Lesbian Dad | Monthly Archive

Archive | September, 2007

Back-to-School Primer, Vol. 2

By Lesbian Dad on September 10, 2007 in Baba familias, Re: the bairn, School work

I was reading Dana Rudolph’s recent piece Of Ducks and Penguins, a rumination on her son’s launch into preschool this past week, and about ducks, penguins, family diversity curriculum in early childhood education, and homophobes on the march in Lexington, MA and Evesham Township, NJ. Astute and thought-provoking, as usual.

At the top of her piece, which was originally published in Bay Windows (New England’s LGBT newspaper), Dana provides links to two other vital back-to-school interviews published in Bay Windows. One is with Beth Teper, executive director of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), the other is with Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Pride (the national LGBT family organization). Both of those interviews are so chock-full of valuable info that I couldn’t help but amend highlights of them to the ongoing conversation about how to support our kids in school. And our kids’ sense of safety and inclusion in schools is obviously a HUUUUGE issue for us. Right up there with legal protections for our families.

I hope the highlights from the interviews below entice you to go ahead and read them in their entirety.

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Weekend bonus shot, 09.08.07

By Lesbian Dad on September 9, 2007 in Mostly a picture, Weekend bonus shot

After the tea party with the Special Cousins, Berkeley, CA.

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A little help?

By Lesbian Dad on September 7, 2007 in Baba familias, Go hetero ally go!, School work

I was writing an epic-length response to a great question someone asked, and realized that I had better give it a whole different lease on life as a post, the better to tempt more of you astute readers to add to my answer. So here was the question Sheri Bheri posed, in a comment on the previous post:

Do you have any advice for the other parents in a preschool, to make it easier on the children of lesbians?

In a nice turnabout, by “other” parents here, she means “hetero.” She’s asking from the standpoint of a supportive straight parent:

I want my daughter exposed to more diverse people than *I* was. Because Iâ€™ve found myself â€˜handicappedâ€™ later on in life, because I have a hard time knowing the right thing to say and do.

I’m going to answer with that kind of reader in mind, and hope that all you all chime in with your own suggestions.

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Preschool intake woes

By Lesbian Dad on September 5, 2007 in Mostly a picture, School work, Visual aids

Fig. A. In which Baba elbows her way into the state’s somewhat limited parental imagination. (Alternative? How ’bout “Parent/guardian 1″ and “Parent/guardian 2″? Has a nice Thing 1 and Thing 2 ring to it. Plus it works for EVERYONE. That’s what I, an honest taxpayer, like to see in my state-generated paperwork.)

Fig. B. In which we have to cop to the sad, sad truth about the potty training campaign.

Fortunately we also had the opportunity to wax on about our kiddle’s personality: “Radiant! Shimmering! She’s ready for her MacArthur genius grant, Mr. DeMille! Nary a fly in her ointment– er. Well. We’d go on about her few flaws but we ran out of space on the line!”

It aaaaalmost made up for the double indignity.

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Idyll speculation

By Lesbian Dad on September 3, 2007 in Baba familias, Re: the bairn

Itâ€™s Labor Day, which should inspire me to either celebrate the working peoples of the world, or the birthing peoples, or the work of the birthing peoples. But I think Barbara Ehrenreich and MomsRising would do a better job of that. And really Iâ€™m thinking more about the other implications of Labor Day: the end of summer, and the start of the school year(s). Our daughterâ€™s first day of pre-school is just around the corner, and with it come her first steps into community, a sort of gentle little public space, without us. We daily shrug off the typical pre-pre-school parental jitters, knowing that itâ€™s highly likely sheâ€™ll thrive there. Because of who she is and in spite of who we are. Also, because of who we are and in spite of who she is.

Sheâ€™s had a wee taste of community outside our family and friendship networks. She was in an at-home day care for a while, but she was very young then. Many of the other kids barely had a dozen vocabulary words at their disposal; the make-up of peopleâ€™s families seemed more or less lost on them. It helped, too, that the guy who ran it was a Latino Paul Lynde, more fey than our kidsâ€™ Grandpappy, which is an accomplishment. Now, more than a year later, she knows enough words to fake her way past an oral exit exam for elementary school. And she certainly knows about family.

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