Recently I had the great good fortune of being asked for advice by a dear friend of a dear friend of the beloved.  We bonded in a hot tub in Idaho, over a decade ago, both there for the wedding of a friend.  Under the stars, we caustically competed for who felt most likely to be shot at by locals (Jewish heterosexual?  or non-Jewish lesbian?  who gets it first?).  

She’s an elementary school teacher now, and she recently learned that one of her Kindergartners has two mommies. At different times, they each made an effort to clarify to her that their girl has two moms. She was very understanding about their concern, and is going to offer to meet with them (a capitol idea!).  But she wanted to know more: how did the beloved and I approach transitioning our girlie into school?  And what would we want her Kindergarten teacher to know?

Well!  So glad she asked!  And good timing, since today’s our girl’s second first day of school.  (The first first one, so, so long ago, is  pictured at right.  Brave little bugger.  God I love her.  I mean look what she’s holding.  The change of clothes, for when, you know.  Could preschoolers get any more dear?)

But back to the business at hand.  I wrote the dear school teacher friend a dreadfully long email, and have poached from it liberally below so as to ensure this is a dreadfully longer post.  

One question I didn’t address was that about how we transitioned our lil’ monkey into school.  When it came to engaging the preschool staff, I erred on the shy side; that is, we didn’t go full-on and have a separate, independent meeting with the preschool director, beyond our introducing ourselves at the newbie orientation she held.  This, even though I would gladly have sat with her over coffee daily for several weeks running.  I simply began to get to know them in a fairly organic way whilst hanging around the school, and then opened up germane topics of conversation when it seemed natural.  The upside is, this route felt more “me” and less “pushy,” which, odd as it may seem, I was worried about being.  (Maybe not so odd, since I admit to being willing to subject the director to weeks and weeks’ worth of confabbing with me.)

The downside of the laissez faire approach is that even when you’ve developed an authentic, mutually respectful rapport, some stuff can fall through the cracks.  For instance, in spite of an email I sent around Mother’s and Father’s days, our girl came home with an art project for her Mama on Mother’s Day (good, good), and then a half-thought out additional one for me on that day (?).  And nothing on Father’s Day (??).  Even though the point of my email was to share that we celebrate Father’s Day as Baba’s Day.  My guess, by the half-bakedness of the art project, was that our girlie was making something for Mama, and then at the end of the project, someone may have asked, “Now how ’bout you make one for your Baba.”  To which she might have thought, Okay, sure.  Whatever, lady.  But she’s not my mother.  

The official Mama’s Day gift was a really sweet framed picture.  Don’t know what the Dads got on their day. I just know that whatever they get this upcoming year, I’m getting one too.

Clearly, this misunderstanding shows that even in a friendly, supportive environment, being direct and clear is not only helpful, it’s often simply necessary.  We are, after all, in quite the minority.  Unless the staff at the school are LGBT parents themselves, it’s safe to assume that they don’t know how you call yourself, what your child calls you, what relationship or knowledge the child has of her/his origins, how you approach the various heterosexual conventions and holidays, and on and on.  In retrospect, I would recommend scheduling one-on-one meetings with anyone possessing even the slightest inclination to chat. The beginning of the school year is a busy time for everyone.  But hell’s bells, we are here to be our children’s finest and fiercest advocates, and when better than at the outset of the school year?  

I would like to think that all our kids’ teachers are just as glad to know more about what makes our kids’ lives unique as we are eager to convey that uniqueness to them.   Certainly some folks do, like this school teacher friend.