No, it wasn’t in the gift department.  Sassafras loved all her gifts.  And I don’t even consider the fact that she ate only jelly for breakfast, only gummy lifesavers for lunch, and had a less than 40 minute nap as messing up. Heck, even SuperParent has to concede to the rigors of the day.

No, I messed up in the last 2 hours of the day.

We took our sugar-fueled, nap-deprived toddler over to our good friends’ house for Christmas Dinner and Movie watching that evening.  My child was running on determination and inertia alone.  I figured that the magical sleepiness of turkey would overcome those forbidding obstacles and lull my child into dreamland for me.  As we tromped down the stairs to watch the final installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, I wasn’t worried about the inappropriateness of the show: the violence, the scariness.  No, I figured, as soon as we curled up in the giant beanbag she’d be out for the count. 

Oh how I misjudged the strength of her determination.  She didn’t fall asleep, and as I tried to coax her into dreamland, while selfishly watching the movie, I realized how badly I messed up when she looked up at a battle scene and began narrating, “he’s dead, and he’s dead, and he’s dead, and he’s dead.”  All four of us adults present began talking about how it was all pretend, and how silly it was really, as my 2 year old stared at the screen in captive horror, pointing at the “scary octopus” (Davy Jones) and talking about how the pirates were going to bite her foot.

We packed up and left, movie unfinished.

I read her stories that night and we talked about lots of different things trying to get the movie out of her head.  But still, at 3 am, Klove and I were woken by her screams of terror.  When I went into her room, flipped on her lights, she was huddled in her bed.  As I knelt by her she looked at me and said, “there’s too many babies, mom.  Too many babies.”  Tears streaming down her face.  I would never have thought that a well-loved and cherished 2 year old could know hopelessness and despair, but it was there in her voice and my heart broke because I had let this happen to her. 

The “too many babies” comes from her favorite movie, Shrek the Third, but she’s never been even a little bit afraid of the Shrek movies.  The scene where Shrek has the nightmare about babies is usually her favorite scene.  She shrieks “too many babies!” with glee as the babies pour through the window.  But in thinking about it, and the scenes she saw of pirates and monsters overwhelming ships and people in the first half hour or so of the Pirates movie, I can see the similarities and see how her dreaming mind could combine the two.  She didn’t ask to watch Shrek once yesterday.

I’d say that the next morning everything was fine, but she still talks about the Octopus she saw on our friend’s T.V. and she still talks of Pirates biting her foot.  With as imaginative as my daughter is, and as long a memory as she has, I think it’ll be quite a while before the threat of pirates and octopi fades.  And there’s nothing I can do about it, but reassure her of our love and the imaginariness of the monsters.

***

Too often, in our fight for equality and respect, we gild our parenting skills; we laud our wisdom and foresight in how we planned and researched and raised our children.  But we’re only human.  We mess up.  This does not make us less worthy parents.  True equality will be manifest when we can ‘fess up about our mistakes – the times when selfishness, laziness, ignorance, impotence, frustration, impatience trip us up.  I don’t know about you, but when I mess up, I feel paralyzed inside.  Too busy battling the internalized homophobia that says I’m inherently unworthy to parent a child (and that this mistake is a sign of that unworthiness) to really live in the present for a while.  My mistakes eat at me and wear me down.

So this is my confession, and my resolution: I am not a perfect parent, and I do not have to be.

Join me.  When have you messed up, and how?

During Banned Books Week, we all get to reflect on the life-saving quality of the books in our lives (Liza did here earlier in the week, and so did I). Continuing the celebration, I wanted to collect in one post a bunch of useful book-ish resources for youse LGBT parents out there, or those of youse who know some, and want to figure out what to get their kiddles for the next gift-giving occasion.

Some time back, I added a Kids’ books page to my blog, reproducing on it a book list that was distributed to members of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Our Family Coalition. The woman who shared it had done a book search for her own kids’ school, as I’m sure many of us have. To this, I added a smattering of additional resources:

• San Francisco Public Library’s Rainbow Celebration Booklist for Children is also a good place to start: a sound, briefly annotated list of books for young readers and featuring diverse alternative family structures.

• COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) has produced book lists for Children with LGBT Parents and Teens and Young Adults with LGBT Parents.

• The blog Worth The Trip, provides reviews of queer books for kids and teens, by a “librarian and children’s & young adult literature specialist, and life-long reader of LGBTQ literature.”

• Mombian Books is a place for folks to share recommendations about books for LGBT families, run out of Dana Rudolph’s prodigious resource, Mombian.

• At Family Pride’s eStore you can buy some of the books in the SF Public Library or the COLAGE or the OFC lists, knowing that some of the proceeds will go to the organization. Of special note are the preschool, elementary school, middle school, and highschool “packs,” which include selections of eight or so books widely considered valuable and appropriate for a given age. A perfect gift for those with the wherewithal to give their school, or to ask their school to purchase, or to be generously hinted at before, say, a baby shower.

• this annotated list, which was created as a resource for a Spring 2007 Gender in Children’s Literature class at The College of New Jersy, and

• The Amazon.com list “Beyond Heather Has Two Mommies: Picture Books w/ Gay Parents,” from “Rainbowheart,” which (as of this writing) includes 40 different titles. I love to support Powell’s Books, the indie giant in Portland (my parents courted in Portland), but their site doesn’t currently support this e-z community list-sharing feature, and some of the books on these lists they don’t even carry (alas).

• Last, for those whose little one(s) aren’t even born yet, or literate, and are simply compiling their own baby book, BabySakes.com actually has “baby memory books” for two mom or two dad families:

The Story of ME can be ordered with the “two moms” or “two dads” page pack, which includes a family tree featuring same-gender parents and 2 pages for information about each parent. “The Story of ME” can be customized with your choice of 20 different covers. “Molly West’s Baby’s First Year” is designed to be gender-neutral featuring references to “parent” wherever you would normally see “mom” or “dad” allowing it to be easily customized for same-sex parents.

Do these people understand an under-served niche market or what? (What’s that sound I hear? The thundering hooves of every other marketing executive realizing the vast commercial potential of the gayby boom?)

I have to think that the print resources available now are legion, compared to when my own beloved was a young girl being raised by lesbians a coupla decades back (it was only in 1990 that we got the legendary titles Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate — Alyson Wonderland charts their history here). Still, when I see that the various available lists of books for kids with LGBT people or families in ‘em numbers just a few dozen (by my count), and I think about how many kids are being raised in our households (millions, by the last census’ count), I sure think that more of us ought to be getting into the children’s book-writing business.

Mmmm, children’s book-writing…

I was writing an epic-length response to a great question someone asked on my blog, and realized that I had better give it a whole different lease on life as a post, the better to tempt more of you astute readers to add to my answer. So here was the question Sheri Bheri posed, in a comment on a previous post I’d done using our preschool intake form as a foil:

Do you have any advice for the other parents in a preschool, to make it easier on the children of lesbians?

In a nice turnabout, by “other” parents here, she means “hetero.” She’s asking from the standpoint of a supportive straight parent:

I want my daughter exposed to more diverse people than *I* was. Because I’ve found myself ‘handicapped’ later on in life, because I have a hard time knowing the right thing to say and do.

I’m going to answer her with that kind of reader in mind, and hope that all you all chime in with your own suggestions. Ideally we can not just benefit from one another’s experience, but have something we can pass along to friends and allies who ask what they can do.

First, to external resources: Dana Rudolph, of Mombian wrote an indispensable post entited How To Respond When Meeting Lesbian Moms. It’s concise, good-humored, and covers all the essentials. I’m indebted to her for including “Baba” as a potential parental counterpart to “Mama,” too, thus opening the conversation to include parents like me who slide to the “genderqueer” midpoint on the gender continuum.

Family Pride (the national LGBT family organization) published a guide for those interested in improving school conditions for kids of LGBT families. Opening Doors: LGBT Families and Schools [opens PDF] is written for LGBT families and educators, but the really dedicated ally who looks through it would come away with a rich appreciation for issues facing kids in LGBT families. It’s only 24 pages and a quick read, chock full of useful material. On page 16, for example, they list “Answers to Questions Children May Ask.” And the stuff that kids in LGBT families say at the end is very eye- (and heart-) opening. Yet more proof, out of the mouths of babes, that it’s not the LGBT family life that is hard on these kids, but the homophobia and heterosexism in the world around them that is. Yet more proof, in other words, that allies and potential allies like the gal who asked the question above are INDISPENSIBLE to making a better world for all our kids.

I recently did a post-long advert for Todd Parr’s The Family Book, which provides page upon brightly-colored page of occasions for parents to discuss (or simply answer questions about) family diversity with their kids. Just about every stripe of family difference is noted in the book. Which is why it’s a great resource: kids with two moms, or two dads, or two parents of the same sex (whatever they may call themselves) are just a few among many different kinds of families. (Loud/quiet; messy/clean; live nearby/live far apart; look like each other/look different from each other, and so on.)

The Safe Schools Coalition site is filled with resources, references, and more. Likewise, The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network is fantastic. You can become a one-gal speaker’s bureau just by reading their material, and Safe Schools’, and Family Pride’s. And GLSEN has chapters coast to coast, so it’s very likely you can find a way to get involved through them locally.

Now on a more personal level: in some ways, it’s hard to improve on Dana’s “To Do” list, which is really is fantastic. I’m among those folks in her third-to-the-last bullet list item, the kind that feel glad to be able to talk about our familiy our experience. Not everyone does; some feel put on the spot, or irritated about doing what might feel like elementary, maybe sometimes repetitive consciousness-raising work with others. Me, I figure it’s totally parallel to what my own mom did, becoming active and ultimately becoming a minor legend in my sister’s and my school district. Part of the work of being a feverishly dedicated parent is to work to make our kids’ life conditions the best they can be. Sweeping out the cobwebs of homophobia, heterosexism, or just plain ignorance — that’s a part of that work that I welcome. So at any rate, I’d be inclined to suggest would-be allies to directly ask LGBT parents at their kids’ schools whether there’s any way they can help make their kid’s experience any better. Simply being asked that question by anyone would make me topple over backwards. When I recovered myself, the first thing I’d do would be to thank the would-be ally profusely.

Then I’d probably say that the best thing anyone could do would be to join us in advocating for a welcoming school environment for our kids — namely one that recognizes and includes our families. Help us ask for more inclusive language in schools’ intake forms, say, and a rich curriculum on family diversity. Be there with us when we ask, or better yet, do the asking yourself that films like That’s a Family be shown to your kids, and discussed. And most of all, pass on your thoughts about family diversity with your kids. This next generation will swing the nation out of the dark ages of systemic, legally-sanctioned and culturally tolerated homphobia/heterosexism, into the enlightenment on the other side of that. When they know better, kids of enlightened hetero allies will be the ones not only not teasing ours, but sticking up for them on the school yard.

Today the school yard, tomorrow the world.

“Let’s play ‘Family,’” says the lil’ monkey this afternoon. How can I say no? Also, how can I not use it as yet another opportunity to massage the concept, yet again? In situ? Under the guise of her initiative?

“When you play ‘Family,’ who is it that’s in the family?” I ask as coyly as I can manage.

“There’s two baby brothers, and two baby sisters.”

“Yes,” I say, “go on.”

“And a Mommy, and a Daddy.”

“So not two Mommies, or two Daddies, or a Mama and a Baba?”

“No, a Mommy and a Daddy.” She’s cheery, and of sound conviction.

I try to investigate just a weeee bit more. Without flooding the room with the stench of didacticism. Nothing spooks an unwitting brainwashing subject more than catching a flash of the propaganda in broad daylight.

“Why do you want there to be a Mommy and a Daddy?” I ask, with as cheery a tone as she’s had all along. Since I actually am cheery. And doing a good job of stuffing the worry down deep in my shorts pockets.

“Cause there are lots of people with Mommies and Daddies. Most people have Mommies and Daddies.” Can’t argue with that, especially when that’s what we’ve been telling her all along. Our line is, most people have a Mommy and a Daddy (we provide illustration from the copious supply of aunts and uncles around her). Some people have two Mommies or two Daddies (again, illustrations from friends she knows). And some people have a Mama and a Baba (e.g., her best chum across the street). From time to time, further elucidation is provided on what a Baba is, technically speaking: a kind of a parent part way between a Mama and a Papa. If you had to say it was more one thing or another, you’d go wtih a Baba being a kind of a Mama.

I know it can all sound convoluted, but god love me it’s the closest thing to the truth there is. Really. And we owe her the truth, period. All we can do is keep serving it up in bite-sized portions, every time she announces that she’s hungry for more again. And then stop serving when she’s obviously full. We take care to serve it up neither too spicy nor too rich, until she develops a more sophisticated palate. We do plenty of product-testing (picture us in the supermarket of her brain, with our sample portions on toothpicks, taking careful note of the wincing face or the smacked lip). Once, about a month or two ago, I even asked her: If she had to choose, what do I seem more like, a Mommy or a Daddy? Without deliberation, she chose the latter. How can I argue with her own perception? I winked as I said to her, “Yeah, I kinda think so too.”

This afternoon, our “Family” game is turning out to mostly be a thinly-veiled excuse for an interesting conversation, though I’m beginning to suspect it’s been she who has been steering it all along.

The lil’ monkey goes further. “Everybody that has a Baba wants their Babas to be Dads, right?” She looks at me very carefully following the question. I am the wily polygraph-cheater. I appear not to be just now stabbed in the heart with a crayon, or a little toy pony, or whatever. Though my pupils probably dialated.

“Well, not necessarily,” I manage. “Could be sometimes. But if you want me to pretend I’m a Dad, I’d be perfectly happy to.”

We’ve been doing gobs and gobs of family play lately. She’s just about three, and has been building up both curiosity and vocabulary about who’s in her family for at least half a year now, maybe more. She lists who’s who, upstairs (our nuclear unit) and downstairs (her cousins and aunt and uncle); she says our names and our relationship to her. In those recitations, she names me as her Baba, both a proper name and a generic. She’s also just about to go to preschool, where “Baba” isn’t generic for anything. Yet.

Just as literally millions* of LGBT families have before us, for months and months and months now we’ve been, as gracefully as possible, anticipating our daughter’s need to be able to articulate her family to new buddies. Or rather, little people whom we dearly hope will be her new buddies. Every time somebody refers to me as her mother in public (e.g., “Your mommy is so nice to have gotten you that nice Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds!”), I strike up a conversation about it. About how, in public, most people will see me and call me her mommy. Because Babas are rare. Like fairies. Kind of invisible, but not to everyone. Some people can pick them out. Otherwise, because they are female, they are going to be called mothers.

It seems a bit pretzel-y when you come at it from some angles. Also it all falls apart when the word count for any explanation to her exceeds, like, twenty-five. But from other angles, though, it’s really simple. Ultimately the proof is in our little pudding.

When I had managed to pull the crayon (or little toy pony, or whatever) out of my heart, I assayed one last question. “Now, if someone asked you what kind of family you had, what would you say?”

“I have a Mama and a Baba.” No equivocation.

“And what if they asked you what a Baba was?” I was expecting some kind of hesitation, but nope.

“A Baba is a kind of a Mommy and kind of a Daddy,” she pronounced. Then she paused. “Mostly it’s a kind of a Mama.” She looks up at me with a barely subdued beam of pride, a twinkle in her eye, and a smile.

Can’t argue with that.

* Between four and fourteen million children are being raised in LGBT households, according to the 2000 Census. This from the Family Pride Stats and Facts page. Comprehensive breakdown of the 2000 Census by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force here.

Julieta and her less-than-legal wife who are still in the planning stages over at http://willowsbrain.blogspot.com/.

Magui, Gabi, a three year relationship, a cat, a dog, and the desire to start a family in Argentina at http://quemarnaves.blogspot.com/

Florencia and Gabriela who are TTCing in Argentina at http://maternidadeslesbicas.blogspot.com/

Guza and Oruga waiting for their Juan in Argentina at http://saltorana.blogspot.com/

Tilvy and Andre have triplets Abril, Jazmin, and Santi who were born at 27 weeks and are still in the NICU, but doing well in Argentina at http://ellalostrillizosyyo.blogspot.com/

Ana and Paula with their 1 year old twins in Argentina at http://piedralibreparadosmamas.blogspot.com/

Cris and Ana with their twins Diego and Santi in Mexico at http://dosmamis.blogspot.com/

Roma, Triana, and their 4 year old son Tati in Argentina at http://mamispordos.blogspot.com/

I think toddlers get a bad rap. Oh yeah, sure, they’re into everything, and everything they’re into is dangerous. One moment you’re pulling them off the back of the couch as they’re about to fling themselves into a plate glass window, and the next minute they’re demonstrating a genetic link to mice as they squeeze more of their body than should be physically possible through the tiny crack allowed by the baby latch into the space under the kitchen sink to reach the caustic, skin-melting, cleaning chemicals of doom. And all this before you’ve even managed to eat the celery in your breakfast Bloody Mary. But they’re hell of a lot easier, in my opinion, than infants. You don’t have to carry them everywhere, you don’t have to feed them from breast or bottle every couple hours and, most importantly, you don’t have to get up with them 6 times in the night only to start your day at 6 AM.

So, yeah, there are a lot of things you can’t do with a toddler in the house (you can’t leave bras and shoes lying around, you can’t leave toilet paper unguarded, and you can’t leave large glasses of water sitting on the coffee table) but sex isn’t one of those things.

Now that we’re finally catching up on our sleep, and now that bed time for Julia is really bedtime (THANK THE GOOD LORD ABOVE!) Kristin and I are no longer forced to try and have sex in the snatched, golden, and all too few moments of time between us putting her down and her waking to realize that she has been abandoned. I don’t know about you, but if my lover is urging me “faster! faster!” I’m hoping that I’m on the giving end of things and that she’s really into it, and not that I’m on the receiving end and our super mommy ears just heard the ominous intake of breath that precedes a scream of infant outrage.

No, now that Julia’s a toddler, the whole night stretches before us like a starry coverlet of velvet possibility into which we eagerly roll ourselves and… most of the time, fall asleep. But we could be having sex, and that’s the important part. Also important to note: it’s only “most of the time” now and not all of the time, as it used to be not that many months ago.

I actually think this might be the easiest time for parents to have worry-free sex. The toddler’s in a crib and can’t get out unless we get her out. She can’t ask embarrassing questions, or repeat the equally embarrassing answers to whomever will listen to her. She can’t burst in on us, and she can’t know what those sounds are that are coming through the wall, the white noise machine, and a muffling hand.

But I could be wrong. What do you think? When did your sex life return, and at what ages did it get difficult again?