They do, too. That’s why they let me drop in on them twice this week and will have reporters at their wedding.

Feinblatt, 60, who is Bloomberg’s chief policy adviser, and Mintz, 47, the city’s commissioner of consumer affairs, have lived together for more than 13 years, the last eight in a West Village townhouse.

To go that distance, adjustments were necessary. Feinblatt, the less orderly one, learned to accept that no matter where he dropped his suitcase, it would “be moved to a ‘better’ place,” he said.

“A much better place,” Mintz added.

They put enormous thought into having children. They had to. They found a surrogate willing to work with them twice; Maeve and Georgia have that extra connection. And to avoid any sense that either girl belonged more to one father, or vice versa, the couple asked a doctor to make sure that each of them sired a child but not to tell them whose was biologically whose, unless medically necessary.

They have suspicions, but don’t try for anything firmer.

Both girls are Feinblatts. Mintz said he “horse-traded” his surname in return for getting “Daddy.” Feinblatt took “Dad.”

Adoring relatives surround the girls. An aunt and uncle on Feinblatt’s side live in an apartment in their townhouse. Feinblatt’s stepmother visits so regularly from Baltimore that she got an apartment across the street.

As for their grandparents, aunts, uncles and seven cousins on Mintz’s side, all of them, along with the two girls and their dads, gather at a resort in Baja California for a week every February. The girls chatter about it all year long.

They have three dogs, one a recent surprise birthday gift for Georgia. Maeve says she predicted it. She mischievously maintains she sees portents in the sky.

“We’re trying to dissuade her,” Mintz said. “We’re concerned there’s no scholarship in psychic cloud reading.”

Since 2004, Massachusetts has allowed same-sex marriages, but Mintz and Feinblatt are committed New Yorkers, and their daughters weren’t fixated on weddings at first.

Then the questioning increased. Sidestepping it finally became impossible. In late May, the couple took Maeve to hear a speech Bloomberg gave in support of same-sex marriage. She cried, they said, as she was hit full force with her family’s lesser place, at least then.

The girls have invited 15 friends to Sunday’s reception and picked the frosting colors for the different flavored cupcakes: purple for chocolate, yellow for banana, pink for red velvet.

On Tuesday, just after day camp, they accompanied their dads to the caterer’s for a final tasting. They fidgeted through the Portobello mushroom sliders and tuna ceviche, awaiting dessert.

When it arrived, they pounced, and their dads, beaming, didn’t hold them back. This wasn’t a moment for limits.

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

Who’s on the Family Tree? Now It’s Complicated

July 4, 2011 – New York Times –
By LAURA M. HOLSON

Laura Ashmore and Jennifer Williams are sisters. After that, their relationship becomes more complex.

When Ms. Ashmore and her husband, Lee, learned a few years ago that they could not conceive a child, Ms. Williams stepped in and offered to become pregnant with a donor’s sperm on behalf of the couple, and give birth to the child. The baby, Mallory, was born in September 2007 and adopted by Ms. Ashmore and her husband.

Then the sisters began to ponder: where would the little girl sit on the family tree?

“For medical purposes I am her mother,” Ms. Williams said. “But I am also her aunt.”

Many families are grappling with similar questions as a family tree today is beginning to look more like a tangled forest. Genealogists have long defined familial relations along bloodlines or marriage. But as the composition of families changes, so too has the notion of who gets a branch on the family tree.

Some families now organize their family tree into two separate histories: genetic and emotional. Some schools, where charting family history has traditionally been a classroom project, are now skipping the exercise altogether.

Adriana Murphy, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at the Green Acres School in Rockville, Md., said she asked students to write a story about an aspect of their family history instead. At Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, KC Cohen, a counselor, said the family tree had been mostly relegated to foreign language class, where students can practice saying “brother” or “sister” in French and Spanish.

“You have to be ready to have that conversation about surrogates, sperm donors and same-sex parents if you are going to teach the family tree in the classroom,” Ms. Cohen said.

For the last six years, according to United States census data, there have been more unmarried households than married ones. And more same-sex couples are having children using surrogates or sperm donors or by adoption. The California Cryobank, one of the nation’s largest sperm banks, said that about one-third of its clients in 2009 were lesbian couples, compared with 7 percent a decade earlier. Even birth certificate reporting is catching up. New questions are being phased in nationally on the standard birth certificate questionnaire about whether, and what type of, reproductive technology was used, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tracing a family tree, though, is more than just an intellectual exercise. There are medical and legal implications, particularly when it comes to death and inheritance. Families, said Melinde Lutz Byrne, president of the American Society of Genealogists, are mostly concerned with who inherits property when a biological relative dies.

Ms. Williams and her sister, though, had other issues to resolve. Ms. Williams, who has a lesbian partner, had a biological child, Jamison, 6, who was conceived through a sperm donor, too. And the sisters wondered how to describe the relationship between Mallory and Jamison, who are not only biological half-siblings, but also cousins. And where did the sperm donors fit in?

After months of discussion, they came to a resolution: “Mallory is my daughter and Jennifer is her aunt,” said Ms. Ashmore, 38, who lives close to her sister near Minneapolis. At home, Jamison sometimes refers to Mallory as his sister. But at school, said Ms. Williams, 40, “she’s his cousin.” The sperm donors, they agreed, had no place on the family tree.

For some children, having to explain their family tree can be alienating.

“It can cause kids pain in unexpected ways,” said Peggy Gillespie, a founder of Family Diversity Projects, a family education advisory group.

At Green Acres last year, Ms. Murphy said, two kindergartners were playing outside when a boy, the son of a single mother, told a classmate that he had an older sister. “You can’t have an older sister; you don’t have a dad,” Ms. Murphy recalled the girl saying. The boy protested; he said he knew his sperm donor, who had a daughter of his own.

Sue Stuever Battel and Bob Battel of Cass City, Mich., will soon have four children. The oldest, Addy, 8, was conceived naturally; Dori, 5, was conceived via a sperm donor. They are adopting two toddler boys. “All four of our kids are 100 percent in our family tree,” Ms. Battel said. “The genetic connection has never mattered.”

But the Battels understand that their children may have questions. So they have prepared two sets of baby books: one outlining life with the Battels, the other about each child’s birth parents. The children can choose which details they want to share.

Ms. Battel and her husband also debated whether to include other children born using their donor’s sperm. After all, those children would be biological half-siblings to Dori. Their verdict: “We decided they are not half-siblings, but donor siblings,” Ms. Battel said. “We honor them, but they are not part of the family.”

Jeannette Lofas, founder of Stepfamily Foundation, a family counseling service based in New York City, eschews the traditional family tree for a network of circles (females) and squares (males), with dotted and straight lines to connect married and blood relatives. A live-in lover or nanny can be included, too, though with no connecting lines.

“That is how complex we have to think,” Ms. Lofas said.

Rob Okun, a 61-year-old magazine editor from Massachusetts, agreed to donate his sperm to a lesbian couple 16 years ago. Mr. Okun already had two biological children with a longtime female partner and two stepchildren with his current wife. He wanted no role in parenting the children born with his donated sperm, but did want them to know who he was.

The couple, Patricia Kogut and Lynne Dahlborg, agreed, and Ms. Kogut gave birth to Lucyna and Nathaniel. Ms. Dahlborg then adopted both children.

“There is the family tree and there is the day-to-day structure of the family,” Ms. Kogut said.

She described the family as having a “triple family tree” that included her, Ms. Dahlborg and Mr. Okun.

For a long time, though, Mr. Okun was uncomfortable with the connection, largely because his mother disapproved. It wasn’t until after her death in 2004 that he considered including the children in his tree. Now, he said, “I make no distinction between my biological and stepchildren.”

For now, Ms. Williams and her sister said they were happy that Mallory and Jamison shared a special bond. But what if one day the two children want to place themselves as brother and sister on their family tree?

“I think I’m fine,” Ms. Ashmore said, tentatively.

Then she added, “But we’ll have to think about it.”

in Adoption / Anonymous/Known Donation / IVF / Legal / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Baby Makes Four, and Complications

June 19, 2011 

New York Times

By N. R. KLEINFIELD

AT the apartment in Brooklyn where George Russell spends four nights each week, he checked the clock: 7:09 p.m. Wasn’t it 7:05 about 20 minutes ago? Never had time moved so slowly. Was the clock even working? They had tossed the ball around, chased each other, done the book about a bear. Now the dreaded bedtime video. Every night, Griffin, who was 18 months old, insisted on this DVD about race cars, space ships and motorcycles, narrated by a saccharine pair named Dave and Becky. Mr. Russell found them galling. Once, while watching, he said, it made him “feel a profound despair like when I read ‘The Bell Jar.’ ” He slid in the disc. Soon, his thumb was punching fast-forward. “It’s so much better at double speed, isn’t it, Griffin?” Darkness had dropped softly. Rain drummed on Plaza Street East. Mr. Russell regarded Griffin and his curly blond hair. “He looks just like me when I was little,” he said. “I don’t feel paternal toward him. Yet it’s odd when I look at him and I see me.” The setup is complicated. Griffin’s mother, Carol Einhorn, a fund-raiser for a nonprofit group, is 48 and single. She conceived through in vitro fertilization with sperm from Mr. Russell, 49, a chiropractor and close friend. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, Mr. Russell stays in the spare room of Ms. Einhorn’s apartment. The other three days he lives on President Street with his domestic partner, David Nimmons, 54, an administrator at a nonprofit. Most Sundays, they all have dinner together. “It’s not like Heather has two mommies,” Mr. Russell said. “It’s George has two families.” Two addresses, three adults, a winsome toddler and a mixed-breed dog officially named Buck the Dog. None of this was the familial configuration any of them had imagined, but it was, for the moment, their family. It was something they had stumbled into, yet had a certain revisionist logic. Such is the hiccupping fluidity of the family in the modern world. Six years running now, according to census data, more households consist of the unmarried than the married. More people seem to be deciding that the contours of the traditional nuclear family do not work for them, spawning a profusion of cobbled-together networks in need of nomenclature. Unrelated parents living together, sharing chores and child-rearing. Friends who occupy separate homes but rely on each other for holidays, health care proxies, financial support. “Some of the strictures that were used to organize society don’t fit human change and growth,” said Ann Schranz, chairwoman of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, a 10-year-old organization. “What matters to us is the health of relationships, not the form of relationships.” And so here on Plaza Street, four people are testing the fuzzy boundaries of an age-old institution, knowing there is no single answer to what defines family or what defines love. Griffin, now almost 3, calls Mr. Russell “Uncle George” and Mr. Nimmons “Dave.” At some point, Ms. Einhorn intends to tell her son the truth. Mr. Russell worries about that moment. He never wanted to be a parent; he saw the sperm donation as a favor to a friend. He did not attend the birth or Griffin’s first birthday party. His four sisters were trying to figure out whether they were aunts. Once a week, Ms. Einhorn went out, and Mr. Russell baby-sat. But only after Griffin was asleep — Uncle George was like the night watchman. Until March 2010, when Mr. Russell agreed to put Griffin to bed and see how it went. There was a routine that had to be followed or it was tantrum world. A bath, dinner, a story, the hated video, then a circuit of the apartment to say good night to everything. Mr. Russell loathes television, an aversion he connects to his father’s seeming to have kept it on permanently. “Carol can watch, like, 52 ‘Law & Order’s back to back to relax,” he said. “She likes shows like ‘Army Wives.’ I can’t even say the words ‘Army Wives’ without irony or cringing.” He snapped off the television and announced, “It’s time to take a walk.” Barefoot, he hoisted Griffin into his arms and felt the pleasant response. They said good night to the kitchen. Good night, dining room. Good night, plant. Good night, George’s room. Good night, outside world. Mr. Russell gave Griffin a bottle, and lowered him into his crib. Not bad at all. “I certainly don’t want to be the child’s parent,” he said. Then: “What can I say, it’s lovely to hold a child in your arms.” CAROL EINHORN once wrote a song called “Canyon.” It addressed the void left by her father, who died when she was 5, after pancreatic cancer came without proper notice. She and an older brother grew up on the Upper East Side. Both parents worked in finance; both had been only children. Mom remarried, but they broke up. That angered Ms. Einhorn, the small family always shrinking. For herself, she wanted two or three children, an orbit of relatives. Ms. Einhorn went to Wesleyan University and became a singer and songwriter, once singing backup for Roberta Flack. (Ms. Einhorn’s professional name is Caroline Horn.) She quit performing in 1998, eventually becoming editorial director of a publication for young people, Music Alive! She nearly married a medical student, but reached her 40s with no Mr. Perfect or even Mr. Near-Perfect. In 2004, she decided to have a baby anyway, and began researching sperm donors. Mr. Russell had been a year ahead at Wesleyan. They bumped into each other after graduation and became great friends. She thinks of him as a brother, especially since her actual brother is a troubled recluse she has no contact with. Mr. Russell grew up in Connecticut, where his sisters teasingly called him the Godlet because they felt he was favored as the only boy. His father worked at the State Department of Environmental Protection and now lives with dementia in a center in Baltimore. His mother, who died in 1999, professed to want 10 children, but, awakened by Betty Friedan, had her tubes tied after 5. She returned to school and became a college professor. Mr. Russell grew to view children as obstacles to ambition. He came out in college, and afterward was a modern dancer, with a side job as a legal secretary. At 34, he returned to school, and four years later became a chiropractor. He sees utility in odd rituals. Sometimes he asks clients to scribble what bothers them on a piece of paper, fold and staple it. Then he writes “Gone” or “Goodbye” on the papers, and either burns them and tosses the ashes in the river or drops them in a mailbox, no doubt baffling letter carriers. When Ms. Einhorn told him her baby plans, Mr. Russell was shocked, wondering “if she wanted to be crawling around on the floor at 45.” Later, listening to her concern about “an empty space where the father would be,” Mr. Russell said, well, he would be the donor. Getting pregnant was wrenching — a miscarriage, autoimmune issues leading to a trip to Mexico for a treatment unapproved in this country. The fifth round of IVF was to be the last. Griffin was born on Oct. 21, 2008. Then came postpartum depression. Griffin was colicky. One day, Ms. Einhorn wrote in her journal, “I love my baby, I hate my life.” THE double households began because of economics. The tattered economy rocked Mr. Russell’s business — without jobs, people let their musculoskeletal systems go — and his loans became a $250,000 whirlpool of debt. He eventually filed for personal bankruptcy. He had met Mr. Nimmons in 2007 at a retreat in upstate New York. One of four children of a New York public-relations man turned California college administrator and a homemaker, Mr. Nimmons describes his family as being “as close to the perfect American family as you could get.” He worked as a freelance writer, an editor at Playboy and a speechwriter for Geraldine Ferraro, and he wrote a book on gay life before becoming special projects director at the Family Center, a private agency helping families in crisis. Mr. Nimmons lived on the bottom two floors of a brownstone he owned in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He and Mr. Russell each had recently ended a long relationship when they fell in love; they were not ready to cohabitate again full time. Ms. Einhorn said Mr. Russell could stay at her place part time. For Griffin, that would mean a visible male presence, the thing missing from her youth. So in July 2009, the four of them embarked on a provisional commingling until whatever came next. On President Street, the men split the grocery and cable bills. Mr. Russell covers the housekeeper ($70), since he’s fussier about unkemptness. Same with the electric bill, because he always leaves lights on. Mr. Nimmons handles the mortgage; Mr. Russell pays him some rent. On Plaza Street, Mr. Russell gives Ms. Einhorn $100 a week for food and $60 of the $100 for her biweekly housekeeper. He bought an air-conditioner for his room; she paid for the installation. Keeping the refrigerator in balance with Mr. Russell there part time, Ms. Einhorn finds, “is like working an algebraic equation.” MR. RUSSELL fixed the food: flounder and pizza. Ms. Einhorn wondered who was the edgiest person he could imagine as a Chia Pet. Mr. Russell offered, “Mother Teresa?” It was family dinner night. Simon and Garfunkel oozed from the stereo. Mr. Nimmons was on his way; Mr. Russell mentioned something about trying not to shut him out of the conversation. Griffin watched a Thomas the Tank Engine video. Checking it out with half an eye, Mr. Russell said, “I’m thinking of doing a doctoral dissertation on this.” He asked Ms. Einhorn, whose Music Alive! job had recently been eliminated, if she had considered working on the railroad. They had so much fun together. They called each other Sweetie Cat and did cat riffs; when she learned she was pregnant, Ms. Einhorn texted: “I am with kitten.” The Plaza Street apartment is elegant, a baby grand piano ruling the living room. Two bedrooms plus the pint-size office where Mr. Russell unfurled a bed on the floor, what he called his “camping existence,” until last April, when Ms. Einhorn bought him a trundle bed. When Mr. Nimmons and Mr. Russell met, Project Griffin was already under way, which Mr. Nimmons said he saw as “another data point, and not a big one.” He and Ms. Einhorn like each other, but are not close. As for Griffin, Mr. Nimmons said, “I have a certain distant avuncular feeling.” At dinner that Sunday, Ms. Einhorn veered into a story. Many years ago, her mother was giving a party and a soufflé didn’t rise because of the weather; she called Craig Claiborne, who actually answered, and told her to use cream of tartar. “She was a pistol,” Ms. Einhorn said. “She sent a telegram to the White House when Ford pardoned Nixon.” Ms. Einhorn asked Mr. Nimmons what was going on, and he said, “Oh, I’m working like a fiend.” She told Mr. Russell she had gotten a light for him as well as the bed. “Not only did I make your bed with sheets and lay down the rug,” she added, “but I scrubbed the shower mat.” He said, “You’re a good person.” The night faded and Mr. Nimmons left. Ms. Einhorn and Mr. Russell liked to end evenings with a ritual. For a while, they recited “intentions,” lists of aspirations. Then they switched to “gratitudes.” Ms. Einhorn started: “I had a really nice Saturday. I’m really grateful for both play dates. And I’m grateful that this was my last week of work at a place where I was underappreciated and underutilized. I’m grateful that I have a financial cushion. I’m grateful that Griffin has grown just as he should and is saying other words. … I’m grateful that despite all the wacko middle-of-the night wake-ups, I haven’t gotten sick.” Mr. Russell: “I’m grateful for the yummy dinner. I’m grateful that Dave is starting to understand my experiences and validate them rather than just listening and putting a checkmark. I’m grateful that business has gotten better. … I’m grateful for my new bed and my light. I’m grateful that I don’t have to sit here with allergies.” IT should be noted that Ms. Einhorn’s mother, Madeline Glick, who is 80 and lives on the Upper East Side, adores her grandson and visits frequently. Ms. Glick and her second husband don’t speak; Ms. Einhorn, though, regularly takes Griffin to visit him. Though Ms. Glick finds Mr. Russell delightful, she views the whole arrangement as peculiar. “Though I recognize that male companionship is important to Carol, I think he’s a little bit taking advantage of it,” she said. “I think his coming and going at will is sponging off her. If he’s trying to figure out his relationship with Dave, he shouldn’t be using her place to figure it out.” As for Griffin, Ms. Glick thinks Mr. Russell’s relationship to him should be as a trusted family friend, not as a father. “Maybe it’s narrow of me,” she said. “George is pursuing a gay lifestyle and all, and I kind of want Griffin to have a view of male masculinity greater than George.” Thanksgiving got messy. Ms. Einhorn planned on dinner with her mother and Griffin; Mr. Nimmons and Mr. Russell had invited friends to President Street. Mr. Nimmons told Ms. Einhorn to drop over with Griffin, but not her mother. Ms. Einhorn was offended but said only that they would pass. Then, a few days before the holiday, Mr. Nimmons asked Mr. Russell to see if Ms. Einhorn had a roasting pan he could borrow. She was furious — disrespecting her mother, then wanting a pan! Mr. Nimmons wrote her an e-mail saying he didn’t remember saying he didn’t want her mother to come, and if he had, he hadn’t meant it. Ms. Einhorn did not think that was enough. They had their separate Thanksgivings, and Mr. Nimmons skipped the next Sunday meal. He had lunch with Ms. Einhorn to smooth things over; she put it behind her, but was still uncomfortable that he had forgotten an important conversation. Sunday dinners resumed. YEARS ago, over the Internet, Mr. Russell became a minister of the Universal Life Church: a dozen couples owe married life to him. He adapts weddings to their wishes. Once he was told not to mention “lifetime commitment.” In another, one compulsory vow was never to watch a movie starring Helen Hunt. Last summer, on a lake in the Poconos, the groom came by rowboat, the bride by canoe. On the way to the Poconos, Mr. Russell was moody and quiet, making Mr. Nimmons feel abandoned. Mr. Russell has a deep playlist of anxieties. He is uneasy in public places (“I have a nervous system like an air-traffic controller”); begins days feeling dread (“I used to say I crawled up to self-esteem”); and feels the need to audibly criticize movies while in theaters. He is disorganized: he did not use a wallet until he was 45, because he found it hard to arrange. He loses keys, phones, everything. He’ll neglect to insert coffee in the coffee maker and brew hot water. He left the stove on; forgot to baby-sit for Griffin. He is not shy about seeking help: “I’ve been going to therapy since God was a child. I think I actually counseled Freud.” Mr. Russell finds Mr. Nimmons too upbeat about everything. Mr. Nimmons finds Mr. Russell too downbeat. “George is vexed by things I don’t understand,” Mr. Nimmons said. “There was a time last year when I asked him how he was and he said, ‘I’m bleak, I’m despairing.’ I said, ‘Oh, my God, those are heavy words.’ ” And: “There will be times I’ll say I notice we just spent 20 minutes talking about what happened to you today. I haven’t had a question yet. I had a day, too.” Mr. Russell on Mr. Nimmons: “He wants to hear about the most interesting thing with me, and I want to vent.” And: “I greatly admire and deeply love Dave. One of his deficits is his denial.” IN the kitchen, at 6:30 a.m., Ms. Einhorn told Mr. Russell about her dream: “I was swimming in a pool and I looked up and saw a plane and I said, ‘What is that?’ and the woman said, ‘That’s the fighter jet.’ Not a fighter jet, the fighter jet. And then the fighter jet did a water landing.” “Hmm,” Mr. Russell said. “And I didn’t even watch ‘Army Wives.’ ” Griffin smacked a plant standing on the countertop, and Ms. Einhorn told him not to assault plants. She was a few weeks into a new job at Midori and Friends, a nonprofit agency that puts music programs in New York schools. She was eager to succeed. Mr. Russell said, “One thing I’ve observed is that if every time you turn water into wine, it doesn’t go well. They don’t write a book about you or anything. They just keep on drinking.” He tousled Griffin’s hair and said, “The question is, will the saintly little messiah eat fruit salad?” “I doubt it,” Ms. Einhorn said. Uncle George was drawing closer to Griffin. He had taken him to the botanic garden. Put his picture on Facebook, though the caption was cryptic: “He’s my nephew. But biologically he’s my son.” It bothered Mr. Russell if Griffin was peremptory. He also did not appreciate the “chopped liver effect.” The other evening, he was reading a story when Griffin said, “I want Mommy.” Mr. Russell said, “Oh yeah, chopped liver moment.” They will not be celebrating Father’s Day. For one thing, Mr. Russell does not think of himself as a father; what’s more, he views all holidays as “premeditated disappointments.” Years ago, he invented the Russell Alternative Holiday, observed on a floating date. He and Mr. Nimmons and some of his sisters marked the most recent R.A.H. by going to see a Revolutionary War re-enactment and parade. Actually, they were late, so they missed the re-enactment. Ms. Einhorn and Mr. Russell joked about how they couldn’t believe they had not gotten sick of each other by now. Yes, sometimes he found her bossy and caustic. Sure, it annoyed her when he got didactic and made her feel talked down to. Yet they rarely argued. The nanny arrived, and it was time to go to work. “We have had 1 hour and 20 minutes of playtime, and it’s not enough,” Mr. Russell said. “It’s a little like ‘Letterman’ when you have insomnia.” “I FEEL I’m more involved with your friends than you are with my friends,” Mr. Nimmons said to Mr. Russell. They were at the apartment on President Street. They made a point of having unexpurgated discussions about festering issues. Buck the Dog was stamping around. Mr. Russell: “I never bring up your friends as your friends, but you always bring up my friends as my friends. It’s as if there was this big blackboard, this tit for tat, and it’s way loaded on my side. There’s this weird rhetoric where I feel I owe you something.” Mr. Nimmons: “No, I just don’t get that much out of them. And they’re not all people I would spend that much time with.” Mr. Russell: “I think you’re pretty good about refusing time with my friends you don’t like.” Mr. Nimmons: “Well, this is not an attack.” Mr. Russell: “It feels like it.” Mr. Russell mentioned how unsettled he felt: “All my knickknacks and things are in the basement in boxes. I don’t see how there will ever be any place for them. But maybe I’ll never live here full time.” Mr. Nimmons: “That’s funny, because as I look around I see a lot of things that aren’t mine.” Mr. Russell: “Like what?” Mr. Nimmons: “That couch.” Mr. Russell: “But we never use it.” Mr. Nimmons: “I look at this bookshelf and I’m not sure where my books are. The TV came with you. The cat lamp came with you. The box that it sits on came with you.” Then Mr. Nimmons added: “I had two rules of relationships that we violated. One: It’s never a good idea to meld things into someone’s space. Two: You shouldn’t move in together until you’re absolutely sure you can’t not.” So they talked about the future. Mr. Russell: “I don’t really know what I want to happen. I’m grateful to spend time here with you, but this house doesn’t really pull me. There’s no space in this house that feels like my space.” Mr. Nimmons: “To me, it’s less about the space than about how we’re developing as a couple.” Mr. Russell: “To not even have a space is yucky. I don’t have a place at Carol’s that’s mine except a bed and a plastic box with my clothes in it.” Then he said: “I like living partly with you and partly with Carol. I liked living by myself. But I actually think it’s healthier living around people. I didn’t expect that.” Then Mr. Russell said he had to go to Plaza Street, his musical-house existence. He had laundry to fold. MS. EINHORN unpacked the takeout Thai; she hadn’t the energy to cook. Mr. Russell and Mr. Nimmons were in Italy. Ms. Einhorn, who had not dated since getting pregnant, was missing her roommate. Something was going on with her and this improvised family. She remembered the hollow feeling when Griffin’s birth certificate came with a blank space for father. She felt better when she included Mr. Russell on her census form. They were soul mates, that was for sure. She remembered that first time she visited her father’s grave, in the icy rain, and he came along. The name on the tombstone was obscured by an overgrown bush. Mr. Russell knelt down and pruned it, making it right. “I’ve ended up in an unconventional setup, and it’s a setup that agrees with me,” she said. “Sure I want love, I want intimacy, I want romance, but is this desire to get married a beautiful dress that just doesn’t fit? I look at my married friends and there aren’t many I’m jealous of. Some of them say they’re jealous of me.” She added: “You know, I got this rustic cabinet for $10 and stored it in the office. When George came here one night, he said, ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you how much I love that cabinet.’ He said, ‘Never leave me.’ ” Suddenly, one night, they were talking about it. Ms. Einhorn: “So this was supposed to have been this little stopgap maneuver and now it’s, what, almost two years?” Mr. Russell: “Yes. It’s really fun living over here.” Her: “It’s fun having you. I don’t know if either of us has any urgency to change this arrangement.” Him: “No. It’s outrageous — who would choose this, living in two people’s houses? But it’s only gotten better over time.” Yes, but. “You empty the dishwasher, you cook, but I wonder if you should do more things,” Ms. Einhorn said. “Like if a light went out, I don’t know if it would occur to you to change that light. Because you wouldn’t know where the light bulbs are. And that seems unusual.” Him: “Well, if a light bulb went out, I would replace it. And I do know where the light bulbs are. But your point is well taken.” Her: “How does what I say feel on your end?” Him: “I don’t actually know.” Her: “Do you feel like the helpful guest?” Him: “Sort of.” “I don’t have any time,” he added. “So the thought of doing more is very threatening.” “It’s just conceptual,” she said. ANOTHER evening slipped into dark on Plaza Street. Refreshed by seltzer, the cohabitants kept alive a conversation about the weirdness of a new opera centered on Anna Nicole Smith, and how there was once a musical about Hiroshima, and how good the movie about Joan Rivers was, and how Ms. Einhorn had never had escargots. Etc. Mr. Russell had a headache and rattled out a couple of ibuprofen. He told Ms. Einhorn how smart it was that they had bought the big bottle. Curled up in a crib in the other room was a small child who one day will find out that Uncle George is not exactly his uncle. “I’m fearful that he will be angry or demanding, either one of which would be hard for me,” Mr. Russell had said. “I’m worried he might say, ‘Well, why didn’t you decide to be my father, being that I don’t have a father?’ ” They plopped down in the living room and played a poetry game. Each wrote a line and the other had to invent the next one, rhyming off the last word. They sniggered at the results, the nonsense of it all. Then they prayed that Griffin would not awaken at the zombie hour of 4:45 as he had been. Mr. Russell hoped for 7:10. Ms. Einhorn, 7:12. That bit of futility dispensed with, they turned to their bedtime ritual. Not the gratitude list. This time, they would sing. They chose “Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya,” a Tibetan chant. “Om namo,” they began. Their voices intersected and became one. Outside came the sough of wind. They kept going. They sang. Yes, they sang.

in Anonymous/Known Donation / Parenting / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Ohio appeals court overturns contempt finding and allows bio mom to withhold visitation from nonbio mom

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage by Nancy Polikoff

An Ohio trial judge granted Julie Rowell temporary visitation with the daughter she raised for five years with her former partner, Julie Smith. The child was conceived through donor insemination while the couple was together. When Smith refused to allow the court-ordered temporary visitation, the trial judge held her in contempt of court. Last week, an Ohio appeals court in Rowell v. Smith overturned, in a 2-1 vote, the contempt finding, ruling that the trial court lacked the authority (and therefore the subject matter jurisdiction) to issue a temporary visitation order to a non-parent unless there was pending an action for dissolution of a marriage or child support.

This is an outrageous decision. The appeals court does not dispute that the court has the power to hear Rowell’s petition for custody of the child. But a custody case can drag on for a long time. Point of fact: this custody action began in October 2008. Procedural manuevering, as well as the standard length of time it takes to prepare a contested custody case, means that a final hearing on custody can take a very long time. Without a temporary visitation order, the nonbio mom loses contact with her child and thereby reduces the likelihood she will prevail at the ultimate trial.

This case is the story of a bio mom who simply refused to comply with a trial court’s order, requiring the nonbio mom to return to court for enforcement. To the credit of the trial judge, that judge refused to budge from the temporary visitation order and ultimately held the bio mom in contempt and ordered her jailed for three days unless she allowed visitation and paid Rowell’s attorneys fees. That contempt order was subject to review by an appellate court, and it is that review which resulted in this terrible opinion.

It is settled in Ohio that a nonbio mom can share custody with a bio mom when there has been an agreement to do so. The agreement can be proven through conduct. In February I wrote about In re Mullen, currently pending in the Ohio Supreme Court. That case will determine whether the presence of a known semen donor who now wants a role in the child’s life and who has teamed up with the bio mom can negate a nonbio mom’s claim.

The two judge majority in this opinion really stretched to decide the way it did. The forceful dissent cited rulings from the Ohio Supreme Court and other appeals courts allowing nonbio moms to obtain visitation and shared custody. The dissent chastises the majority for relying on a case in which grandparents sought visitation only and were denied it. In this case, the dissent notes, Rowell is seeking shared custody, which she is allowed to do, and a temporary visitation order is simply designed to maintain the status quo until custody can be decided. Since the court has subject matter jurisdiction to determine custody, it is also authorized by rule to make temporary orders such as this one.

Winning in court makes for good law, but the clients who go through these grueling cases mostly care about maintaining their parent-child relationship. A nonbio parent who wins and faces a recalcitrant bio parent doesn’t get what she and her child deserve. The most famous recalcitrant bio mom in the country is, of course, Lisa Miller of the infamous Miller-Jenkins cases. Several levels of courts in two states have ruled against her and still Janet Jenkins has no relationship with her child.

I hope this case goes to the Ohio Supreme Court and is reversed. If it stands, bio moms can drag out custody proceedings almost indefinitely and eliminate a child’s second mother by the sheer passage of time.

Posted by Nancy Polikoff at 5:46 PM

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

Timo Miller website raising funds for defense of man who helped Lisa Miller evade court order to transfer custody

Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage – Nancy Polikof – May 14, 2011
Timo Miller, the Christian missionary and Mennonite pastor arrested last month for aiding and abetting the international kidnapping of Isabella Miller-Jenkins by her biological mother, Lisa Miller, has set up a website telling his side of the story and seeking funds for his defense.

A Vermont court ordered a change of custody after Lisa repeatedly defied the court orders providing for visitation between Isabella and her other parent, Janet Jenkins. After the last hearing in the case, but before the court issued its ruling, Lisa fled the country, allegedly with Timo Miller’s help. She and Isabella remain in Nicaragua.

The Timo Miller website compares Lisa to a mother goose who will “fight to the death to protect her young.” It describes same-sex couples raising children as follows:

Since God has not intended for two men or two women to raise children as a family unit, they can’t produce children on their own. This creates a problem in their agenda to create the perception that homosexual behavior is normal. Thus they resort to adopting children or using artificial insemination from a male donor in the case of a lesbian relationship. Can you imagine being a child growing up in the middle of such an environment?

According to the version of events on the website, Lisa “realized the emptiness of her lesbian lifestyle” and “the danger that lifestyle posed for her young daughter.” So she “repented of her immoral ways” and sought to make a new life. “Unfortunately for little Isabella,” the website continues, “the lesbian activists decided the situation was an opportunity to further their agenda. They filed lawsuits on behalf of Janet Jenkins (the former lesbian partner) to force visitation rights and eventually gain custody of Isabella in an attempt to prove that their “civil unions” have parental rights.”

One of the many things wrong with this version is that Lisa herself filed to dissolve the couple’s civil union and requested custody, with visitation rights to Janet. The website describes Lisa’s losses in the Virginia appellate courts as those courts “wash[ing] their hands of the situation because of some legal technicalities.” Those “technicalities” are the laws explicitly designed to prevent parental kidnapping by giving control over custody litigation to the state that issues the initial court orders. When Lisa filed in Vermont, she gave that court the power to decide Isabella’s custody and visitation. That’s not a “technicality.”

The website puts references to Janet’s parental rights in quotes (i.e., “parental”) and then says the accusations against Timo Miller beg the question of how “a biologically unrelated individual who has not gone through the adoption process” can even have parental rights. “Most states have specific prohibitions banning homosexual marriage,” it continues, “helping to prevent a situation like this from occurring.” If this turns out to be his defense, it will get him nowhere. In numerous situations, legal parentage does not require biology or adoption. And laws banning access to marriage for same-sex couples have never been interpreted to prohibit parenting by same-sex couples. (Some states do not allow both partners to be legal parents of their children  but that’s entirely separate from whether they can marry.)

The case summary page on the website concludes: “Will you stand beside Timo as he faces the accusations against him? Will you pray for him and his family? Has God blessed you with the ability to help financially?”

Miller won’t be able to build a defense around his religious convictions, but it looks like that’s what her’s going to try.

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

Massachusetts same-sex weddings inspire pioneering author’s new picture book

by Dana Rudolph
contributing writer
Monday May 9, 2011

More than 20 years after she wrote Heather Has Two Mommies, the first picture book for and about children with lesbian parents, Lesléa Newman is still turning out must-reads for lesbian families. Her latest work, Donovan’s Big Day, is a delightful story about a boy preparing for the wedding of his two moms.

Newman, who has over 60 books for children, young adults, and adults to her name, along with numerous literary awards, said she wrote Donovan to be “pure, joyful celebration,” a “gift that I wanted to give our community.”

She got the idea for Donovan in the shower, where she was reflecting that many books featuring gay parents also centered around some kind of “issue.” As an example, she points to Heather itself, which focused on a girl trying to understand why she doesn’t have a dad.

She left “issues” out of Donovan entirely. The young boy has only the problems any child might face while attending a wedding of any sort. He has to dress up, keep clean, and not fidget. Most of all, he has to make sure to hand his moms their rings at the proper moment.

There is just enough light tension to keep young readers engaged as Donovan goes through each step of his preparations. Illustrator Mike Dutton’s dynamic gouache drawings capture Donovan’s earnest spirit with gentle humor.

In creating the character, Newman said, “I just tried to remember what it was like to be a child and to see the day from the child’s perspective.”

The book is also a celebration of wider family. Donovan stays with his grandparents the night before the wedding. His aunt and uncle drive him to the ceremony, and he shares the back seat with his cousins. Upon arrival, there are more relatives and friends to kiss and compliment him.

Newman found inspiration for Donovan from watching same-sex couples in her home town of Northampton, Massachusetts, go to City Hall for marriage licenses on May 17, 2004, the first day they legally could. “There were many, many children present that day — children of those couples, children as bystanders…participating in all the joy,” she recalled.

And at a more recent wedding she attended, the two women ended up holding their fidgety children while saying their vows. “I thought that was such an amazing, beautiful moment,” Newman said, “that I wanted to capture that spirit of love and joy in the book.”

Newman acknowledges that not everyone will welcome another children’s book about two moms. Heather has been one of the books library patrons most frequently ask to be removed or reshelved, according to the American Library Association.

“It’s just so puzzling to me that a book about love could be seen as threatening or something that should be challenged,” Newman said, but adds that librarians “have been absolutely wonderful” in supporting her and following proper procedures when someone complains.

Some things have gotten better over the years, however. She explained that when she and a friend published Heather on their own in 1989, “It was a very grassroots project. We raised money, mostly in $10 donations.” When she went on to write other children’s books, editors chose not to put “Author of Heather Has Two Mommies” on the book jackets, Newman said, “even though that’s what I’m known for.”

Now, Donovan’s publisher, Tricycle Press, a division of mega-publisher Random House, has her authorship of Heather clearly on the cover. “That, to me, is a very interesting way to look at how far we’ve come,” Newman says. “Something that at one point had to be hidden now is out there and celebrated.”

She believes that many publishers are, however, still cautious about picture books that show same-sex parents. They may have financial concerns and feel that only families with two moms or two dads would be interested in buying the book, or they might think “the gay thing” will “alienate” readers, she speculated.

She would like to see more books like the recent Monday Is One Day, by Arthur Levine, “where there are all kinds of families, including families that have two moms, two dads, one mom, one dad, a mom and a dad, interracial couples, and interfaith couples,” she said. “The world is so wonderfully diverse. I really would love children’s literature to reflect that on a more grand scheme.”

Her own upcoming works show her range as a writer. Her picture book A Sweet Passover (Abrams, 2012), is about a girl who is tired of eating matzo during the holiday. And for young adults, her book October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard (Candlewick Press, 2012), will tell “the story of his murder and its aftermath in a cycle of 68 poems.”

As for books that feature LGBT families, she says parents have told her they’d like to see “books that are not ’issue’ books as much as just books about a family having an adventure or doing something interesting. If the kid has two moms or two dads, that’s not the focus of the story.”

And although Donovan may, like Heather, face challenges in libraries and schools, she said that for lesbian parents, “a book is the least of it. What they want is for their child to feel safe in that school and for that child to be able to be open about who his or her family is.” But, she added, “Perhaps a book like this can help that happen.”

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents. She can be reached at drudolph@mombian.com.

in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Arrest made in Miller-Jenkins custody battle

Keen News Service, April 22, 2011 – By Lisa Keen

A man accused of helping a former lesbian sneak a child out of the country, violating a court order that the mother turn the child over to her former same-sex partner, was arrested April 18 and will be arraigned in federal court in Vermont on Monday, April 25.

According to court documents, the FBI arrested Timothy David Miller in Alexandria, Virginia, on charges that he aided in the international parental kidnapping of Isabella Miller-Jenkins by one of her two mothers, Lisa Miller.

The FBI statement says Lisa Miller took her child to Mexico in September 2009 “with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights by Janet Jenkins,” her former civil union partner. The statement says Timothy Miller provided assistance with Lisa Miller’s travel from the U.S. to Toronto and then to Mexico City, and provided shelter for her. The Millers then continued on to Managua, Nicaragua, later that month.

A warrant for Lisa Miller’s arrest was issued in April 2010.

Sarah Star, a Vermont attorney representing Jenkins, said Friday that, despite Timothy Miller’s arrest, “We still don’t know where they are now.”

Jenkins issued a statement saying she hopes “Isabella is safe and well” and that she is looking forward to “having my daughter home safe with me very soon.”

But Star said she was not sure what measures might be available to law enforcement officials to attempt to locate and extradite Lisa Miller back to the U.S.

The FBI indicated it has not established whether Lisa Miller is related to Timothy Miller. Timothy Miller reportedly lived in Crossville, Tennessee, and has a wife and four children. But evidence suggests he and the family were living in Nicaragua in November 2008. The Rutland Herald, a Vermont daily newspaper, said Timothy Miller worked as missionary in Nicaragua.

According to one FBI affidavit, the “Lynchburg Christian Academy Payroll Account” provided “multiple payroll checks to Lisa Miller. The Academy is an affiliate of the later Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church.

The FBI documents indicate agents believe Lisa Miller was going by the name Sarah, and that her daughter was being referred to as Lydia.

A Vermont judge transferred full custody of the daughter to Jenkins in November 2009, after Lisa Miller failed to comply with a court order that she allow Jenkins visitation with the child.

The Miller-Jenkins case took on national prominence after Lisa Miller moved from Vermont to Virginia in an effort to use Virginia’s newly enacted law banning recognition of same-sex relationships as leverage in her battle to prevent Jenkins from having visitation. But Virginia courts, including the state supreme court, ruled that the federal kidnapping law trumps Virginia’s “Marriage Affirmation Act” and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Isabella Miller turned 9 this month.

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

New Social App Helps Lesbians Find Sperm Donors

Mombian.com, Friday April 1, 2011

Lesbians seeking to get pregnant now have a new tool at their disposal: Dōnr, a new app for mobile devices that lets women check out the credentials of potential sperm donors. Like Grindr, the social app that helps gay men find potential mates nearby, Dōnr lets lesbians access profiles of men in close proximity to see if they might be suitable candidates for providing genetic material.

“Lesbians have long used cutting-edge science to create their families,” said Elizabeth Bean, the CEO of Dōnr, Inc., herself the mother of twins. “It’s time that the search for sperm donors catches up with the rest of the family creation process and takes advantage of modern technologies.”

After their phone alerts them to the presence of a potential donor, lesbians can use the app’s extensive profile information to check out details such as education, hobbies, health, and whether the man wants contact with the child. They can then connect with the man to talk in person.

Bean says her company will soon be coming out with several related apps: Bāstr, which allows lesbians to find the nearest LGBT-friendly fertility clinic, and Lawyr, which helps them find an attorney to do the legal paperwork necessary to protect their families.

in Anonymous/Known Donation / IVF / Parenting / Resources / Services  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Delaware Supreme Court upholds de facto parent statute and upholds joint custody award

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 – Nancy Polikoff
Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage

Two years ago, in an opinion I criticized extensively, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that a woman whose partner was a child’s only legal parent (through adoption) lacked standing to obtain custody or visitation when the couple split up. In response to that decision, the Delaware legislature amended its definition of “parent” to include de facto parents, a move I praised as extensively as I had criticized the previous court ruling.

A de facto parent in Delaware is one who:

(1) Has had the support and consent of the child’s parent or parents who fostered the formation and establishment of a parent-like relationship between the child and the de facto parent;
(2) Has exercised parental responsibility for the child [as defined elsewhere to include meeting the child’s physical, mental, and emotional needs]; and
(3) Has acted in a parental role for a length of time sufficient to haveestablished a bonded and dependent relationship with the child that is parental in nature.

The legislature made the amendment retroactive so that the mother whose loss prompted the statutory reform could refile for custody, which she did. The trial court ruled earlier this year that Carol Guest (a pseudonym) was the de facto parent of the child, A.N.S, and it awarded her joint custody. The adoptive mother, Lynn Smith (also a pseudonym), appealed.

In a ruling released this morning under the name Smith v. Guest, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the joint custody award. Smith had appealed on several grounds and lost on all of them. Of greatest significance, she challenged the constitutionality of the statute, alleging that it violated her right to raise her child as set out in the US Supreme Court case of Troxel v. Granville. The Delaware court got it exactly right when it disposed of Smith’s argument as follows:

The issue here is not whether the Family Court has infringed Smith’s fundamental parental right to control who has access to ANS by awarding Guest co-equal parental status. Rather, the issue is whether Guest is a legal “parent” of ANS who would also have parental rights to ANS—rights that are co-equal to Smith’s. This is not a case, like Troxel, where a third party having no claim to a parent-child relationship (e.g., the child’s grandparents) seeks visitation rights. Guest is not “any third party.” Rather, she is a (claimed) de facto parent who (if her claim is established, as the Family Court found it was) would also be a legal “parent” of ANS. Because Guest, as a legal parent, would have a co-equal “fundamental parental interest” in raising ANS, allowing Guest to pursue that interest through a legally-recognized channel cannot unconstitutionally infringe Smith’s due process rights. In short, Smith’s due process claim fails for lack of a valid premise.

I could not have said it better myself. I hope this reasoning resonates throughout the country and provides an alternate narrative to the one that has prevailed in some states that take a cramped view — and certainly not a child’s view — of what makes a parent.

in Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Parental Rights and Why Right-Wing States Are Hazardous to Your Health

Mombian – 2.24.2011

What a day yesterday, hmm? The Department of Justice says it won’t defend the Defense of Marriage Act. Not to mention that Maryland is edging closer to marriage equality (expect a final vote in the next day or two), and civil unions are now legal in Hawaii. (That is, the governor has signed the bill—it doesn’t go into effect until January 1, 2012.)

Equality marches on, but it hasn’t been and still won’t be an easy path. When you need a break from all the DOMA pieces flying around the LGBT blogosphere today, I hope you’ll go read two pieces I’ve written for Keen News Service recently that cover parenting-specific issues. The first, “Same-sex parents’ rights: It’s not Hollywood, it’s war,” looks at a number of court cases around the country, and the second, “Warning: Anti-Gay States May be Hazardous to Your Health,” at some new research showing that same-sex couples with adopted children living in states with anti-gay adoption laws and attitudes had more mental health issues in their first year of parenthood than same-sex adoptive parents living in more accepting states. It may seem obvious to us, but I’m all for backing up the obvious with science when necessary.

in Legal / Legislation / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments