I found it interesting that two lesbian-mom authors this week wrote of the difficulty of sharing Mother’s Day with another mother. Harlyn Aizley at the Beacon Broadside says:

Because in addition to amplifying the joy, Mother’s Day in two-mom households also can shed light on just how complicated it is to share the role of “mother.”

Never mind who gets to be called “mom”, who gets to sleep in?

Who takes care of dinner and makes a cake?

Who gets the card made from glue and glitter in kindergarten?

Erika Milvy in the San Francisco Chronicle says, in a similar vein:

I don’t particularly want to share Mother’s Day. “Ra Ra” though I’m supposed to be about the right-on awesomeness of lesbian parenting, I ever so selfishly want to be the be-all and end-all in the maternal universe of my child.

In our house, we avoid this problem by using birthdays, not Mother’s Day, as the designated preferential-treatment days. On Mother’s Day, we may exchange small gifts and cards, and I may make a cake for us all to share, but that’s about it. Neither of us came from a tradition of breakfasts in bed and fawning on our mothers for this holiday (though we always did something special), so we don’t feel like we’re missing out.

Another solution, of course, is to draw from the Jewish tradition, which extends many holidays over several days. Why not have a Mothers’ Weekend?

Or, if Mother’s Day is intended to be a vacation day for a job position that otherwise gets no days off, why not make it more frequent, to help us all avoid burnout? Each parent gets one day a month when she doesn’t have to do any household chores. The rest of the household is obligated to pitch in so the workload isn’t simply doubled the next day. The second Sunday in May can then be a time of gift exchange and a celebration for the entire family, not the only time of year when mom(s) can take the day off.

Those ideas may be oversimplifying. We each come from different backgrounds and have different expectations of what we want out of this holiday (and others). It’s easy to say we should just make up our own traditions. It is not always a simple matter, however, to cut ourselves and our expectations off from the past and the world around us. We lesbian moms (and other LGBT parents) spend so much time going against tradition, too, that it is nice sometimes to fall back onto a comforting old one.

Although I don’t have the same feelings about this holiday as Aizley and Milvy, I think I understand their points of view. We each have to find our own solutions, our own ways of honoring old and new, ourselves and our partners, and that can be difficult.

Wherever you are on this journey, however you celebrate the day, may it be a joyous one for you and your family. Above all, may it remind you that you are a family, no matter what anyone else may think.

ShareThis

I didn’t imagine they’d quote me while doing so, however. The conservative publication Town Hall just published the article “Librarians Against Censorship,” by Brent Bozell III. Bozell says:

Already we can predict how the ALA next year will complain about any objection to a book called “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” the story of a young guinea pig who worries that her Uncle Bobby won’t play with her anymore after he “marries” his boyfriend Jamie. The book ends at the “wedding,” with Chloe as the enthusiastic flower girl.

In my March 18 review of the book at Bay Windows (and published in a longer form at After Elton), I say:

It tells the sweet story of Chloe, an anthropomorphic young guinea pig who worries that Uncle Bobby won’t keep having fun with her after he marries his boyfriend Jamie. Uncle Bobby explains that their special times together will not end; Chloe will not be losing an uncle, but gaining one. The book ends at the wedding, with Chloe as the enthusiastic flower girl.

Hmm. See any resemblance? Well, if Bozell is going to take my words, I’m not going to provide a live link to his article. You can view it at:

www.townhall.com/Columnists/BrentBozellIII/2008/05/09/librarians_against_censorship

if you want to see it. He also rails against And Tango Makes Three and the American Library Association’s Rainbow List of LGBT-inclusive children’s and young adult books. (For an alternate perspective, see my interview with the chair of the Rainbow List project, Nel Ward.)

Yes, it is unfortunate that we must still deal with censorship and narrow minds. I say, if you don’t believe in the message of such books, make sure to stay involved with your children’s education so you can teach them otherwise. Be aware, though, that while you still may be able to censor books, it will be harder to censor the many children of LGBT parents who are talking about what they did with Mommy and Mama during summer vacation, or having their dads pick them up from soccer practice. Teaching about LGBT families is not about “promoting” some abstract “homosexual agenda.” It is about teaching children to respect their peers and develop into good citizens in today’s society.

I’ll close with a quote from Uncle Bobby’s editor at Putnam/Penguin, Tim Travaglini, who told me:

In a very aggressive way, I welcome [challenges to the book]. I sympathize with the folks on the front lines fighting that kind of censorship, but I’ll be happy with anything that draws attention to what I feel is a very unique, very special book, that really deserves to have the widest possible audience know about it, judge it for themselves, and hopefully fall in love with it the way we have.

Check your local libraries to see if they’re carrying Uncle Bobby’s Wedding yet. If not, ask how you can submit a request for them to stock it. (Some libraries may also have a way for patrons to purchase books as gifts to the library, if you’re feeling generous.) Let’s get it in as many places as we can before the storm really builds. I think I can speak for a good portion of the LGBT community and our allies when I say: Uncle Bobby, we’ve got your back.

ShareThis

• Congressman Joe Sestak, the highest-ranking veteran in Congress, called for a repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told graduating West Point cadets that Congress, and not the military, is responsible for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
• Some say transgender rights could be the next big civil rights battle of our time, and the Nashua Telegraph has a good overview of where some of these rights stand around the country.
• The Alabama House passed a Hate Crimes Bill inclusive of sexual orientation, and an anti-bullying bill. Both now go to the Senate, where their fate is uncertain.
• In California, the lawyer for Brandon McInerney, the teen accused of killing fellow student Lawrence King, says the school system is to blame for King’s death because it allowed him to come to school in feminine clothes and makeup and ignored the “turmoil” this caused. Contrast this with the support given to a New York transgender teen. Several of her classmates came to school dressed as the opposite sex in order to support her, after an apparently incorrect rumor that school officials had threatened suspension for crossdressing. The administration now says they merely warned her about an inappropriate camisole, but would never suspend anyone for crossdressing. The student’s mother commented, “I’ve always encouraged him to be who he is,” she said. “So if this is who he is, then I support it.”
• The Los Angeles Fire Commission is forcing the city fire department to drop part of its cadet program administered by Learning for Life, an affiliate of the Boy Scout, because the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policy violates the city’s anti-discrimination policy.
• The California Court of Appeal unanimously ruled in favor of a gay man trying to dissolve his domestic partnership, after his former partner said he had never mailed the DP registration form. The ruling gives him the same protections as opposite-sex spouses who discover that, for whatever reason, their marriage is not valid.
• A Denver court found a lesbian couple guilty of trespassing when they staged a sit-in at the city Clerk and Recorder’s Office after being denied a marriage license. They were sentenced to 28 hours of community service each and ordered each to pay $41 in court costs.
• The Michigan Supreme Court voted 5-2 that a state constitutional amendment banning recognition of unions other than that of a man and a woman “for any purpose” also prohibits same-sex partner benefits. Employers who provide such benefits recognize those relationships in a way “indistinguishable from the way a marriage is recognized,” and thus cannot offer them. The Detroit Free Press says, however, “There is likely to be no immediate impact from the ruling because public employers in Michigan who had offered such benefits already had changed their policies to ensure their employees’ partners would remain covered. But lawyers and gay rights advocates said the ruling sends a ‘devastating’ signal about the state’s attitude toward gays, lesbians and their children.” Yes—and bodes ill for LGBT rights in other states with such amendments.
• New York’s highest court declined to review an appellate court’s decision to legally recognize the relationship of a same-sex couple married in Canada. This also leaves in place the lower court’s decision to allow the state legislature to address same-sex marriage in the future.
• The North Carolina court of appeals upheld a county court decision to award joint custody of a child to former lesbian partners, a bio mom and a non-bio mom.
• The Pennsylvania State Senate tabled a bill that would amend the state constitution to ban marriages and civil unions of same-sex couples, after the bill’s sponsors said the measure would face a tough fight in the House. State law already defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
• The Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee heard testimony about a bill that would allow same-sex couples married in other states to divorce in Rhode Island. The state Supreme Court ruled last year that the Family Court had no jurisdiction to grant a divorce to one such couple. A Superior Court judge yesterday said she needs to know more before deciding whether to ask the state Supreme Court if her court may grant this divorce.
• A Dallas lesbian is suing for joint custody of her four-year-old daughter after her former partner, the biological mom, cut her off from the girl nearly a year ago. (Thanks, PageOneQ.)
• Virginia gained its first out, black public official as Lawrence Webb was elected to the Falls Church City Council.

Around the world:

• The Australian Capital Territory abandoned its plans to recognize same-sex civil union ceremonies, and will now amend the legislation to offer civil partnerships without ceremony. The federal government said that the original plan too closely resembled marriage and would be overturned. This seems the height of pettiness. Wouldn’t the long-term commitment of two people “resemble” a marriage regardless of whether there was a ceremony? Why deny us that?
• An American tourist from Amherst, Massachusetts was detained by the Royal Cayman Islands Police after kissing his boyfriend on the dancefloor of a hotel. The incident apparently caused a meltdown of the Web servers for the Islands’ newspaper, as American bloggers linked to their coverage. The Cayman Island Department of Tourism has now issued an official apology.
• The U.K. House of Lords passed into law a bill in favor of making incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation a criminal offense. The bill retains an amendment so people may attempt to avoid prosecution by citing a religious defense.
• In the U.K., the new mayor of London appointed Richard Barnes, a gay man and member of the Conservative party, as one of his deputies.

ShareThis

Priceless.

ShareThis

Helen and I are keeping it pretty casual (unless there’s something she’s not telling me), but as with most holidays at our house, there’s likely to be a cake involved. How about you?

ShareThis

In many ways, this vlog is a precursor to the post I did about the medical and legal details of creating our family. Now you’ll know the whole story.

We also invite all bloggers and vloggers to post on June 2 in celebration of the third annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day. (Yes, videos and photos are welcome, too. Put them on your favorite image-sharing site, make sure they’re public, and send me the link.)

Online Videos by Veoh.com

If the Veoh video above isn’t working (sometimes their server can be flaky), you can try it at Daily Motion.

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

ShareThis

MomLogic (part of the AOL Living network) just published the article “Melissa Etheridge: Superstar Mama.” The lesbian icon talks about having twins, explaining her cancer to her children, celebrating Mother’s Day, celebrity babies, the most important lesson to teach your children, and her new tour. She also offers this advice to other “non-traditional” families:

I would tell them they have all the power. That feeling inside, that desire, follow that, that’s what life is all about it. Just put it out of their mind that there is some sort of normal out there because there’s not. They may portray it on the television like Leave it to Beaver that there’s a perfect thing, but that does not exist, everyone’s doing the best they can to raise families, and find happiness, and find many ways to love, and there are many ways.

Bravo, Melissa! Bravo to MomLogic, too, for not just sticking to “traditional” families during this period of pre-Mother’s Day maternal celebration. Not all mainstream parenting channels are so bold.

*If you’re not an ME fan, that reference will be lost on you.

ShareThis

Personally, I think the guinea pigs will give them a run for their money in 2008 (not that I wish censorship on this or any book). Herewith, my full review of Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a new LGBT-inclusive children’s book that I’ve mentioned in a few previous posts. I also speak with author Sarah Brannen and her editor, who discuss, among other things, the reaction to the book so far and their feelings about potential censorship.

Fur Better or Worse: Gay Guinea Pigs Wed in New Children’s Book
(Originally published at After Elton, March 25, 2008)

Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Massachusetts author and illustrator Sarah Brannen, is more than just a good LGBT-inclusive children’s book; it is a good children’s book, period. Like 2005’s And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins who hatch an egg together, it is likely to garner critical praise as well as ultra-right censorship.

Uncle Bobby moves us from feathers to fur, however, and tells the sweet story of Chloe, an anthropomorphic young guinea pig who worries that Uncle Bobby won’t keep having fun with her after he marries his boyfriend Jamie. Uncle Bobby explains that their special times together will not end; Chloe will not be losing an uncle, but gaining one. The book ends at the wedding, with Chloe as the enthusiastic flower girl.

Written from Chloe’s perspective, Uncle Bobby deftly expresses a young child’s concerns about family relationships and change. It stresses the power of love to encompass both old and new. Brannen’s rich watercolor drawings match the tranquil but sometimes playful tone of the text. She has filled the guinea pigs’ world full of trees, flowers, lakes, and cozy firesides. One can see why she cites Beatrix Potter as an artistic influence, though Brannen’s characters seem somehow more cheerful.

The book’s great strength is that Jamie’s gender is a non-issue throughout. Unlike many older LGBT-themed children’s books, such as Heather Has Two Mommies, it doesn’t focus on a child struggling against negative views of her family. That approach has value for some, but Uncle Bobby indicates it is now possible to present a same-sex relationship without the need to defend it or compare it, however favorably, with a heterosexual norm. (Even the excellent And Tango Makes Three contrasts the same-sex penguin pair with the usual opposite-sex couples.) This leaves Brannen free to concentrate on her other themes, and opens up the book to a wider audience.

The theme of a niece questioning her gay uncle’s devotion is not a new one, however. Mini Mia and her Darling Uncle, by Pija Lindenbaum (R & S Books), appeared in the U.S. in late 2007 as a translated Swedish import. (Uncle Bobby was already at the publisher.) Like Chloe, four-year-old Mini Mia is jealous of her uncle’s new beau. She acts out in retaliation, pouring sugar on the boyfriend’s shoes and throwing his towel in the pool, but ends up bonding with him over their shared love of soccer. Mini Mia stops short of marriage, though. Mischievous children may find more humor in Mini Mia’s antics than in Chloe’s, but parents may prefer Uncle Bobby for its calm pacing.

Brannen says her mellow tone was deliberate. “I felt that I wanted to handle the story very delicately, because I really wanted this to be as accessible to as many people as possible. I mean, yes, there are two men getting married, but apart from that, I didn’t want to put anything in that might bother someone. I tried to keep it family friendly and reflective of my own life. I didn’t want anything someone could make a nasty joke about.”

The book is far from somber, however; adults and children may both smile when Chloe gets soda up her nose laughing at Jamie’s ballet imitation. Still, there is a serenity about it that makes it a perfect bedtime read.

Uncle Bobby is the first book Brannen both wrote and illustrated, although she has worked as an illustrator for many years. She did not, however, set out to write a book about a same-sex relationship.

In the spring of 2005, she was trying to write a story of her own for her five-year-old niece, who was fascinated with weddings. Marriage equality had just become law in Massachusetts. “This was in the news a lot, and I kept seeing such joyful couples,” Brannen explains. A young gay couple with whom she was friends would also talk to her about the garden wedding they dreamed of having. “It hit me one day: I’m going to make it a same-sex wedding. It wrote itself at that point.”

Why guinea pigs? Brannen wanted a species whose coloring would indicate Bobby and Jamie were both male. Birds, however, “look silly in clothes,” she says. She finally chose guinea pigs, which she had raised as a child. “They have these fat little bodies like water balloons with little legs. I thought they would look funny and cute walking around on their hind legs.”

She departed from nature, though, and arbitrarily colored the females brown and males black and white. “I decided not to make them terribly realistic. I wanted just to create fat little furry people.”

Brannen paid attention to certain details, however, such as making sure the wedding guests included both same- and opposite-sex couples. “I didn’t want to make a big, huge deal out of it,” she says, “but I certainly thought this is part of the little world they live in.”

Tim Travaglini, the senior editor at G. P. Putnam Sons who first saw her drawings, was impressed. “It’s such a pitch-perfect picture-book story,” he says. “That it treats the uncles getting married as such an incidental facet of the story, I thought was really gutsy, and exactly as it should be. We weren’t looking for an issues book at all; it just was a wonderful little children’s book. The fact that it breaks all these molds was all the more appealing.” Putnam, an imprint of children’s-publishing powerhouse Penguin Young Readers Group, made Brannen an almost immediate offer.

The weight of a major publisher is notable. The American Library Association’s new Rainbow List of LGBT-inclusive books for children and young adults includes six picture books for the youngest readers. All but And Tango Makes Three, published by Simon & Schuster, are from small presses.

The six are only a small fraction of the total 45, furthermore, indicating it is still difficult to publish books with LGBT themes for this age range. Nel Ward, chair of the Rainbow List committee, said in a phone interview “I think censorship is a huge issue. And Tango Makes Three was the most censored book in 2006 according to ALA. It’s just been removed from a library in the south, and there seems to be a struggle every time something like this comes out. I think for that reason, mainstream publishers are perhaps more hesitant to publish these books.”

Putnam, however, was willing to take a chance. Travaglini says “The publisher, Nancy Paulson, was immediately for it, very much for the same reasons I was. There’s something gutsy about the whole thing, in its treatment of [same-sex marriage], and that appealed to us. Frankly, nobody balked.”

So far, report Brannen and Travaglini, the public reception has been positive. One need only look at the many attempts to remove Tango and other LGBT-inclusive books from schools and libraries, however, to know that Uncle Bobby is in for a bumpy ride. Supporters of Uncle Bobby cannot fall back on the explanation that it is a true tale of real animals, as with Tango. The use of the term “marriage,” moreover, could be incendiary even to those who would concede some limited rights to same-sex couples.

Travaglini says he is ready for a firestorm. “In a very aggressive way, I welcome it. I sympathize with the folks on the front lines fighting that kind of censorship, but I’ll be happy with anything that draws attention to what I feel is a very unique, very special book, that really deserves to have the widest possible audience know about it, judge it for themselves, and hopefully fall in love with it the way we have.”

If they do, Brannen already has a sequel in mind. “They will adopt a child in the sequel,” she says, “so I will expand the story into a family. I’d love to do even another book after that.”

Whether the sequel ever sees print will depend largely on the success of Uncle Bobby. Putnam is marketing it through the usual publishing trade journals and targeted lists of LGBT media and organizations, but Travaglini says word of mouth is key. “Above and beyond the average book, we feel that folks who have a specific interest in it are going to take the book and run with it, and announce it to their communities and audiences and have more impact that even the average book reviewer who is handling the promotion of books all the time.”

Sequel aside, Brannen has aspirations for Uncle Bobby’s Wedding. “I hope young children will pick it up and read it without having any preconception at all about the story, and have it become part of their landscape. I mean, same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, so it’s not that I’m talking about anything weird anymore. I hope it becomes part of their world to them, that it seems normal, because to me, that’s what it is.”

Visit sarahbrannen.com for more about Brannen and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding.

ShareThis

• “Mother’s Day Special: A Tale of Two Moms” in the Windy City Times is the first of a two-part series about a couple of lesbian moms in Chicago. They conceived their family the way Helen and I did, using one partner as the egg donor for the other.
• “Surrogate mothers fulfilling gay men’s parenthood dreams” from AFP talks about the increasing number of gay men using surrogates, and the extraordinary expense of the process (over $100,000).
• “Diane Amos Headlines Funny Girlz” in the San Francisco Bay Times would be just another article about a local stand-up comedy event, except that it profiles comedian Diane Amos, the daughter of two moms, one black and one Jewish. She uses tales from her childhood in her routines, and says:
  

  Gay audiences love it because there’s so much funny stuff. Then I found a way to take it to straight audiences just by really telling the truth and telling some of the stuff around our household they’d never experienced. It’s just funny.

  Amos is also the face and voice of Pine-Sol cleaner. (And hey, you’d think a household cleaning product fronted by the daughter of two moms, and whose parent company has a perfect Corporate Equality Index rating, would be interested in advertising to lesbian moms, no? My own selfish interest in that aside, it does indicate that some marketing teams just aren’t thinking creatively enough when it comes to potential audiences. All they’d have to do is rearrange the bottles in the picture so they form a rainbow.)

ShareThis