Archives › 2007 › March
Weekend Reading on Transgender Parenting
Take a moment to go read Sometimes Daddies Do Get Pregnant (How I Do Queer Parenting), by Lucy Silva Marrero, at Hip Mama. It’s a rare but needed look at raising a child in a family with a transgender parent, and the challenges of painting a broader-than-usual picture of gender roles. “I love that my [...]
A Final Quote for Women’s History Month
From the incomparable Virginia Woolf: I went, therefore, to the shelf where the histories stand and took down one of the latest, Professor Trevelyan’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Once more I looked up Women, found ‘position of’ and turned to the pages indicated. . . . A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is [...]
Season Four flew by with all the speed of a toddler after cookies. In this last episode, Paige’s son Jared says he doesn’t want his mom to be a “lez.” This seems rather crass of him given the lengths Paige (and Ilene Chaiken) went to to give us a sensitivity lesson back in Episode Seven. [...]
Weekly Political Roundup
Presidential candidate John McCain learned how important it is to hire good technical help. A staffer didn’t swap out the default images in the MySpace template he was using for the candidate, and didn’t credit the template’s creator. When the designer learned of this, he uploaded new default images to his own server, which were [...]
Paying Children for Grades
Would you pay your child $100 for making the honor roll? Or $20 for each A? Some parents swear by monetary grade incentives, reports the Hartford Courant. Others say the practice sends the wrong message, and the good behavior will disappear if the reward does. They also worry it may cause parents to ignore the [...]
Final Days to Help Family Pride Bring Home the Bacon
I wrote earlier this month about a charitable challenge offered by actor Kevin Bacon. Bacon’s Six Degrees organization (in conjunction with Network for Good) will give a matching grant of $10,000 to the six non-profits with the highest number of unique donors before March 31st at 11:59pm ET. The Family Pride Coalition is battling for [...]
Julie Anne Peters is the acclaimed author of numerous books for young adults and children. Several of them have LGBT protagonists, or, in one case, a protagonist with lesbian moms. Her young adult novel Between Mom and Jo is in fact a finalist in this year’s Lambda Literary Awards. Her 2004 book, Luna, about a [...]
Grass-Seed Caterpillar
Gardening season is upon us, even here in the Northeast where winter tends to linger. To get in the spirit before you tackle tomatoes or cabbage, try making a grass-seed caterpillar with your kids. The short instructions are to mix dirt and grass seed and stuff into an old nylon stocking, then water and wait. [...]
Two Million GLB People Want to Adopt, Study Says
A major new study on GLB adoption and fostering has found that an estimated two million GLB people are interested in adopting. More than half of gay men and 41 percent of lesbians want to have a child. The study, Adoption and Foster Care by Gay and Lesbian Parents in the United States, by the [...]
Kid’s Toys from the Hardware Store: Level
Tax Benefits of Being a Parent
Allison Einbinder of Queercents has written an informative post on the tax benefits of being a parent. Did you know that if you finalized an adoption in 2006, you may be eligible for an adoption credit of $10,960 for the 2006 tax year? Or that you can deduct expenses such as temporary storage of both [...]
Another Quote for Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month is coming to a close, but I wanted to make sure I included the poem “Heroines” by poet and lesbian icon Adrienne Rich in my series of quotes about women and history. I am cutting here for purposes of length and copyright, but that is doing some injustice to Rich’s work. I [...]
Lesbian Mother Asks for Ban on Second-Parent Adoption
A lesbian mother has asked the Georgia Supreme Court to rule that second-parent adoptions are illegal. Sara Wheeler and her partner had started a family together, with Sara carrying the child and her partner Missy Wheeler adopting him. The two later split, and Sara would not let Missy see their son. Sara asked the county [...]
Weekend Sports Update
The big news in lesbian sports this week was the resignation of non-lesbian Rene Portland, head coach of the women’s basketball team at Penn State. Her departure was ostensibly voluntarily, but it’s no great leap to think it had something to do with years of questions, investigations, and lawsuits (one championed by the National Center [...]
Science Wallpaper for Kids (and Adults)
My laptop experienced a fatal error yesterday that required a complete mindwipe and restore. Luckily, we have more computers than creatures in our house (even counting the cats), so it didn’t affect my blogging. Twice lucky, I’d just done a backup, so it didn’t affect my sanity. As I sat watching a repeat of last [...]
Weekly Political Roundup
Representative John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced a federal hate-crimes bill that expands the definition of such crimes to include those based on sexual orientation. A similar bill is expected soon in the Senate. The recent gay bashing and death of 72-year-old Andrew Athos in Detroit is a tragic reminder of the need for such a law. [...]
Online Games for Early Reading Skills
My son is in the throes of pre-reading mania. He reads letters on everything from milk cartons to street signs to his vitamin tablets. He points to the words on a book cover and moves his finger along, saying the title. He’s not actually reading it yet; it doesn’t work if he doesn’t know the [...]
Book Review: Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families
Originally published in Bay Windows, March 22, 2007.) Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families sounds like the kind of book that gathers dust on the shelves of politicians and policy wonks. Sean Cahill, Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) Policy Institute, and Sarah Tobias, who has been a [...]
Last week’s episode featured the clever parenting trick of using code words to deceive your children. This week, we see yet another childhood staple—kids plotting with one parent to deceive the other. It’s not as evil as it sounds—I’m talking about surprise birthday presents here, not anything with malicious intent. Shane conspires with Paige’s son [...]
Happy Birthday, Rosie!
Today is Rosie O’Donnell’s birthday, and I want to wish her all the best. Always outspoken, often controversial, she is nevertheless a champion of LGBT families and children in general, and one of the most visible lesbian moms in the U.S. Love her or hate her, she’s one of us. I can’t condone everything she’s [...]
Back Up Your Birth Control Day
The only time in my life I was on birth control, it was in order to have a child. Specifically, it was to get my partner pregnant, using my egg. The birth control pills were to synch my cycle with hers so the doctors could do their reproductive magic. I get almost as worked up [...]
Fitness and Motherhood Open Thread
In honor of tonight’s season premiere of Work Out, this is an open thread for your thoughts on fitness and motherhood, such as: Has motherhood affected your fitness level, either because you were pregnant or because of changed eating habits or lifestyle? If one partner carried your child(ren) and the other didn’t, were there any [...]
Tomorrow Is “Back Up Your Birth Control Day”
Tomorrow, March 20, is Back Up Your Birth Control Day, and organizers are encouraging people to blog about it. A coalition of more than 100 women’s health and medical organizations established the event as part of an ongoing campaign “to help make emergency contraception (EC) more effective by making sure women know about it – [...]
I’m always happy when I find new authors who have written books featuring LGBT families. I’m also happy when I find strong straight allies of the LGBT community. Canadian Heather Jopling is both—though in fact, “ally” is too weak a term. She is the author of Ryan’s Mom is Tall, Monika’s Papa Is Tall, and [...]
First Episode of Work Out, Season Two Available Now
The first episode of Work Out, Season Two, starring lesbian fitness trainer Jackie Warner, is available now—two days before premiering on television—for free download on iTunes. (Thanks to After Ellen for the tip.) I’m a fan of the show, despite its editing for melodrama. Jackie is a successful woman with a good business sense as [...]
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