WAY OUT PARENTING: On Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day It’s Double the Fun for Children of Gays!

These holidays are usually celebrated during the preschool years and kindergarten. Children express their love for and appreciation of their parents with a variety of artistic projects that they labor over for days:

• t-shirts stamped all over with their four-year-old hand prints (you’ll end up sleeping in them for the next ten years)
• Self portraits with such primitive genius quality that you’re inspired to invest in expensive framing so the masterpieces will be preserved for all time.
• Glitter-glue cards with precious crayon scrawled invented spellings that boldly document your childrens’s just-emerging literacy skills.

Some gay parents worry that these holidays draw attention to what’s "missing" from their family—a dad or a mom, that is. But there’s no need for anxiety. Chances are, as good gay moms or dads, you’ve been educating your child about different kinds of families since they were an hour old and they don’t feel the least bit inferior because they don’t have both a mom and a dad. While the other preschoolers make their art project for the parent your child doesn’t have, your child will simply make the same art project for you—or they’ll decide to make one for a friend or relative of the appropriate dad or mom sex. And frankly, the other children will be too busy fighting for the right color markers, paints, and glitter to think about it.

And on the holiday when your child must produce two magnificent works of art, the only response they’re likely to get is the envy of classmates who say things like:
• That’s so unfair. She gets to use more glitter than anybody else.
• Can we all paint 2 projects?
• I wish I had 2 moms. You’re so lucky.
• I want 2 dads, too. Can I live with your family?
• I wish my parents were gay.
• I’m going to marry a boy instead of a girl so my child can have 2 dads.

Okay, most of these children will grow up and forget they ever envied someone for having two moms or two dads, but isn’t it fun to know they wanted gay parents once upon a time?

© 2009 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.