Comments on: Breaking up is hard to do

By: Jen (yup, another one)

Jen (yup, another one) — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:13:37 +0000

Hi Trista! Sorry I am so late coming to this party. (Gosh, I should get over here and read more…) We DO know a family whom we jokingly call the Poster Family for Divorce, because they do a better job of parenting their daughter than most families we know who are still together lovingly. I don’t know what kind of legal agreements they had in place, but they split up before their daughter (D) turned 4 and share physical custody of D 50/50 (not sure about legal as it’s not come up in conversation). Both parents live in the same urban neighborhood as pre-breakup, so D’s world was not changed too much, and they communicate frequently and in an easy-going fashion. Both are active in her school community. What really pushes it over the top for me is that each is now partnered again (one of the new partners also has her own children) and all FOUR of the adults get along well and occasionally all three kids switch between houses/parents for ease of child care (even though only D has the family of origin connection at one house). I’ve told them again and again how impressed we are (both Cait and I are children of divorce) and how obvious it is that they put D’s needs first. They don’t even think it takes that much work! Anyway, bottom line: it can be done but you’ve got to focus on the kid(s) and let go of old emotions.

By: Polly P

Polly P — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:26:01 +0000

Ooops. And I forgot to include this link to "Privacy, Exposure, Risk" by Suzanne Reisman on the BlogHer site. As a meditation on some of my worries above about exposure, etc. The important twist, and not one I saw in her piece, is that we're writing about our kids, as much as about ourselves, and their desires for privacy, as much as our need to protect them, need very much to be accounted for. How is a question I'm still working out, but I think about it all the time.

By: Polly P

Polly P — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:21:35 +0000

Very fine point you make above, Trista. And dlvc, as well. Since you can’t file for 2nd parent adoption until the child id born, and since the process can take up to a year, it does run neck-and-neck with the very most trying times. Well put.

You know, I did read that Rachel Pepper piece in Home Fronts and was jarred, as a non-birth parent gal. That was how she felt back then (pub date: 2000). I will look forward to Trista’s piece, definitely.

By: Trista

Trista — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:35:54 +0000

someone asked me to read that Rachel Pepper essay, was it you dlvc? I should go through my email and look. So, I bought the book and read that essay [bitter twist of my lips] and it prompted such a reaction from me that I was sputtering for days. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to write exactly what I thought about that essay…

oh, and I did go and look at that article Polly linked to, and the author of that guest post has her own blog, I’m going to ask if we can put it on the blogroll…

By: dlvc

dlvc — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:14:03 +0000

We’ve talked about what would happen (some sort of shared custody co-parenting, making sure that we live in close proximity to each other), but we haven’t put anything in writing. But then, we do live in MA, where my rights (as a non-bio-mom) are protected first by marriage (provided we both stay in this state) and also by a second-parent adoption (which holds in all states except Oklahoma). You may have inspired us to sit down and write it down like we should, Trista.

The “Complete Gay Parenting Guide” by Arlene Istar Lev contains a chapter on divorce and some personal essays by couples that broke up but manage to co-parent amicably.

I think “Reinventing the Family” by Laura Benkov may also briefly address divorce. She also discusses several other subjects that seem to be taboo in our community. It is a good read, if a bit dated (1994)

Even in states with second-parent adoption, this is a huge issue, since our families are legally at their most fragile (before second-parent adoption) during such a stressful time (the first year of life with baby). There is an essay by Rachel Pepper (of “The ultimate guide to lesbian pregnancy” fame) in the book “Home Fronts: controversies in non-traditional parenting” (edited by Jess Wells) in which she describes why she didn’t let her then-girlfriend have a second-parent adoption. By no means does their case sound cut and dry, but if they had had the option of marriage, the situation would have been clarified.

By: Trista

Trista — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 18:12:59 +0000

well, my thinking of this would be that talking about ways that queer people break up but still manage to co-parent peacefully and with the best interests of the children at the forefront would actually be really strong arguements for our fitness as parents and parenting models. I mean, nothing says maturity, compassion, kindness, empathy, and wisdom (all qualities desireable in parents) like being able to make space so that ones child(ren) can be parented by both (or all) of the adults who originally agreed to parent them and to whom those children have learned to look for love and support — without letting the issues that broke up the original relationship get in the way of a new parenting-without-romance relationship.

In fact, I would even go so far as to say that by keeping such stories close to the chest we’re giving a bit too much authority to the old canard that the best parents are the ones who are still monogamously paired with their original partners, and that moves a little too close to the whole “marriage is for the children” argument that has been so damaging to queer civil rights.

But. I have also been burned by my “unintended audience” in this medium, so I understand the hesitancy to disclose information about the delicate workings of a family no matter what its current configuration.

Off to go read that post you linked to.

By: Polly P

Polly P — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:11:44 +0000

Thank you, Trista, for opening up this conversation. This post at the Family Pride blog, “Coparenting, Cancer, and Cruises,” is a touching story of what one family is doing, after not just a break-up but two cancer diagnoses. (!)

I do feel we’re still so early in the public sharing of our LGBT families that we’re in the “can’t afford to air the dirty laundry” phase. Which feels all the more understandable since our very fitness as parents is under such attack. Sigh. It’s a tough bind, and the internet is a paradoxical place to work it out.

I try not to be paranoid, but it’s hard not to think that just outside the privacy of one’s home and right behind the intmacy of one’s intended audience lurks (or could lurk) readers whose sole intent is to gather incriminating/damnind “evidence” of our incompetence as parents. (Could be I got overchastened by a creepy Christian Right infiltration of a presentation I once made at an LGBT Studies conference.)

But for our own sanity and healthy evolution, of course, we have to find a way to tell the truth to each other, regardless of who’s listening. Right?