IDENTITY

The modern family has come a long way from the typical family post-WWII family of the 1950’s. With high divorce rates and an increase in single parenthood, the picture of June and Ward Cleaver with Ward and little beaver has seemed to have been replaced with a quintessential village that raises the children. Into this comes the next group looking to prove that they can be just as good of parents as the rest of society, the LGBTQ community. Queer Parenthood is not all that new, however the openness and options are rapidly expanding now that laws allowing both parents to have legal rights to the children and laws that protect the parents are being passed. One of the biggest things that has led to the increase in same-sex parenthood is the fight for same-sex marriage. It seem a natural step for people getting married to eventually settle down and have kids, and LGBTQ couples seem to be no different.

           Personally I always knew even when I was just starting to come out that I would eventually want to settle down with a guy and have a couple of kids, being gay was just a stumbling block towards an eventually and obtainable goal. I have noticed recently that a lot of my gay peers have similar feelings and that most of my heterosexual peers seem to accept with ease the thought of me having kids. However when I voice this thought to the older generations I interact with I have noticed their pauses and looks of concerns. The fear that those kids will become LGBTQ themselves, the fear of molestation that always use to accompany the idea of homosexuality in the past, the fear that the kids will not have parents that will last or be in a stable relationship, and the fear that the kids will not understand proper gender roles; always can be seen when I mention the idea of my future husband and children to great uncles and aunts.

            While this can easily be brushed off in my head, what I have issues getting over are my fears for my future children, how will other children treat them when they find out that my kids have two daddies, how hard will it be to adopt children, how will the principals and teachers deal with a homosexual couple’s children being in their class when they are morally opposed to it, will my partner and I be able to stand in front of these groups as a married couple or will be just have to be two people dating who happen to have legal rights over this child? These are the concerns I look at when I think about my future, but I also look at things like family vacations, going home to dinner and talking with my children about how their school day when, dropping them off on their first date or watching them progress through school as they grow through life and discover who they are while my partner and I look on in awe and wonder, with only a hint of fear and concern. It is in those dreams and hopes and fears I think people will see that I am just as normal as they are as a parent, and eventually the things that I will get caught up on thinking on will pass as new concerns and hopes arise. In that, LGBTQ parents really aren’t that different from the rest of the world.