Preview Review: A Family Is a Family Is a Family

Rosie O’Donnell’s new documentary A Family Is a Family Is a Family, premieres this Sunday, January 31, at 7 p.m. ET on HBO. I’ve seen a screener, and here are my thoughts.

Overall, this is a great film, aimed at the elementary school ages, that focuses on children of various backgrounds speaking about their families. There are children with same-sex parents, opposite-sex parents, single parents, parents of different races, adoptive parents, children living with grandparents, and more. It is a wide-ranging sampling of the great diversity of family life in our country. If there is one gap, it is that there are no children with transgender parents—or at least none that speak about having them. Read the rest of this post »

LGBT Parenting Roundup

Here are a few stories I haven’t covered in separate posts:

Politics and Law

• A committee appointed by the Bombay High Court has created draft guidelines for the adoption of Indian children by foreign nationals. Under the guidelines, which are not yet final, single parents would be able to adopt, but not a same-sex couple.
• On a related note, “Can the LGBT community adopt Haitian orphans?” asks Joe Mirabella at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (Short answer: yes, but only if you’re single, and you should see a good lawyer before proceeding.)
• Matthew Pilecki at the Edge gives us a good overview of several cases involving nonbiological parents’ rights, both with respect to child custody and surrogacy. (It’s an issue I’ve covered a lot here at Mombian, too. We each cover a few cases the other hasn’t, though.)

Personal Stories

• Paige Schilt talks about kids and body image at Bilerico.

Media

• School Library Journal catches up with Lauren Myracle, author of Luv Ya Bunches, which made headlines last fall when Scholastic Book Fairs asked Myracle to change the two moms of one character into a mom and a dad. Myracle talks about the controversy, and also about her “top-sekrit” upcoming mystery book, By Curious, which involves a hate crime, homophobia, child molestation, and meth. Perhaps not as cheery as some of her other works, but given her ability to delve into the adolescent psyche, I’m looking forward to it.

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TV Alert: A Family Is A Family Is A Family

From Rosie O’Donnell comes “A Family Is a Family Is a Family,” a great-looking new documentary premiering this Sunday, January 31, at 7 p.m. ET on HBO.

Much of the film features children talking about their families, including ones with same-sex parents, single parents, adoptive families, and mixed-heritage families. Part of it features Rosie talking with her daughter Vivienne Rose about how their family came to be—and how, even after Rosie’s recent separation from Kelli, the children’s other mom, they are still a family. There are musical and animated interludes, including original songs by They Might Be Giants and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

For one segment, however, I have to fall back on the HBO description:

O’Donnell’s tongue-in-cheek performance of “My Science Project” tells the animated story of a young girl whose class project describes the scientific way she came to be. And Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “Too Marvelous for Words” is accompanied by an animated sequence of a sperm in top hat serenading a glamorous egg.

It looks like a wonderful film, but parents should be alert that it could raise some questions about biology and reproduction. Be prepared to provide fuller explanations to your kids if these are topics you haven’t discussed with them yet. For those looking for a way to explain those issues, however, the film could be just the help you need. It seems like the bulk of the film is rightly on the children and their family interactions, though, not on the mechanics of their origins.

Trailer after the jump: Read the rest of this post »

Lesbian Mom . . . Albatrosses?

Hot on the feathered heels of last week’s news about another pair of gay penguin dads comes the story of two female albatrosses in New Zealand who are incubating an egg together (Queerty, via GayNZ.com). They are not the first Sapphic avians who have tried to start a family, however; two of the famed swans in Boston’s Public Garden are a female pair who attempted to incubate an egg a few years back.

I am very happy we continue to find evidence that same-sex parenting is not, as the ultra-right says, unnatural. I just hope all of this doesn’t mean same-sex parenting is for the birds. I prefer to think of it as an egg-cellent adventure.

(Photo credit: Mila Zinkova. Distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. Not the actual albatrosses described above.)

It Takes a Queer Village

The Canadians are on a roll. Hot on the heels of Who’s Your Daddy?, the volume of LGBTQ parenting essays I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, comes And Baby Makes More, a similar volume from a Canadian press, but one that focuses on the experiences of those who have used known donors, those who have themselves donated sperm or eggs or been a surrogate, and the children created by these acts.

I have a full review up at Bay Windows, so you can go read it there. Bottom line: Go buy this book, along with Who’s Your Daddy?. Both are the kind of rich explorations of LGBTQ parenting we need more of today. (And despite their origins, both volumes include writers from the U.S. and Australia as well as Canada.)

You can also visit editor Susan Goldberg at her blog, Mama Non Grata, and editor Chloë Brushwood Rose at her York University faculty Web site.

Like Who’s Your Daddy?, though, the book is not yet available in the U.S. (The publisher says it’s coming next March.) It may, however, be ordered from the Canadian publisher, Insomniac Press, or Canadian online bookstores such as chapters.indigo.ca and amazon.ca. Or use it to justify that ski trip up north you’ve been wanting to take.

(And no, I’m not getting any referral fees from those links, although I do for the links to Amazon.com on this site. But the book is so good I didn’t want to keep anyone waiting for the U.S. publication. If you feel guilty, go and do some other holiday shopping at Amazon.com through this link (for which I will get a small fee) and help me justify the time I spend on Mombian.)

The Daddy Question, Adoption Style

Sometimes people write to me with questions about parenting. I make no claim, however, to be an expert in all aspects of this grand adventure. I figure that collective wisdom has something to recommend it, though, and so I offer this one to you, readers, for your input.

Tonight, our 2 1/2 year old, adopted son asked what his daddy’s name was. I said I didn’t know and tried to change the subject. He said my daddy lives far away. I said yes and then we began talking about Dora. Any wisdom?

I admit, most of my thinking about “the daddy question” has been with regard to children conceived through donor insemination, because that is how we created our family. At this point, our son hasn’t started asking questions about reproduction, although I’m guessing some of his animal books may have raised them in his mind. Right now, we’ve stuck with, “All families are different. Some people have a mother and a father, others have two mothers or two fathers, some have only one parent.” As our son starts asking, we will get into more specifics about how we needed a special cell from a man and found a donor—but it’s not our preference to call him a daddy.

I’m wondering where others see similarities and differences in handling the question with adopted children. I suspect much of the answer  depends on how a family talks with a child about her or his birth mother as well.

Thoughts? Personal experience?

Take the COLAGE Donor Insemination Survey

Passing this along on behalf of my friends at COLAGE. Please contact them if you have questions.

Take the COLAGE Donor Insemination Survey

COLAGE, a youth-driven national network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer parents, is thrilled to announce the debut of the ART Project, a program to highlight the experiences of COLAGErs born through assisted reproductive technologies. Over the past 30 years the number of people born through these technologies to LGBTQ parents has steadily grown, yet let little, if any, work has been done to bring this community together or address the experiences of these youth and adults. Read the rest of this post »

Preacher’s Sons: Two Dads, Five Sons, Four Cities

Preacher’s Sons is a wonderful new documentary that shows us five years in the lives of two gay dads and the five boys they adopt from California’s foster care system. I had the pleasure of interviewing filmmaker C Roebuck Reed recently, and while I can’t crosspost it here yet, you can read it over at Bay Windows.

In the Life television will be airing the first 20 minutes of the 90-minute film (plus an interview with Reed) in November. Check their site for local airtimes or to view it online.

The full DVD is for sale at www.preacherssons.com.

Reed says she made the film specifically for middle America, however, not just for the LGBT community. She is hoping for investors to fund further distribution and showings. If you know of (or are) an angel investor, please contact her at preacherssons@gmail.com.

On a related note, President Barack Obama, in his proclamation of November as National Adoption Month, said: “By continually opening up the doors to adoption, and supporting full equality in adoption laws for all American families [my emphasis], we allow more children to find the permanent homes they yearn for and deserve.”

Preacher’s Sons underscores why we have to hold him to this.

After the jump, a trailer for the In the Life presentation of the film:

Survey of Donor-Conceived Youth and Adults with LGBTQ Parents

Passing along this information about a survey of donor-conceived youth and adults who have one or more LGBTQ parents. It is being conducted by the Donor Sibling Registry, which allows people conceived from sperm, egg, or embryo donation to contact others with whom they share genetic ties, at their mutual consent. They explain the survey pretty well below; please contact them if you have further questions, and pass along the link to others who may be interested.

Hello!

We have assembled the following survey intended for donor conceived youth and adults who have one or more LGBTQ identified parents. Over the years the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR) has gathered information from a myriad of families, but we believe predominantly more heterosexual. We think the issues for LGBTQ families are both similar and quite different. The results of this survey will be used to both better understand and to begin to construct resources that are designed to meet the needs of our families. Our goal is to provide an accurate reflection of experiences and to assist families in having meaningful dialogue related to the challenges specific to our community. Read the rest of this post »

Now It’s My Turn, Again: Mary Cheney Pregnant with Second Child

Mary Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, is pregnant with her second child. She and partner Heather Poe are expecting their new addition in November, according to True/Slant.

Mary has hardly been a beacon of the LGBT movement, even donating to anti-LGBT political candidates, but she is one of the country’s most recognizable lesbian moms. This means, as I’ve said before, that despite her lackluster record, she may in fact be the kind of bridge we need to win over more people in support of our cause. The fact is that we’re not going to gain equality by turning everyone into liberals (much as I might like that). We’re going to win equality by convincing centrists and conservatives (though perhaps not ultra-conservatives) to join liberals in supporting our rights. Read the rest of this post »