The Kids
March 6, 2016 7:13 AM   Subscribe

Judges, academics, pundits and activists keep wondering how children are impacted by gay marriage. Maybe it’s time to ask the kids. A rich media photo essay coupled with audio interviews, by Gabriela Herman.

For the past four years, I have been photographing and interviewing subjects with one or more L.G.B.T. parent. Their experiences are wide ranging. Some were adopted, some conceived by artificial insemination. Many are children of divorce. They were raised in urban areas, the rural Midwest and all over the map. They juggled silence and solitude with a need to defend their families on the playground, at church and at holiday gatherings.
posted by hippybear (17 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
I was raised by a gay father and straight mother, although my dad didn't come out until I was a teenager. At the time, it was extremely difficult for all of us, but impact is such a funny thing. I remember him telling me a story about desperately trying to get therapy from our rabbi. The rabbi offered him a counseling group that he ran with people who had committed serious crimes, or who were tempted by "sexual perversion."

I feel extremely lucky to have been raised by a gay man, but it was so difficult for him. It's so much better now for a lot of kids growing up in queer families. I love seeing photo essays like this.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:21 AM on March 6, 2016 [10 favorites]


Thanks ! It's pretty interesting.
posted by nicolin at 7:26 AM on March 6, 2016


I get to meet a lot of families through my job, and the kids who come to my desk with their two moms or two dads are no different than the ones who bring in their traditional family arrangement. The biggest difference might be that I show them how their birth record (the most official thing about them up to that point, usually) accounts for them having parents of the same gender by listing for both fields Parent/Mother/Father in addition to all the other 'fun' bits of vital records documentation.

Simply having people who offer love unconditionally is much more important to one's good adjustment to life than what sort of jiggly bits those people have.
posted by carsonb at 7:34 AM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]


These are powerful and touch testimonials. Looking forward to listening to all the audio.

The most important thing for a child's development is having a loving and supportive parent. There also needs to be an absence of a caregiver that is undermining, unsupportive, or abusive. A loving parent cannot always undo the damage of an unloving parent. Just one loving parent is needed; the gender, race, religion, or whatever is almost irrelevant. Two loving caregivers is a bonus. More than two is winning the lottery.
posted by blairsyprofane at 7:52 AM on March 6, 2016 [9 favorites]


So...the kids are alright?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:18 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


My eye is caught by the fact that almost all of them were raised in a single location. Anecdotally speaking, as someone who grew up all over the place, I think that moving around a lot has a greater potential to affect a child's development (for better or worse) than the gender or sexual orientation of the parent(s). It's been argued that a child's peer group has an as-large (or possibly even larger) impact on a child's development vs. family. I wonder if they actively sought out people with stable upbringings as far as hometown is concerned, or if they just didn't happen to come across people who had moved around.
posted by mantecol at 8:33 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


Pulls on my heart strings for sure. So far our kids (7 & 9) are all right. We've been in the same neighbourhood school since they started kindergarten so the "you have two moms?" thing is now old news. Another lesbian couple and their three kids moved down the block a year and a half ago and both of my kids now have at least one other kid with same sex parents in their class. They finally changed the enrolment forms for the school this spring so they say parent/guardian parent/guardian instead of mother and father. Last night both my kids had friends sleep over, friends who could not care less that my kids have same sex parents. They care more that I made brownies for dessert.

Perhaps there will be teasing eventually but from what my two tell me it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully it never does, and their two moms continue to be no news. If it does happen I hope we'll have raised them to be strong and resilient enough to deal with it.
posted by Cuke at 8:41 AM on March 6, 2016 [17 favorites]


What an awesome project this photo essay is. And reading the author's story at the end introduced me to Zach Wahls' amazing testimony to the Iowa House Judiciary Committee. I look forward to the day sexual orientation becomes a non-issue, when we look at humans as simply humans.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 8:50 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


What really struck me is the difference in experience for kids raised by gay parents who are accepting of their own identity and 'out and proud' so to speak, versus kids whose gay parent has lived a closeted life. It just seems so obvious that if we raise kids to be accepting of different types of people and families (whether we are gay or not), kids will be ok with different types of people and families. But when we teach children (or let religion/society teach them) to hate or fear or be repulsed by people 'who are different,' then kids do a great job of hating, fearing and being repulsed by people different from them. And it doesn't much matter if the difference is religious, racial, social, etc, etc. I honestly, truly believe that we don't come into the world with hatred of 'others' built in to our psyche. It is something that has to be taught.
posted by pjsky at 8:50 AM on March 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


If you look at the vast majority of things that define who my moms are, or who my family is, it's really no more accurate to say that my moms are gay married, than to say they are Packers-fan married, or work-in-healthcare married.

This kind of statement is shockingly naive. The children of Packers fans are *much* more likely to grow up Packers fans themselves, or some other worse sports perversion. Have you ever tried to explain to your kid why his friend Johnny is a Packers fan or why he's not allowed to come over and play football? We must preserve the sanctity of traditional, non-Packers marriage. It's Adam and Eve, or Adam and Adam, or Eve and Eve, but it sure as hell isn't Lombardi and Favre.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:22 AM on March 6, 2016 [16 favorites]


Her own story is so sad. It's good that many of the young people see their families as completely normal. At least some places, there is progression.
posted by mumimor at 10:44 AM on March 6, 2016


It's Adam and Eve, or Adam and Adam, or Eve and Eve, but it sure as hell isn't Lombardi and Favre.

Hey, now. I know plenty of well-adjusted and respectable Packers fans; you can't judge them all by those grubby cheeseheads that are always disrupting things and shouting "out of the living room and into Lambeau Field!"
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:33 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


This Packers thing is really kinda not funny at all in this context. Like, ok, I get the satire but maybe repeating conservative talking points is something that those of us who are queer don't really want to be hearing.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:21 PM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


Please, won't everybody think of leaving the children out of this!
posted by eriko at 2:06 PM on March 6, 2016


This is a good Australian documentary about kids growing up with gay parents. My nieces have asked their moms to arrange a couple of screenings at their school because it's an easy way to answer a lot of their peers' questions about their family.

The most recent argument I hear from people who are, on the surface, "accepting" of same-sex parenting yet still "concerned", is that the kids don't have role models of the other sex, or that they aren't seeing healthy heterosexual relationships modelled, which will help them if and when they grow up to be in a heterosexual relationship. But I've also seen so many cases where kids with hetero parents end up looking outside the family for those examples and role models, for whatever reason, and guess what, *turn out just fine*... so I expect these kids will be just fine too. How hard is that to understand?
posted by olinerd at 6:37 PM on March 6, 2016


This Packers thing is really kinda not funny at all in this context. Like, ok, I get the satire but maybe repeating conservative talking points is something that those of us who are queer don't really want to be hearing.

Point taken, and I humbly apologize and will offer something contributory instead.

One of the main focuses of my kids' school is on non-traditional families, many same sex couples, three parents, trans parents, adopted children, and a handful of trans kids even. My kids have been going there since age three and it's pretty cool that this is a completely and totally normal thing for them to go have a play date with friends who have two mommies or two daddies and when the boys bring up the topic, it's on par with what kind of car they drive, or whether they have a dog. My kids are 4 and 6 and barely have thoughts about their own mixed-race status, but I am sure they are starting to develop some sense that they are somewhat unique when compared to the larger world outside their school, and I would assume the same about children with same sex parents; but the older, more emotionally secure, and more supported they are when they start to confront these ideas, the better. For now, I love the fact that my son just thinks Tessa is a really great soccer player and wants to be on her team and has never thought to ask about why she uses the gender neutral bathroom.

Because we are sensitive liberal nerds, we try to talk to the kids about why we are going to Audrey's daddies' wedding only now when they've already been together and had a daughter for many years. We took them to an exhibit at the history museum on Stonewall and we discussed the Supreme Court and DOMA. And they are completely bored. Mostly because their parents are squares, but also because they have no concept of why an expansive definition of family is revolutionary. I certainly have nothing but compassion with the pain and suffering that people who struggle to find acceptance from their families and communities. With children, real progress means the remarkable is mundane. "Yes, boys can marry boys and people have visited the moon. Can I go watch a Wild Kratts now?"

For the most part, the kids at the school are like kids anywhere else, they're into Minecraft and care about whether their peers like the Sounders or the Seahawks better and I guess what I was remarking on was the fact that in a (albeit insular) community where alternative gender identities and family structures are aggressively inclusive, sports fandom is something that is much more pre-determined by parents and judged than who you snuggle up and read with at night.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:32 PM on March 6, 2016 [6 favorites]


That was wonderful. Our kids are 3.5 and 1.5 and seem to be OK so far but it is early days yet.

Facebook just reminded me of an incident in the mall last year - the kids and I were eating lunch beside another family with similar aged kids. The other mom and I were chatting, the older kids were bonding, play dates were suggested. Then, my kid says "My Mommy is Natasha and my Mama is (Something) and my brother is Cormac." He said it just like we have taught him. The woman looked at me quizzically, said "what?" "Yeah," I said, "my wife's name is (Something). She's at work today." Blah blah blah trying to pave it over like it'so nothing. The mom went silent and wordlessly packed her kids up and walked away.

Such a tiny little moment. A nothing moment. My kid has no idea it happened and will not suffer from it. It was a reminder for me though. I travel in very safe circles. I am surrounded by love and support. But the world is very big and my kids are going to suffer becaus of the type of parents they have. Lucky for them, their moms are really amazing and we will all be ok.
posted by arcticwoman at 7:33 PM on March 7, 2016 [4 favorites]


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