article on same-sex parenting on Boston.com this week:
My 3-year-old twin boys and I are camped out on the
terminal floor at the Denver airport, halfway through a five-hour
flight delay and surrounded by plastic planes, action figures, and
lollipop wrappers. Soon another set of young boys is lured to our
sticky little campsite by the tinny, baritone catchphrases coming
from a Buzz Lightyear toy.
“Twins?” their mom asks, after the four boys
negotiate the rules of engagement (the newbies could play with Buzz
but not Spidey). “Mine, too,” she confirms. With common ground
established, we begin sharing the complaints of our kind (“I have
to buy two of everything!”). As our kids play superheroes, I’m
introduced to her husband, who shares the same strong Boston accent
of his wife. We’re all chatting amiably when my wife, Emily,
returns from checking on our flight status. “You guys sisters?”
the mom asks.
And here is the moment I hate: the Explaining of the
Situation (EOTS). Most of the time, the EOTS is not a big deal at
all, but then again, we live in New York City. Not just New York
City, but a liberal enclave in Brooklyn called Park Slope, where,
depending on the time of day at the local playground, same-sex
parents just might outnumber straight ones. I recognize, though,
that not everyone is down with two women or two men raising kids
together, so there’s the chance this family might quietly pack up
their stuff and build their own campsite somewhere else upon the
EOTS. Will our impromptu party suddenly become unbearably
awkward?
…
There are approximately 1 million gay families raising
approximately 2 million kids in the United States, according to the
Family Equality Council, though it’s hard to know our exact numbers
since census data doesn’t exactly count us. We have the highest
population percentages in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York
City, Chicago, and Boston, but we’re not just on the coasts or in
major urban centers. Utah, Hawaii, Wyoming, and Nevada all rank as
top-ten states with the largest number of same-sex spouses per
1,000 households. In fact, nearly 30 percent of the people who
responded to a recent Parenting.com poll have a friend or relative
who’s a same-sex parent.