The Republic of T.

I was halfway through writing the previous post when I came across something that made me realize this would be a two-part deal. That’s when I cut the post short and wrote:

The last time we visited Parker’s pre-school, one of teachers said she remembered when we came there with Parker as an infant. She remarked about how well Parker has grown up, and was happy to see that we are raising Dylan too. I think I know what she sees when she looks at our family now. She sees a family with two devoted parents, and two thriving children.

What other people see, I can only imagine. And I can only wish I didn’t have to care.

But it’s obvious that I do have to care.

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I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole yesterday. During a (rare) quiet moment, I took some time to catch up on my news/blog reading. And I finally started reading a collection of news stories that I’d quietly tucked away until I could actually bring myself to read them. I thought that would be a long time, because they were the kind of stories that I usually put out of my mind, because I can’t bear to think about them.

What started me was Katharine’s comment, which linked to Scott’s post about something Felix Fritzl said upon seeing the moon for the first time.

“Is that God up there?” - Felix Fritzl, 5, sees the moon for the first time since leaving the cellar.

And so it began.

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Wow. I remember the Friday night in June 2005 when I first read about Zach’s story. It shook me up so much that I had to post about it. (When I got up on Saturday morning it was still with me. I emailed around, trying to get some of the more highly trafficked blogs to pick up on it. (At least one declined because of fear that Zach might not even exist, but Amanda Marcotte and Lindsey Beyerstein were among the first to pick up the story and share it with their readers.)

I remember posting it to all the places I was blogging at the time. (my Daily Kos diary, the Gay Spirituality Blog, HomoMojo, etc.). Then I stepped back and took a look at what was happening. I realized that there were a number of other “long tail blogers” coving the story, and creating something of a blog storm. Several of those bloggers, myself included, were interviewed for a podcast about how the story grew in the blogosphere.

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Picking up where a previous post left off, the hubby told me about the conversation he and Parker had in the car yesterday morning, on the way to Parker’s pre-school.

I’m not sure why it is that Parker and his Papa talk politics on their drives to and from home. But Parker made a rather touching leap from the political to the personal in the course of this brief chat.

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No, I don’t mean gay dads. (More about us later.) I mean dads with gay son, who are proud of their gay sons.

I posted about the Details article on heterosexual dads who are worried their sons might be gay. (But, hey, they’re not homophobes. Some of their best friends are gay. So they can’t be homophobic, right?) Well, PFLAG is responding to the article with a weeklong series of posts by dads about why they’re proud of their sons.

OK, I’ll admit up front that PFLAG has a special place in my heart, for many reasons. I still get teary eyed when I see the PFLAG contingent marching in the Capitol Pride parade. Whenever I saw them, I’d usually run out into the middle of their group and get as many hugs from as many supportive parents as I could.

I’ve only recently begun to restrain myself from doing that, since I got kids of my own to parent. (One of whom is big enough to give great hugs.) But if they don’t mind, these PFLAG dads have made their way onto my list of “PFLAG Parents I’d Like To Hug.”

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What kind of blogger am I? Am I a “gay blogger”? Am I a “political blogger”? Am I a “Black blogger”? Which variety of blogger am I first?

Endless questions, without concrete answers. But it looks like I can add one more category: Daddy Blogger

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It’s a question posed to some parents, and especially — in one form or another — gay parents. I was asked this question during an interview with Slovenian television (of all things). The question got cut from our segment of the interview, which instead included a short clip of me talking about gender roles (or the lack thereof) in our household. But when I saw that Details magazine has tackled the question, it seemed like a good time to address it.

Of course, Details didn’t ask this question of gay parents, but focused instead on heterosexual men. And not just any heterosexual men, but heterosexual men who have gay friends and are “okay” with gay people. To a point.

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Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Nina Simone ~ “Mississippi Goddam”

I’ve been so wrapped up in another series that I’d totally forgotten about this one. But then I heard about Mississippi. Goddam.

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First of all, this post is not what you think it’s about. (Though I could write style-crampin’ aspects of having an infant who doesn’t sleep through the night yet. Suffice it to say that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.) No, it’s about the French.

Or rather, it’s about what they French have done now. It’s something that would never be done here. At least not without a whole lot of whooping and hollering. Forget Maplethorpe for a minute. Can you imagine the public reaction if an American museum featured a new exhibit that’s basically a children’s guide to sex?
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I can count on one hand the times that an Oscar win caused me to jump up and down in the middle of my living room, out of excitement. And there are even fewer that have brought a tear to my eye. Tonight was one of them, when Freeheld won for Best Documentary Short Subject. (I only hope the reason the server was down when I wrote this is because so many people were visiting it as a result of the Oscar win.

When I first read the story of Laurel Hester, and her dual battles against cancer and discrimination, I blogged it, and blogged it, and blogged it, because I wanted to do whatever I could to make sure her story was told. So did so many others. I only hope this win will mean that more people will hear this story, and more people will ask themselves whether stories like this one ought to happen. And if the answer is no, I hope they ask themselves what they’re going to do about it.

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After stumbling upon it a year ago—months after the flames died down, only to end up stirring up the embers (and to eventually have someone more authoritative than me say basically what I’d been saying all along)—I some how missed the anniversary of Blogroll Amnesty Day (B.A.D.), which Jon and Skippy called on others to remember by linking to blogs at various points down the long tail. (I think a few links even came my way as a result, which I appreciate.)

It’s funny what changes. A year ago, when I wrote that post, I was working parent of one child and a moderately successful mid-level blogger trying desperately to climb the steep slope between me and the next tier. A year later, I’m moderately successful mid-level blogger who’s now a working parent of two, who’s not so much trying to climb to the top as clinging to my particular ledge and trying not to slide further down the slope. These days, just holding my own and not losing any ground counts as success.

I think I stopped trying so hard. After the Clinton blogger lunch debacle and the Blogroll Amnesty Day experience, I made a conscious decision to stop trying to be “one of those people,” whoever they are. I’m not sure if I’ve slowed down, or what’s changed, but it marked a change for me. So, today seemed like a good time for a round-up, in honor of Blog Amnesty Day.

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This Friday, I had something anyone who’s ever lived through the first few months of parenting a newborn will understand is something to be treasured: a day off. The rest of the family left the house in the morning, and I went back to bed. But, of course, we never take a day off from being parents. Not that I want to, mind you, but those few extra hours of sleep Friday morning (I went back to bed. Surprised?) were sweet.

I’d taken the day off, because Parker’s pre-school was having a special performance, and of course we were going to be there to see it. Parker had been talking about it for the past month. At first he decided he was going to dance, and after he picked a song I burned it to CD so that he could take it to school with him and practice. But I know my son. He’s very stage shy. At home, with us as an audience, he sings, dances and puts on quite a show. But he generally prefers not to be in the spotlight and not to be the center a big audience’s attention.

So I wasn’t surprised when he announced that he’d volunteered (with one other child) for the job of handing out tickets. (Pieces of construction paper colored by Parkers class served as “tickets.”) I told him, “That’s a very important job. If nobody handed out tickets, there’d be no audience to see the show,” and that Daddy and Papa would be there so he could give us our tickets. And he did, as well as handing tickets to other parents as they arrived. He even helped with some of the props for the other students performances.

We were very proud and we told him so.
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It’s inevitable that, since the poisonous parenting series started, someone who drops into the the middle of it without reading the previous posts (or perhaps without reading any of it) completely misunderstands the point of it. That’s what seems to have happened with one commenter on the previous post.

I am a black hetrosexual woman who reads your blog often. It is really bothersome that you choose to highlight the worst of the worst of hetrosexual parenting. How can we have meaningful dialogue about our differing views when all you do is degrade and mock hetrosexual parents?????

Of course, the point is not to “degrade and mock heterosexual parents.”
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