Our Non-traditional Traditional Family

How ironic it is that my family would be called “non-traditional”, when the truth is that we the embodiment of a typical middle class small-town family; except for the fact that our kids have two moms, we are so traditional that it is almost funny. Granted, we are more politically active than most families, but in my family that is a tradition in itself, handed down for three generations.

My wife is the most traditional woman I know–a fact that I tease her about endlessly. Like most moms these days, my wife has to work, but somehow she gets up with the kids and sees them off to school; helps with homework, teaches our son to play the guitar and teaches our daughter to sing, bakes cookies and tries in vain to get the kids to keep their rooms clean. (on more occasions than I can count, I have found myself trying desperately to stifle a laugh while she is reprimanding the kids because she has sounded exactly like my mother, right down to the inflection). To me, my wife is my soul mate and the light of my life; I know I am a better person, because of her. To our children, she is simply Mama and to my mother-in-law, she is a loving daughter.

Our children are wonderful, intelligent human beings; our babies blossoming into teenagers before our eyes, noticeably more mature with every passing day. Old enough now to speak up on social issues and animal welfare, but young enough not to be able to sleep without a good-night hug. Our mischievous son with his goofy sense of humor and our daughter with her acerbic wit and biting commentary, one foot in childhood and one foot in adolescence–one minute giving my mother-in-law great amusement by doing to us exactly what my wife did to her, the next minute giving our elderly neighbor a card for Mother’s Day, because they know her daughter passed away several years ago and they don’t want her to be sad. Wise beyond their years, yet young enough to be totally confident: Our daughter, wise enough to see a reference to “ex-gays” and declare that a person could no more be “ex-gay” than “ex-brown-eyed” because “you can’t change how you are born” and our son, who at the age of seven marched with PFLAG in our LGBT Pride parade, carrying a sign that was taller than he was, because “The sign was too heavy for the for the “grandma ladies to carry”.

This then is our “non-traditional” family. I would not have us any other way.