Tag Archives: family

Birthday not very quizzacious

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One side of the table during my birthday get-together at AFK Tavern.
One side of the table during my birthday get-together at AFK Tavern.
This year my age is equally divisible by 5, so it feels like a milestone birthday—even if only a middling one. I took the day itself off rather than do my usual work-from-home day, and I was mildly lazy. I drove my hubby in to work as I usually do on a work from home day, but when I got home instead of going inside to log into the work network, I just sat down on the porch steps with my travel mug full of coffee and let the drizzle come down on me.

I love overcast days with light rain. It’s my very favorite weather, so it was like nature was giving me a birthday present. I posted to twitter and got caught up on personal email until I was out of coffee. But the weather was so nice that after I unlocked the door and refilled my coffee, I grabbed one of our cloth folding/picnic chairs and my iPad and went back onto the porch. I sat there, reading, visiting with a neighbor, watching three bluebirds have a fight, and so forth for for a few hours… Continue reading Birthday not very quizzacious →

Things I wish I could post to Facebook without causing relatives to go bananas…

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a668f6ef0324d49f1159c0c31a00daeeI get so tired of reading the melodramatic laments for the good old days. You know what? It was only peaceful and happy if you lived in the right neighborhoods, had the right skin color, went to socially approved churches, hid away your true self for fear of being beaten to death for being gay (for instance). And also, if you weren’t a man, it was only peaceful and happy so long as you had the protection of a man who wasn’t a wife-beater, et cetera.

The funny thing is, despite what these people have been led to believe, crime rates of all kinds in the U.S. are lower than they have been for more than 150 years. So, maybe these folks need to stop watching Fox News and reading and believing every email from their friends about the latest outrage against “real americans.”

Also, if god didn’t “withdraw his protection” from the U.S. over incidents like intentionally infecting Native American women and children with small pox (which was not the most horrible thing we did to Native Americans), then he sure as heck isn’t going to do so now simply because we’re going to give a few more people equal rights.

I love my country. I literally get tears in my eyes when I play songs such as the old Kate Smith recording of “God Bless America.” I will go on and on about why Thomas Jefferson is my favorite Founding Father (with very specific examples), or why James Madison is my second favorite. I support liberal politicians because I am patriotic and I want my country to live up to the ideals expressed in those founding documents about liberty and justice. We aren’t there yet, by a long shot. But we keep getting closer. We keep getting better.

And at every step along the way, we have gotten better over the objections of people who claimed that the Bible forbids women to have equal rights; or the bible says slaves should be happy to be owned, used, and abused like cattle; or the bible says that the races should be kept separate; or the bible says that gay people are abominations. The bible doesn’t quite say most of those things, but it most definitely says that left-handed people are abominations (mentioned 25 separate times, as opposed to the 3 mentions of same sex activities, and the 4 other mentions of things we aren’t quite sure what the original writer meant but in very modern translations have been twisted to be about homosexuality). Funny, no one is calling for us to pray for god’s forgiveness that we don’t criminalize the left-handed.

I’m not saying you don’t have a right to your beliefs. I am also well aware that there are many christians who don’t feel that invoking the bible should give them a free pass to oppress, discriminate against, and vilify whole swaths of the population.

I am saying that, if you feel the need to constantly decry and lament the fact that I now have the legal right to marry my husband, or campaign against my legal right not to get fired just for being gay, or my legal right to buy things at stores open to the public without being refused just because I’m gay, then you are not my friend. This isn’t about me rejecting you, it is a statement of fact. You are actively engaged in trying to take away my rights. You are actively engaged in trying to hurt me.

Friends don’t do that.

And if you feel the need to consistently insist that god is going to punish this land for no other reason than the civil laws have finally started to recognize gay people as actual people who have the same rights as everyone else, you are also not my friend. Again, this isn’t about me rejecting you. You are saying that me living my life as a productive member of society—not hurting anyone else, just refusing to hide who I love—is somehow so terrible that it justifies the creator of the entire universe ignoring everything else happening on trillions of planets circling billions of stars in the millions and millions of galaxies in the known universe and wipe out a country? My existence is so awful, that the creator of the entire universe is going to punish everyone (including babies and animals and other living things that have done nothing wrong) by wiping us out? If you think my existence is that terrible, that is neither love or respect. And again, friends don’t think that way about people they actually love and respect.

Keep posting those hurtful, hateful things. I’m not going to stop you or call you names. But I’m also not going to sit here and keep reading rants that say these horrible things about me and people like me. I’m not going to silently let you salve your conscience with the occasional assurance that you still love me, sandwiched between your posts about what an abomination I am. Or what heroes people who discriminate against people like me are.

That isn’t love.

And you don’t get to say those kinds of things and still call yourself my friend.

Who raised the kid?

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It’s impossible at this time of year to avoid all the memes and heartfelt testimonials and emotionally manipulative articles about dads. Which is great for people who have wonderful dads and are happy to be reminded about how great a good father can be. It’s not so great for people who are grieving the loss of a father they loved. And it’s not so great for those of us who had terrible fathers.

I was lucky enough to have two incredible, wonderful, and loving grandfathers as well as an incorrigible (but still loving) great-grandfather who were all three very involved in my life throughout my formative years. And one of those wonderful grandfathers, my mom’s father, was her adoptive father. Not being her biological father didn’t diminish one iota the love he gave my mom and her sister (and me and the other grandkids). He did everything a dad was supposed to do and more.

Similarly, my great-grandfather was my grandma’s biological father, but he was also a step-dad to grandma’s oldest two brothers. Great-grandma was a 28-year-old widow with two young boys when she met and fell in love with great-grandpa (who, I should point out was only a 16-year-old farm hand). But even though he wasn’t that much older than those two kids, he did his best to be as good a father to them as he was to the other kids that he and great-grandma had together.

So I get more than a little angry when people (or stories or movies or TV shows) imply (or sometimes come right out and say) that step-parents or adoptive parents aren’t a kid’s “real parents.”

Which is why I want to share this little story (and angry op-ed) posted by Dan Savage earlier in the week: Brian Brown Suggests Terry and I Stole Our Son from His Biological Parents. Brian Brown is the head of the odious anti-gay National Organization for Marriage. Dan Savage is a national syndicated sex advice columnist and gay activist. But Dan and his husband, Terry, adopted their son as part of an open adoption years ago, and have raised that child while allowing (and encouraging him) to keep in contact with the biological mother who was a homeless street kid when she got pregnant. As Dan points out, there are far more orphaned children who need families in this country than there are straight couples looking to adopt. When you exclude unmarried people or lesbian/gay couples or other “non-traditional” families from the adoption process, the choice you are making is to leave those children with no parents at all.

It isn’t a choice of straight parents vs queer parents, or a mommy-and-daddy vs a single parent. It’s a choice of these so-called non-traditional parents or no parents. And note about the fact that not one but two traditional couples turned down the baby before Dan and Terry’s adoption paperwork was completed. So, the only people who deprived that kid of a “traditional” family of genitally-opposite parents were straight people.

I’m not a parent. I’ve never had kids and never adopted. But if I were a parent, and Brian Brown had come into my house and told me that he thought my child should be forcibly taken away from me just because I’m gay, I would have said a whole lot worse than what Terry said.

What do you mean, “real” father?

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A man and a toddler stand on a half-disassembled utility vehicle under trees.
I’m the kid in this picture. The man standing beside me on the old street-sweeper is my mom’s biological father, who is not my grandfather.
I’m the first to admit that I have more than a few buttons that people can push to send me off on a long rant. One of them is the use of the term “real father” (or mother, or virtually any other familial designator), particularly when it is used to refer to someone’s biological-but-absentee relative. And sometimes I don’t just rant, sometimes I’m barely suppressing an urge to punch someone in the mouth over the use of the phrase. More than a little of the blame for that irrational reaction rests solidly at the feet of the man pictured here with a very young me. A man named Ralph.

The story can get a little convoluted, so I’m going to first sum-up, then unpack a bit as I also explain why I get so ticked-off about the use of the phrase “real father.”… Continue reading What do you mean, “real” father? →

Muddle through somehow

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Sometimes the universe decides to remind us that people have a tremendous capacity to love.

I mentioned, as part of yesterday’s post, some of the past and current difficulties I’ve had with some family members—specifically the ongoing sticking points of me being a gay man raised by a bunch of fundamentalist evangelicals. So, during my day trip to Mom’s and to visit at least some relatives near her, several people decided to tell me how much they love Michael.

Keep in mind that none of these relatives know this blog exists, and one of them can’t even “work the google” without the help of their 12-year-old… Continue reading Muddle through somehow →

A holly, jolly time

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We did a bit of decorating before people arrived at the hotel room for the party.
We did a bit of decorating before people arrived at the hotel room for the party.
On a Saturday in December, 1985, a group including myself, Mark, Keith, Alan, Joe, Julie (and possibly a few others), got together for a small Christmas celebration before those of us who were college students took our various paths toward home for the holidays. And just about every December since then, I’ve attended a holiday celebratory gathering of friends which included several of the people from that one get-together 29 years ago. The party size has varied a bit over the years, a few times being as small as the first gathering, and several times consisting of several dozen people. Usually the party has been hosted at someone’s home, with the two variables of house size and attendance always making it a bit of a gamble as to how crowded it would be… Continue reading A holly, jolly time →

Feeling lucky

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Some mornings I wake up, it’s dark, the clock radio may have started playing NPR’s Morning Edition, which means the alarm will be going off soon. Which does not fill me with joy, because I’m never quite ready to wake up and get out of bed.

But about then my husband comes back into the bedroom. He goes into work earlier than I do, needing to leave before my alarm even goes off. Anyway, he walks into the room, he may turn on the lights because he’s looking for something, or he may just need to grab one thing. The important thing is he walks into the room, and a fun thing happens.

I remember that I’m married to that man.

It’s not like I have amnesia or something, but there’s a part of me that is always pleasantly surprised to remember that I’m not alone. Not only am I not alone, but I have the best husband in the world. He’s smart. He’s funny. He’s sweet. He’s cute. He’s sexy. He’s very practical. One of my friends once described Michael as the most capable person he’s ever known. He can fix things—all kinds of things!—and he likes doing it. He can take a pile of fresh vegetables and turn it into several very neat piles of very nicely sliced vegetables in the amount of time a normal person would spend deciding which knife to use. He cooks. He cleans. He puts up with me (not exactly the easiest person to get along with). He puts up with all my weird hobbies and projects. He’s cheerful, even after living with me for over 16 years. His response to any disaster is not, “how can I fix this,” but rather, “I have a plan to deal with this.”

And did I mention that he’s sexy?

As if having this wonderful man in my life wasn’t already more good fortune than I deserve, my life has also been graced with a large assortment of wonderful friends. It’s hard to know where to begin, but here goes: Continue reading Feeling lucky →

Cousins, part 3

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Cousins David, me, Tom, Trudi, and Chip, plus Aunt Silly, Great-uncle Lyle, and Great-aunt Viv (I'm second guy from the left).
Cousins David, me, Tom, Trudi, and Chip, plus Aunt Silly, Great-uncle Lyle, and Great-aunt Viv (I’m second guy from the left).
When I was 14 years old I went on a road trip with my Aunt Silly and her family. They lived in Phoenix, so I was sent on a bus from the tiny town in northwest Colorado to Arizona. After spending about a week in Phoenix, we were all loaded into a big station wagon and drove to California where, among other things, we visited my favorite Great Uncle and his wife and youngest son, after having spent several days visiting with the same Great Uncle’s older daughter and her family, then up to Washington were we visited Grandma and Grandpa P, then back to Colorado where everyone visited my folks and our Great-grandparents and a few other relatives from my dad’s side of the family, before Aunt Silly and family got back on the road to return to Phoenix.

It was a big family trip. Our misadventures were nothing like anything one would get in a road trip movie, but there were a few. Continue reading Cousins, part 3 →

Relativity

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Old family picture.
I and my cousin as babies, being held by our moms, with our great-grandma in the middle, our grandma in the back left, and my paternal grandma in the back right.
My almost-twin cousin spent an incredible amount of time a couple years ago going through all of our grandmother’s photo albums. She scanned in every picture, transcribed notes on the photos or on the album pages themselves. She tried to track down people who could identify unnamed people in pictures, and so on. She burned discs with all the pictures and sent one to everyone in the family for a Christmas present.
Continue reading Relativity →

One size never fits all

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www.cutestpaw.com
Not all childhoods are wonderful.
Not everyone has a great mom, and not everyone has a good relationship with their mother. For them, Mother’s Day is more than a bit fraught.

Some people who do have a great relationship with a great mother still have some issues with the Mother’s Day holiday. Some of them wish they could have children, but for whatever reason don’t, and Mother’s Day becomes just another reminder of how much society still measures a woman’s worth by whether or not she’s a mom. Some of them had a great relationship with their own mothers, but those mothers are no longer among the living, and mother’s day is a very painful reminder of that loss.

I’m well aware that I quite lucked out in the mom department. Certainly compared to some folks I know. I’ve never had my mom tell me that she would put me back in her will if only I would divorce my spouse, for instance. My mom has never had to plea bargain her way out of several theft and fraud charges to avoid jail time. My mom wasn’t physically abusive, or otherwise like the parents in any of the horror stories you will find if you delve into the backgrounds of children at Child Haven.

And she’s quite cool. She’s the person who introduced me to both science fiction and comic books as a child. Just this last week we had a long geek-out session together via text message because X-men: First Class is currently her favorite movie. Mom was my writing buddy for November’s NaNoWriMo. My mom encouraged my interest in science most of the times that people in the fundamentalist churches we attended warned her that my interest in such things as paleontology, relativity, and the like were inspired by the devil. More often than not during my childhood mom erred on the side of being inclusive, tolerant, and accepting of people who were different than us.

Do I wish that she were happy for Michael and I when we were finally able to legally marry? Yeah. While I’m glad that she seems to genuinely like Michael, that she’s welcomed him into her house, and that she refers to him as her other son, I wish she could come around to seeing our relationship as not sinful. But it could be a lot worse. It has been a lot worse. Sometimes you have to be thankful for what progress you get.

When I started this post, I had intended to publish it last Sunday. But I read enough interesting exchanges on various social media between some people who’s relationship with Mother’s Day is more complicated than the typical Hallmark commercial, and I felt like a bit of an interloper or even impostor for even drafting this.

It’s as if I don’t quite feel I have the right to talk about what issues I and my mom do have. Particularly since I’m hardly the ideal Hallmark son, myself.

We muddle along fairly well, in no small part due to her firm belief that part of loving a person is being in their corner, even when you don’t agree.