Okay so the fifties doo-wop tune actually said “geography,” rather than “biology.” But it gets us started. Today I wanted to draw your attention to a great, pithy post by Trista, one of the contributors to this forum. Her piece, Advice to Bio Moms, is a great catalyst for thought about how we, inside our families, can work to counter subtly corrosive tics that our unique family structures are subject to.

The one she addresses is a big one: if one partner is biologically connected to the child, and the other isn’t, and more, if that connection is evident physically, then this physical link will be the subject of comment, to one degree or another. It will be unavoidable that someone, others, maybe, or even folks inside the family, will remark that the kid’s this that or the other thing (eyes, ears, nose, throat) “looks just like” the bio-mom’s, or even deeper, a member of the bio-mom’s family, way back.

Given that the normative family unit stems biologically from the two parents at the head of it (and do note: “normative,” not “normal”), the ritual of looking for and finding bodily traces of both parents is an ancient part of baby-bonding. It’s a way, even, to draw the baby into the family community. But for families like ours, these are moments that cut in two ways at the same time. Bonding for the bio-mom, potentially isolating for the NON bio-mom.

You bio-mom sisters out there: when such moments arise, I hope Trista’s advice rushes into your head. I am grateful to the heavens and earth that my partner is cut off the same bolt, in this regard. That is, she and Trista are reading off the same page of the bio-mom hymnal. It helps, perhaps, that my partner has an adopted sister? Of a different race than her? Interestingly, throughout their youth everyone thought they were blood sisters, anyway. The shared energy, the mannerisms, all ran so deep. They have spent their lifetimes forging family love across that blood divide, noticing and brushing off the deeply ingrained impulse in folks to understand family on those terms first and most authentically. Funny, my first sweetie and I were also often taken for sisters. I’m white, she’s Chicana. We’re separated in height by a good ten inches. But still, the love bond had to be explained by folks, in a time when Lesbian Love was far less visible than it is today.

How do you all negotiate this stuff in your families? Go read Trista’s piece and then chat it up there, or here. It strikes at a tender core, and reminds us how we can make our families loving and strong, amidst the external forces that might (innocuously, perhaps) trickle some discord and weakness into them. When both parents aren’t bio, the drama surely plays differently. Is it harder? Easier? Trickier? You tell us!