About That Whole Lesbian Parents Thing

11 weeks and counting, folks. Baby McCall is a large dancing Teddy Graham.

I want to say I'm less nauseous, but I'll jinx myself. Every time I think..."hey, I'm not nauseous right now" I start feeling it again. So, let's just say I'm feeling a little better overall. A little more energy. I've got my fingers crossed that all the people who've been telling me the 2nd trimester is a vast improvement, weren't just trying to make me feel better. This morning I even cooked breakfast for myself! If you call frying an egg cooking (and I do), I'm a reg'lar ole Paula Dean...er...um....B. Smith.

I can't help but feel, what with all the free time I'm saving not lying around miserable, I have more time to think. Today, one of my Facebook Friends -- Wait. Hold up. That's what it's called, the technical name, but can we just agree that's a misnomer? Let's just get real honest here. Facebook allows you to peer into the innermost thoughts of people that you would have long since lost touch with (for good reason), and probably, at best, would be a fleeting thought that vanished into the ether as soon as it appeared (I wonder what happened to Yvonne from 2nd grade? *shrug* What's for dinner?).Yet, here I am referring to these people as "friends" as if in the alternate reality of Facebook, we're just that. No, you're a person I knew 17 years ago, because we happened to go to the same jr. high school, and now find ourselves in a relatively intimate connection, because of the magical wonders of technology.

I digress.

(*Sidebar: In my fit of hormonal rage, I completely forgot that Facebook also keeps me connected with people from 17 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 2 years ago that I actually really liked, and enjoy getting to peak into their lives unobtrusively. Ok, so not those people.)

Let me try this again. One of the people I'm connected with on Facebook recently posted something about how women, despite their best efforts, simply cannot raise men. She went on to comment how that applied to single mothers, lesbian mothers, or divorced mothers. In order for a man to be properly reared, he must have an active father figure. One of her "friends" then commented on some instance wherein the gay community was up in arms over a similar sentiment expressed by some famous person. They both agreed that despite the fuss from the lezzies, it's an irrefutable fact that boys need fathers to become men.

Step One: Delete her. Ok, you may say that's unfair, but I'm sorry! I just don't have the energy to entertain anyone in my real life or my Facebook life that thinks that gay people are less than in any regard.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out if I'm being unreasonable I replace the word "gay" with "Black" in my mind in relation to something someone has said. Like, imagine Rick Perry saying "I think of it like alcoholism, you could be predisposed to being Black, but you have a choice. You could choose not to be Black" That sounds ridiculous, right? Well, now you see my point.  My gayness is just as much a part of myself as my Blackness. I had no control over either of those aspects of my identity. It's who I am, and any person that believes that either of those things makes me anything other than just another person in the world trying to figure out this cat's craddle game of happiness we're all trying get through in life has got to step the fuck off. Period. If she said that Black mothers simply can't bring up healthy sons, then a whole bunch of folks would be up in arms. If your world view insists that I cannot have a healthy, happy life -- again, you have got to step the fuck off. Period. Think what you want, but not in my space.

Step Two: Seriously consider whether two women can shape a boy into a man.  This thought has occurred to me before. Obviously, Baby McCall could very well be a boy (if dear wife gets her druthers). I've been asked this question before, but now that I'm pregnant there is a different gravity to it's answer. Though my body has been changing since the conception of Baby McCall, my mind remains steadfast. Our job, as the parents of this baby, will be to love it mercilessly. To rear it to be a thinking, compassionate, engaged, self-determined human being. When I think of the best men and women I know, they share the same traits. They're good listeners, they're thoughtful, they're cooperative, they're hard-working, they are a host of things, none of which are tied to their genitalia. The things we think of as being the hallmarks of manhood aren't necessarily values that I would teach to my son anyway, whether there was a father present or not. What? The man is the head of the household? He's the breadwinner? He opens doors and takes out the trash? He gets the big piece of chicken? No dice.

If we can teach this baby to strive with all its might to be a decent human being, a citizen of the world, a child of the universe that never loses sight of our connection and responsibility to one another as people, we will have succeeded.

Check out this article from Time magazine entitled "Study: Children of Lesbians May Do Better Than Their Peers"

And this one, from Huffington Post "Teens With Lesbian Parents Do Better at School..."