First, there's Abigail Garner who has two dads she celebrates today. She posted with pictures of her and her two dads here. She's written many articles about her dads. This one asks the question, "What is it about my two dads’ 26-year-relationship that the president finds so threatening?"
Steve and his partner Toney are the very proud parents of Kristin, a cutie preschooler. A while back he wrote a great post where he talked about a book Kristin was reading.
Kristin got a stack of used books from a friend for her birthday. One of the books is called What Do Mommies Do? Here is the gist of the book:
Inside Cover:
Mother ducks teach ducklings to cross streets safely. Mother squirrels teach small squirrels how to save. Mother bears share picnic lunches with their cubs. Mother raccoons teach their babies to wash before meals. And the strange fact is: human mothers teach children these very things, too - to cross streets carefully, to save, to have fun at picnics, to wash before meals.
...
[The book ends with] What do mothers do that's best of all? They love their children very much!
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[Steve says]
Surprise, surprise, daddies do all those things too!"
I also would like to remember today all the dads out there who aren't allowed to have contact or meaningful relationships with their kids because of their sexual orientation. For all of those who have been vilified and kept out of your kids' lives, I'm so sorry. Please don't let that keep you from sharing what you have with kids around you who may need it.
For all you dads out there who are parenting kids, and for all of the men out there who serve as mentors and role models to kids: Thank you. Happy Father's Day.
Christine,
ReplyDeleteAs always, I appreciate your thoughts and share your sentiments. Tdub was/and is such a wonderful father. He fathered his boys during their formative (potty training) days all alone and did such a suberb job...and yeah....he was acting/living as a gay man during that time. It just had nothing to do with his skills/nuture/ability to parent...because he never allowed his sex life to interfere with his parenting. Would that ALL folks of WHATEVER proclivity, would respect their children as much. Parenting, like SO MANY other areas of life, has very little to do with what is going on in the bedroom...unless WE, the adults, allow it to. Does that make sense?
I hope so. :)
love,
grace
Well said, Christine. I just spent the day with a lesbian couple yesterday. One of the women does not have custody of her 14 year old son because she is a lesbian--even though the psychological evaluations demonstrated that she and her partner are healthy while her son's father and his wife have psychological problems.
ReplyDeleteWhere did this take place? Albany, NY. It happens all over the US.
I appreciate your sensitivity.
Peterson
Thanks for the shout out. I wrote that post because I was in some debates with people who were convinced that a child needs a mother and a father, yet nobody could say specifically what one gender can provide that the other parent cannot.
ReplyDeleteThey kept using child rearing problems of single parenting as their reference.
Good share
ReplyDelete