Unknown Speaker 00:00 I mostly want to be seen as the saying, we are lesbians. And as lesbians, there are things about us that are different. And they will, they will always be different. And as parents, they're different. In our households, our is not based on gender. It's based on something I mean, are you sure power dynamics is based on something, but it's not about gender, that is going to produce something very different in how the children and what they become, in our household. All the roles and responsibilities, functions are performed by women, that will have impact on our kids. We don't know what the impact is yet. But it will have an impact. And every the way in which we conduct our design, there are certainly ways in which we live our lives in the same way as everyone else we make dinner, we have to decide whether our kids can have Barbies. You know, I mean, there's all these things that we have to do that every other parent has to do as well. But there isn't a lesbian Barbie. There isn't, you know, Barney on television is not talking about families like ours, where that our families are represented out there. So we are constantly, both in the mix of how we live our lives, and the external things that happen to us and the institutions and ended up with, we do have to contend with Unknown Speaker 01:30 some of the things that, in this short introduction that I'm going to talk about probably have been touched on today, in one way or another. So even at the risk of being redundant. One of the things is that in the question of, you know, is lesbian parenting radical, we're retrograde? I think that, you know, close to this issue that Sanders talking about, do we experience ourselves as the same? That is having children the great equalizer? The thing that we have in common with all others in human race? Or is it retrograde? Is it is it a desertion of the of the lesbian community back into heterosexual values? Is that something that sometimes has created a kind of schism between lesbians who are parents or want to be and lesbian? And I think it's created somewhat of a pressure in the community to normalize. That is, if I think back to maybe 20 years ago, there was no particular pressure to reproduce, if you were a lesbian, or whatnot. community discussions about having children, that is not to say that individual women were not thinking about it and having their own complex feelings about whether they could or would have a child. Mostly, I think it was in the vein of, could they, if they were a lesbian, what did they have to go straight? Now you don't have to go straight to baby, but creates some sorts of pressures about this discussion. One of the things that we do know whatever, whatever those pressures are, and whatever those splits are in the community over parenting, is a lesbian baby, of course, country joined the larger culture in the midst of the baby boom, in having quite a number of our own, right here in New York City. Gay Lesbian center, the organization within it, center kids, has a mailing list of 1500 families in the metropolitan community. So that reflects only those families that have registered with the center. It doesn't reflect the we don't I don't have statistics, because we really don't have the numbers. But we know this group starting point. And in the five boroughs alone, there are these families. On the upper west side with Sandra and I adopted our daughter six years ago, we wanted very much to connect with other people and other lesbians who had children in our neighborhood. And 23 families responded to a letter that said, we are everywhere but we are especially on the Upper West Side. So that was just a start. There are now I think, at least two fairly large well around 20 groups of lesbian parents with children on the Upper West Side alone. I hear rumbles that the Park Slope absolutely rivals the upper one. So itself was so there isn't a question of our being innovative? How do we, how do we form our families, lesbians have commandeered the technology and the social services that were not intended for us. AI is something that is widely used alternative insemination. And it is, is used in every form from frozen, frozen sperm to Turkey base throughs, with known and unknown donors, with friends and with strangers, and within laws. When women's lovers brother provides the sperm, and so there's the mother and the two mothers of the child. There are myriad ways in which women have creatively become pregnant. Of course, there is the good old fashioned way, but that's the least discussed. But it's still a part of lesbians having babies. And there's a great deal of adoption, both domestic and international, private, and through social service agencies. Some of the key issues currently on the agenda for lesbian families are many that have been discussed today. The right and desire to marry is very often fueled by the need for certain entitlements such as joint health insurance, housing, Unknown Speaker 06:35 security, dealing with institutions, the right to Social Security, benefits, as accrues to people with the privilege of marriage. Personally, I'm not so sure that the interest in marriage that is so great at this moment will be there were it not for the economic environment that we're living in, but certainly lesbian families feel that pressure, even more so perhaps than people without children, dealing with multiple health insurance issues, dealing with school tuitions, and dealing with questions of income tax returns and exemptions. And raising children is extremely expensive. Extremely. So I myself, find myself arguing for legalized gay marriage position, I thought I would never take a look pletely against marriages, as ridiculous institution, I still think it is. I think it's very oppressive. But I see that they're in the practical sense, it would make my life a lot, a lot better, a lot easier in my daughter's life. If my partner and I were able to what resources exists today are so extraordinary compared to just maybe 10 years ago, in terms of was the parents, everything from the gay and lesbian center, satellite groups in all the boroughs here in New York to win national organization, to most of the major gay and lesbian rights organizations such as the task force or lambda, have family rights agendas. So there's a tremendous amount of resource for people who are looking for information or peer support and gatherings like this really, literally unheard of 10 to 15 years ago, it's not not so long ago, that there were not rooms full of people who had the questions that you have on your mind today, let alone whole conferences that respected those questions gave attention to so Sandra, I am extremely pleased, extremely pleased to be here. You know, what we, what we proceed with will be a value to get. Unknown Speaker 09:20 First, I want to say that, that we have Xerox copies of a chapter that I wrote for. It's called lesbian parenting radical or retrograde. It appears in a book called Xerox the chapter because it could have presented a survey of what's the issues and concerns are includes some of the psychological issues we face and some of the discriminatory legal and economic concerns, etc. But I thought I would today read something I call the questioner from that. And this is a question or is a research forum that we're working on I use In our theater work, and it's a way of surfacing what some of the major issues are. So I thought by reading this today, it would start the discussion knowing about what some of the major issues are. When you were growing up, did you always expect to have children? At what point? If any, did you give up that expectation? Was it related to being a lesbian? If you are a couple, do you both consider yourself smothers? Does your child relate to you both? As mothers? Does the world relate to only one of you as the real mother? How does this affect your family? Is the double mommy a double whammy? How do you name yourselves to your child? What is she or he call you at home? Whether they call you in public? What is your child's family name? Is it different from yours? Is your child's family name the same as your father's? How do you describe your family structure inside and outside the family? Have you come out as a lesbian to your child? Have you talked about the way you created your family? What is the impact on your child of having all family roles and functions performed by women? What is the impact of growing up in a home where power is not based on gender? What are your investments in your child's sexual orientation? Will you be disappointed or worried if your child is gay? What if your child is strange? Will your child be required to be gay? How do your families of origin relate to you as a family? To both sets of your parents consider themselves grandparents to your child? Does your partner's family relate to you as an inlaw? Does anyone in your family send you an anniversary card? What about a Mother's Day card? Do you care? Are your children allowed to tell others that their parents are lesbians? Are they required to tell? What is an eatable? Complex when both parents? Or? Is anyone mistaking you for your child's grandmother? Now that you are Mother, do you find yourself passing as heterosexual? Do you have more in common with straight parents than with the non parenting lesbian community? How do you maintain your outsider status as a lesbian? When you are a parent? Do you want it? Was Radcliffe all a mother? Or is this a contradiction in terms? Do lesbian mothers have sex? Once you become a parent, can you still be lesbian? What is better about growing up in a lesbian family? Some questions to start the ball roll. Unknown Speaker 13:05 We usually like to try to get kind of a profile of who who's talking to each other. So Unknown Speaker 13:18 we have here an anonymous questionnaire for you to fill out. All you have to do for the most part is fill in a few things and check them off. And we will collect them and read some of these anonymously as to who's in the room. Okay. So could you pass them around? Unknown Speaker 13:37 The only thing that's missing just passing the mouse is that we I neglected to put on the bottom other so you will get those things with other audit. If if there's anything missing if there's a sentence or two that you just want to jot down. Think of it as at the bottom there's a line that says either a new and do so. Okay. Unknown Speaker 14:00 Does anyone need a pen? Unknown Speaker 14:08 The reason for the signup sheet is because we want babysitters That's me just take another minute as a quickie question Do you want to add fun? You I'm going to give you each one and you will read the one that you have. If it's yours Don't tell did you get one? Yeah, sure. Okay. Well you read it. Just read it till you hear it. Unknown Speaker 18:06 I'm 35 Okay and put the word I press because it's easier. Okay. I'm 35 I grew up in New York City. I'm the oldest sister of one brother. I'm not a mother. I'm ambivalent about being a mother question. I dispute the terms heterosexual versus lesbian. Unknown Speaker 18:29 I'm 48. I grew up in New Jersey. A child. I'm a mother. I'm a lesbian mother. no slouch. Yes. Mother. Yes. Slash No. Unknown Speaker 18:43 What about that dreaded category? The bisexual mother. I'm a mother of a lesbian. No. Unknown Speaker 18:52 No, no. Unknown Speaker 18:53 No. And then I have never wanted Unknown Speaker 18:55 to be a mother until Unknown Speaker 18:58 no, I'm ambivalent about being a mother. I don't want to be lesbian mother. Sometimes I want to be lesbian as I Unknown Speaker 19:11 just read the ones that during the yes or no? Okay. Unknown Speaker 19:17 I grew up in California. I'm the only child I've always expected to become a mother. My number ambivalent about being 22 grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, only child. I've always expected to become one of the less Unknown Speaker 19:44 I'm 49. We grew up in Pennsylvania. I have one older sister. I am mother. I am a lesbian mother. I am the mother of a lesbian. Age 20 homegrown. I am a lesbian. Good mother of a heterosexual, possibly age five. I always wanted to be a mother. I have always expected to become a mother. I came out about two years ago. My daughters both have a father. We're divorced. I came out to my daughter about three months before she can't make Unknown Speaker 20:27 I grew up in Texas. I'm the oldest I have always wants to be a mother Unknown Speaker 20:45 I'm 22. I Unknown Speaker 20:46 grew up in Ohio. And first of all, to one sister. I'm not a mother. I have always wanted to be a mother question mark. Unknown Speaker 20:55 I have always expected to become a mother. Unknown Speaker 20:58 I have been less about being a mother. I want to be less. I am Unknown Speaker 21:06 54. Unknown Speaker 21:07 I grew up in Ohio. I am middle sis. I am a mother. I'm lesbian mother. I'm a lesbian mother of sexual age 21. I grew up in Minnesota. I'm a middle child. I'm not a mother. Unknown Speaker 21:26 I'm ambivalent about being a mother. Unknown Speaker 21:35 I'm 41 I grew up in Queens, New York and the only child and I'm not a mother. Unknown Speaker 21:40 I'm an age 59 I grew up in Manhattan. I have a younger sister. I'm a father. I'm a heterosexual father. I'm an innocent bystander Unknown Speaker 21:57 I'm 78 I grew up in New York City the only girl the eldest three children a mother and a heterosexual mother as always expected to become 22 at Brooklyn New York City as the only child with kids attached to my parents tries to make the other girl dogs as far as I know she can't live with me I love this one wanted to be a mother but I always expected I thought it should have been years of expensive years seriously I have never wanted to be a mother and a mother guys child I am not I've always wanted to be and I've always I grew up in Germany Germany before I'm not a mother so that's Unknown Speaker 24:44 like the Civil War The other thing that we we would like to ask you to share with everyone but not on a piece of paper. What are the key issues that bring you to this workshop? One of the things here talked about or thought about. This is sort of a way of saying way here, but it's really one of the issues that stirred up for sale when this workshop rather than another. I'm Unknown Speaker 25:33 curious as to why lesbians woman had I'd say the same thing. Unknown Speaker 25:47 Because, of course, I'm ambivalent about it. I think about it, but I'm not sure exactly what the ramifications are be very interested to hear what your experiences are. Unknown Speaker 26:04 Relating to my my life, but mostly relating to my work because I'm doing one conference. One is on the validity of the labels of heterosexual homosexual and bisexual. And the other one is on the effects of government funded programs and on the lesbian, a lesbian mother. And so what I'm especially interested in looking at is the government attacks on the lesbian of different classes, because I've been reading about the middle class like you know, so I'm just kind of just like a different perspective I like it very much. The question was what is unique about you Unknown Speaker 27:04 so often Unknown Speaker 27:07 Oh, over just like everybody Unknown Speaker 27:10 shuts picea your church when in fact, very different values. I believe that as well as being a part of this because I want people in the community having children, because I think biological, political having Unknown Speaker 28:00 some good credit, and not wrecking the party was part of a community. Not having kids Unknown Speaker 28:07 like the choice not to have kids because kids like Unknown Speaker 28:21 for some time now, I think there's this theory of, of altruism in nature. And I have heard, some scientists speculate that perhaps would isolate the gene for homosexuality, which I very much dispute. At some point, we want to isolate the scene and then perhaps be able to show that, in fact, homosexual people appear in human communities and gene pool as helper people, people who will during their lives forego, perhaps their entire mating appropriate lives in order to help genetically related individuals. That is very provocative, and also suggests that people have always been the same throughout time cultures. And that pretty much the way many gay men today have lived their lives up until very recent times, this child says the way people have always been very interested, disputed women, many of whom are lesbians. Unknown Speaker 29:27 I'm working on a new book about questions of kinship and how friendship is getting recruited, in our time on single brother, Jonathan, and one of the things I find so striking last 20 years is from the backwards from his lesbian baby Unknown Speaker 29:51 to an earlier moment, Unknown Speaker 29:52 the assumption that one wouldn't have a child or those children came from marriages up By and is a research on June it has recently been a book that is called like fat fathers. And there are two sentences book that I found that I could almost verbatim at this point because I've read them to everybody who's interested in talking to me recently. This is a book by a male sociologist who's got attention in the last year or two for this book. And the two sentences go like this. Eat something like, even for those who are saying about the notion of women raising children, without men, they will for lesbian women, and fight them. Even those people need to ask themselves, what happens to the men who are left out? Next? Do we really want a world filled? On attached children leading, self aggrandizing and threatening? Unknown Speaker 31:13 Do we have a choice? Unknown Speaker 31:16 You know, Mike, that's one reaction. Or you can take no, we don't want such a world. But the fact that the question gets framed that way, in the 1990s, by mail sociologists to at some point was, you know, the head of the Council things and children. And Andrew Dorkin couldn't have said it better. I hope I conveyed but no, there's a way in which it's a kind of 20 years later coming back to a lesbian separatist position, the self aggrandizing predatory men of say, Sally airparks, a wonder graphic that was controlled via so I just, I feel like we're living a very problematic moment around these days. Just, you know, I'm here because I feel like we need to figure out you know, was Elon Lewin right and lesbian fatherhood that lesbian lovers like other mothers or cat WestEd families families, says, Know what gay men and lesbians are doing their parents Dave is something that conversation is what I'm interested in. stories we've got Unknown Speaker 32:30 maybe one or two more issues and then we want to start responding to some of these issues. I had way here before, I guess I wanted to get a viewpoint from the different. Scattered most of us have my age typically old fashioned as a younger age very close Unknown Speaker 33:24 my very you can say Training College pretty much it's Unknown Speaker 33:30 a one looks college. Unknown Speaker 33:33 But I come from a background where I love to know people and to know that people are comfortable where they are in their lives. And I feel like coming here and being a part of this, although not participate as much I find much more fascination and listening to people talk about it. And women in college Trinity specifically are going to talk about it because there's a lot of problems and schools very close. And a lot of problems that are related to issues. So AI is empowering. Thank you Unknown Speaker 34:19 so I took some notes on some of these mentioned, you know, short word responses to whatever wants to feel interesting, aspiring to Why do two women want to have children? Unknown Speaker 34:40 What's unique about the theme of altruism in nature is suggested in that being that we would come sexuals we actually stepping back from procreation or for child rearing. Then lending ourselves and someone that really Unknown Speaker 35:06 loves me when the question says Unknown Speaker 35:11 I didn't understand Unknown Speaker 35:17 the why not? Why not? Why would two women choose not to have children? Why wouldn't two children? Why do women versus a man as a woman? Unknown Speaker 35:32 And another one, just as opposed to why they think? Unknown Speaker 35:39 Why would a single man I mean, I have friends who have adopted individually, why would anyone want to be a parent? I asked if Unknown Speaker 35:54 I understood you say, in the beginning that you fit together. Unknown Speaker 36:00 And I think I heard you Unknown Speaker 36:01 say your jobs for six. Well, whatever. And I was really curious as to why you decided Unknown Speaker 36:09 at some later point Unknown Speaker 36:11 that you wanted to Unknown Speaker 36:12 have we we raised the child together in a parenting collective in the 70s, who is now 24 years old. When he was 18, we've decided to have another child, as a lot of people do when they are when their children are around 18. Well, what's on our minds? Unknown Speaker 36:43 Everyone's child, Unknown Speaker 36:47 the child? I think the best way to answer that, because I think that his origin is really not the not the issue. He was raised by six lesbians from with including, he was raised in a very a format, that was very seven days. But we would need to have those six we were to have this Unknown Speaker 37:18 is when he was leaving for college, the opportunity arose for us to adopt the child, it was not something we were contemplating at that time. But when the opportunity was presented to us, it just, we said yes. And so we went forward, and did that. So so we have these two kids 18 years apart. Unknown Speaker 37:40 But you know, we have both the lesbian woman stating I'm a lesbian, and I have this question. And another woman saying I'm heterosexual they have this question. And I think that it's a long standing question, Why would two women or two men want to have a child together? Because there's an underlying there is some underlying cultural assumption that men and women make, biologically their women make babies together, they parent together. That's what parenting is a heterosexual unit, or a heterosexual unit with one absentee raising a child that I just, I personally have a need to answer the question, which is that the reason why I would want to raise a child with a woman is because I'm a homosexual, and I love the person that I'm a partner with. And I wanted to have children. Those are not contradictions. So that is, logically the person with whom I would raise a child is the person who is my vice partner, who I rely on and he relies on me for my, my life. Everybody doesn't do it for that reason. And in that way, every lesbians do it for that reason, in that way. And in that sense, I have, you know, a non traditional life but in some aspects of draw on. You know, a very sort of recognizable Unknown Speaker 39:30 I only like to add something to that. Unknown Speaker 39:34 my prior life experience as a heterosexual, I did not want to be embarrassed. And I did not feel that I could with a male, raise a child and feel that the task was equally shared, that my powers would be respected that I don't know I didn't even think it through so thoroughly. I just knew it. A few years, I think, in a couple of years, I want to have a job and a couple of years and then a couple of years more, and it's really, as a lesbian that I can. And I can be who I am, share the responsibilities and share the work. And so that's why Unknown Speaker 40:26 I guess the question is not whether to have Unknown Speaker 40:28 children or not. Because if you're in relation for me, personally, I think I agree with you. I think, you know, the only question would be to have, Unknown Speaker 40:36 why not, of course, Unknown Speaker 40:40 the issues revolving around having a child as lesbian, because we lay myself on a lake, Unknown Speaker 40:48 it's very difficult to have a child Unknown Speaker 40:50 at all. And then you throw in the complication Unknown Speaker 40:53 of society rejecting your parents, I mean, Unknown Speaker 40:57 you know, it's, you're gonna screw up, and just, I feel very vulnerable in that way that I would be exposing my child to that type of scrutiny. I know, I went through it, or I'm going through it or whatever. Those are the issues because internalized homophobia I know, but that's just the way that with external reality with external realities. Yes. So that's the best question is, Unknown Speaker 41:19 the thing is all for parenting. The, the onset of hurricanes is always selfish, no unborn child is screaming out to be conceived. One is either conceiving a child or adopting a child out of one's own desire to have and raise a child. So, you know, on that score, you're on the same footing as every other woman in the world. But I have some other lesbian parents here will respond to this question what's, you know, and it seems to me that it fits together with the question of what's unique? You know, I Unknown Speaker 42:00 think I think that's a month. In some ways, I think traditionally, culture actually questions, if you don't have children, I'm always surprised that she asked that, why would you want children so your woman is opposed to him. I mean, that's what makes you a woman. But as soon as you like to get it done, as soon as you black single mother, you're not supposed to do this, because it doesn't, whatever makes you a woman doesn't really make you a citizen, or whatever. All these contradictions woven into this. And I find actually interesting, the idea that maybe it is important to also create a space, I think you were mentioning, where it's okay not to have a child, as a woman and be the woman. And in some ways that this lesbian baby creates sort of a cheap way out, you don't want to tie it totally. And you say, I'm a lesbian, everybody. But no, it's not the case. It's important to really, really look into both sides of it. I mean, we are not allowed to not want children, but we're not allowed to, either. So Unknown Speaker 43:19 wanting to say that in my generation, the sentence when I'm going to get married, have children, you didn't get married, you didn't say to your husband, your mother? I don't know. Obviously, Gen Z, but it wasn't really an option. I mean, I had grown up to see that it is an option. And Unknown Speaker 43:43 I know a lot of young people Unknown Speaker 43:47 who are heterosexual and don't choose to have children. So since one now has the true option of having one question, why others and I think it's been the problem. Unknown Speaker 44:07 You know, you don't want to create a situation now that as soon as you've been in a lesbian relationship for two years, you have to have Unknown Speaker 44:17 a real relationship Unknown Speaker 44:36 seems to be every one of us has, the answer would be extremely complex. And some of it has to do with some of it has to do with respect to video. Some of it has to do with Unknown Speaker 44:53 wanting to have a future or someone carrying on after you Unknown Speaker 45:00 I'm big into this the idea of studying close races and even the question is respectability I know that when I had my job and went back to my job I stuck with it so what I think that that was true for me and my strength by the business of respectability that's true. I think in terms of motivation I can't see too much in terms of the foods that are cautioning you you know you have very simple skills to learn with the addition of having to come out all the time about and we'll move and I'm also going to do and I'm also a leftist communist so you know, I've grown up with the idea of people coming up Unknown Speaker 46:47 as very well a strategy to deal with that are you are not widespread in the society and aspects of the society and I find it to be responsibility for child but then again Unknown Speaker 47:16 you know in the 30s My father as companies do Unknown Speaker 47:21 not want to have a child years Unknown Speaker 47:29 that's been a sincere I think it's fair I think probably from my personal experience and interaction with not only seeing you're raising a child is raising the child parents so bear with me to how to get a lot of thought this this I'm very glad I'm Unknown Speaker 47:57 raising a lot of questions in my head that I never thought maybe other people can help me out I'm not exactly sure where that word spread I guess it's you know insecurity about what other people how to do my thing would be my family what is family from another constituted another lecture? What's the definition of family and seeing my childhood through life experience and wanting to protect the child from our streaming I mean, it sounds like your moment but based on my experience it's safer for a child or even gay male right now Unknown Speaker 48:59 know I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I would not trust any straight man from what I see around me not because because people are Unknown Speaker 49:18 that's, that's my fear. So we might the other side Unknown Speaker 49:20 of my feelings so funny as I'm sort of conflicted and battling within myself is very fearful that I'm saying I said I change myself I'm in love with my partner. Why is that love? Why should that love denied a child? I can do just as good a job or better we both heterosexual families that are Unknown Speaker 49:39 dissolving with children. So Unknown Speaker 49:41 what so you can see I'm a little bit conflicted, because, you know, I will immediately somebody says to me, you can't have a child. So I just think that that battle is, you know, I'm also societal that I agree with you Unknown Speaker 50:15 Oh, I'm sorry. I was saying any child comes with a certain amount of baggage for the nurturing that child's given, and how much self confidence they have, when they go out into the world and say, You know how Unknown Speaker 50:35 he was saying, You know what? What you're Unknown Speaker 50:40 able to carry my five year old Unknown Speaker 50:44 she's an adopted overseas yeah, there's probably a scholarship Unknown Speaker 50:58 hopefully there is. Unknown Speaker 51:02 But outside of that, think about Oh, my God got to the point where she can verbalize what adopted me. Right. But she knows that mommy loves it, she seems that adaptive support for gay parents. And one of the Unknown Speaker 51:55 parents of a little boy who was about eight years old score, Unknown Speaker 52:00 some of the kids in the playground says, Your moms are lesbians. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 52:07 And that was like, so, you know, went off and played and interesting. For children whose parents are always friendly, an added complication, but I really think it depends on the quality of parents. Unknown Speaker 52:39 You know, a few years back, I put together a panel at center kids, of children who have older children, adult children who have been raised by lesbian. And across the board, something that they each said, was that it was not about having gay parents, but the quality of the parenting. And they said it over and over in a million different ways. It was the audience, which was the parents of gay men, male parents, or would be gay and lesbian parents were thrilled to hear because then you have a chance. If you can give a good quality parenting, then you can mitigate against some of the other things. And this is kind of like the weak moment. I think that being gay and lesbian is somewhat in being a gay or lesbian parent is somewhat in, and whether you're in or not generation of kids who are being raised by lesbians, they will have periods when we raise our older son who did not have any fears. And that was something that there was no one who got it, understood what his experience was like, that will not be true for our children. They have our daughter knows probably 100 Children of other lesbian gay families. She probably knows 2000 Children of strength families, so it's not like, you know, she lives in a straight culture. And she knows that and everything she sees on television and everything she reads. She knows that and these issues come up for her. He asks a lot of questions. But there are others who have a similar experience. And I think that Unknown Speaker 54:37 I was wondering what you raised. I mean, that you're working on kinship and how this I think you phrase it, how kinship is being rewritten. And what your thoughts are around this in regard to children raised in households where parents are Unknown Speaker 55:02 There were some other responses as many of you may still call choosing children that Deborah Schatz off. And Ken Clauser did a number of years ago, where they interviewed Unknown Speaker 55:19 was the family, parents, and there's a line and typically the opening or the closing line, someone, it's a little boy says to his mom, oh, you're a lesbian, I thought you were a Virgo. If we could just get identity politics back there. Way back your introductory remarks, but two things. One is that, you know, having children is such a struggle in everyone's life, until they decide they're really ready for it. And sometimes even more hard, I don't mean to generalize from what you're saying, or take away the specificity of making that choice and the kind of new ones, but I'm hearing. The other is that someone else is saying Unknown Speaker 56:27 they're all things and bad. And Unknown Speaker 56:29 it's true. The idea is to race them in some way so that they're strong enough to carry them. And, you know, sort of know what to do with them and where to shelve them when they had. But the question is addressed. You know, I mean, you know, we all tell we all family stories, you all have narratives of origin. And, you know, what interests me is the way that those origins, both through the adoption, in the straight community as well as through reproductive technologies, again, as used behind once you community as well as the way their community narratives of kinship can no longer be scripted, in terms of love, exclusive Unknown Speaker 57:30 questions, who Unknown Speaker 57:32 are you to? And the way that that gets told by virtue of bloodline? And, you know, what interests me is what kinds of students people are telling children? What kinds of stories those children are telling each other? In the face of that. So that's, that's some of my preoccupation. Unknown Speaker 57:55 No, I'm very, very interested in having two children whose biological, each of their biological heritage has nothing to do with my biological heritage. Not very long ago, my daughter asked what her grandmother saw what square might to you. And I thought, and I decided that she could, she also wanted to kick me out. She's her grandmother, would she you. And she's, she's my mother in law. However, not long after that the law against her being my mother goes fast. You know, but you find yourself answering in these very peculiar mixture terms, you Unknown Speaker 58:48 know, words drip Unknown Speaker 58:50 I'd like children doing the one because of the way that motor is. So kinship related, they do want terms that are tools and handles, and I'm certainly found that every relationship that we've been able to put a term on has been better for the child so that for example, giving someone the designation of God parent, who, you know, really is close and has a real function in the child's life has been very, very helpful to the child and using sometimes you resort to sort of more, you know, the someone making me hold an aunt or an uncle who is not in any biological parents, that seems to me to create more difficulty because somewhere along the way, the kid gets involved in Things they hear that have to do with bloodlines. And so He's my uncle whose brother is he? Well, he's not either. I think that the whole question of, and I sort of live with this for 24 years, because with our oldest son who is actually designated as gods, because he's our guides, and standards guide, whether that, you know, has been very functional. But then sometimes they're functional at all, because you know, you walk up to a stranger and institution like a teacher or a doctor, I've just got parents. So finding viable catchy titles, and ones that really, really work for the child and really work for people beyond family. Unknown Speaker 1:00:56 I also think a lot of xiety out there on the right about this whole issue is that there aren't games for what what is going on? In them? There are, there aren't enough boxes to check on the question about race and ethnicity, why there are Unknown Speaker 1:01:18 things that can't be named are very frightened, stable, Unknown Speaker 1:01:24 more interesting dialogue, and I don't want to skip a beam, but I do want to go back to a comment that he made of you that I shared. But and I don't want to bring a sour note. But I think it's really important not to take violence. There are better lesbians, I have a friend who was in a piece of physical and emotional relationship where she was battered by a mother, and public and private, and to make remarks that stigmatize only the violence that men can do, which we all know they do, not all of them do, and ignore the violence that women do to each other. I think it makes it more painful for those of us who may have experienced some sort of violence to feel that they can voice that. And we as feminists should liberate ourselves from. Violence. Unknown Speaker 1:02:29 My question is, when we get to this issue, Unknown Speaker 1:02:36 that so often Unknown Speaker 1:02:38 now violence affects our children. Another question is, Unknown Speaker 1:02:43 why have heterosexual couples still protected? Other species? My question to you would be, why are we talking about the vast majority it certainly shouldn't be made invisible is very, very important. Unknown Speaker 1:03:09 Well, I mean, I agree with that guy, I'm troubled by a prejudice that that men are not are automatically going to be fine. I think that, unfortunately, perhaps, up to our view that human beings Unknown Speaker 1:03:29 are nature side, and it's our duty and our obligation against every type of violence that we ourselves can put out. And therefore be aware that potential Unknown Speaker 1:03:42 statistics. Unknown Speaker 1:03:45 Most of the violence in our culture is pre created by Unknown Speaker 1:03:47 men. So women aren't, why do you need to talk about Unknown Speaker 1:03:51 the small minority? Unknown Speaker 1:03:52 Maybe, because I have personal relationships with a dad who's better by her less than a mother in public as well as and she couldn't get out of the relationship. And I There are internet sites there. So I don't want to as a sour note, I don't want to like, take away the conversation. I just didn't want the one remark that said, Man, the violence in our culture to stand there with the idea that lesbian lesbian mothers raising their child there is there for Abinitio a safe space. That's exactly. That's a real danger. Nobody said that. And so Unknown Speaker 1:04:46 this workshop is about parenting. So I'd like to get back to that. I think that I don't want to paper over an issue that's important to women. Any issues important women but I would like to focus on what this workshop is about. And And I'm glad that you said that because it pairs it in agreeance that you said what you said. But I would like to move back if we can to some more direct parenting issues. I don't know, when you're talking, there's been some conversation so far about the stigma that our children will be faced with. Are there any benefits to being raised in a lesbian household? Has anyone here been raised in the lesbian parenting household? My girlfriend's mother. Actually, she came out of Unknown Speaker 1:05:40 my office was raised by Unknown Speaker 1:05:42 a mother and her mother's sister and who became her sister and Unknown Speaker 1:05:51 whatever. So they were Unknown Speaker 1:05:55 a couple of families that they weren't sexual. And later on when when the mother came out, six verses Unknown Speaker 1:06:07 and but actually before that, when my sister Unknown Speaker 1:06:17 Okay, both of them, both the mother had my, my girlfriend and her mother had come back to themselves when my girlfriend but the mother wasn't happy anybody except for daughter. When my girlfriend came after her on, her aunt threw her out of the house. And she was pulling on her mother, because she was worried about exposing her identity protected. So that that's the effect on her of growing up in Unknown Speaker 1:06:48 a half lesbian closet, on the other hand, when she went to my mother said. So Unknown Speaker 1:07:03 I actually texted both the benefit and downside of it, but I actually want to, is that ties back into what you're saying? Unknown Speaker 1:07:12 I think when we involve Unknown Speaker 1:07:16 violence against Unknown Speaker 1:07:18 also like exciting damage. Unknown Speaker 1:07:24 So microphone, Unknown Speaker 1:07:28 I think I'd like to talk about Jesus, as I see it. Worship I mentioned before, this is talking about divorce. And one of the five main reasons I said, Women for husbands is sort of a lack of emotional support and lack of warmth. And I've always sort of maintained that, again, in a somewhat different species. Two women are in a relationship, they both have the understanding of the kind of emotional support. So I think there's, if it's working well, I think there is more support, there is more mutuality, that you should partner, and it's like, wow, this is what a partner needs. You know, somebody who's really, really there for you. So it can be a much more warmer, happier. Workplace. Unknown Speaker 1:08:33 One of the things that our older son has told us and has talked about in public forum is Unknown Speaker 1:08:46 that his own sense of appreciation for diversity seems to be at the core of who he is. And then he finds that now that he's a young adult, he has met many other people of his age who grew up in homosexual households, but they were, you know, living in other parts of the country or family torn out in quite the same way. And it's a very shared perception that your mettle has been tested on the diversity issue, and you come out on the good side, that your ability to identify with others who are, quote, different is, you know, it's a heightened ability. I mean, you can you can hear because people you've been raised, not simply, you know, that you've been in a very different situation, but there's a lot of thought, that tends to go into it. And that's something that I was this last part that I've observed in pretty much all of the lesbian headed households that I've come in contact with. Many children don't come into this world without very major consideration, as you pointed out there, you don't hear people talking about changing like babies who are accidental pregnancies, or just this is something that is, you know, invariably, a long thought through decision, even if you didn't want to take that long, it takes a long time to figure it out, like you're doing, you know, it takes an end in that a lot of things get worked out. Similarly, as you're raising a child, you really have to negotiate a lot. You know, you have to negotiate schools in a way that you hadn't even thought about. Every time you are intersecting with the world outside of your own little home, you have to, you have to think through what you're doing, and how you're doing. And, and in that, there is a benefit. Because life isn't, in both as a parent, and as a kid, life isn't just led, unconsciously, you know, there's an effort that has to be Unknown Speaker 1:11:13 I know that we have to be very short. I just, Unknown Speaker 1:11:20 I feel like he was, you know, that she would suddenly wake up. And I'd like to just address it a little bit, I know that we're not going to in this workshop, resolve the issues of domestic violence, and how they, you know, how they play out in community and how they played out in all of our lives gathered, we were always kind of central household households. And I'm going to take a guess that some of us were exposed to violence. Again, the issue of domestic violence is one that, like other issues, I think that lesbian families are address more directly. I'm not saying that every place where there's drastic violence amongst women gets addressed directly. But I think that the issue that is addressed more directly, and Kriging happens in a larger, I also think that a lot of lesbians are more conscious of the violence and what kind of violence came at them as children. And as parents are very conscious about wanting to perpetuate it. And that's a very big difference. I don't mean, you know, here's the lesbian world, here's the straight world. I'm saying, what happens when you become conscious? Do you have a community of others we speak about domestic violence can't not perpetuated simply on a wish. Because it's something that perpetuates. So to break chains and, you know, reenactments of violence on children, it really has to be a level of consciousness. And I think that the lesbian Council is a site that encourages awareness of what you're doing Unknown Speaker 1:13:28 in your parents. You know, I think it's tied back to what you said, just prior to this, which is to become a lesbian parent now, which is different from a lot of women who become parents, prior to being out, but to be an outlet, and choose to become a parent, you really think through a lot of things. Most people make the mistake. And then that is like a platform from which you need to. So that it's like a habit of thinking that it's really it's so different for me anyway, then, then how I was in a prior incarnation, like I called on myself, and expect to be called upon by Roberta and other people to think something through to not just say, to go off on a way of behavior that I might have done, but for someone to say to me, wait a minute, what about this? And I expect to think it's very different. And I think that would be more often than not the case in a in a potentially Unknown Speaker 1:14:45 less remote request. Unknown Speaker 1:14:50 We have some of us might have friends that have sexual, homosexual women friends. are having children. And I was participating in this seminar today. And I thought it would be really interesting. Here's the questions. The beginning question, question and one that really just concerns me as someone sympathetic to love being a parent. I have one. That and that is, we know so much about the sexual withdraw. Or we think, and we know so much about it when when we think it's been frustrating. But there is this this drug of procreation, there must be destroyed to have family beyond the SEC. And I don't think we get know what the price that people pay when they decided not to. You mentioned in your generation, it was presumed. And this is really the first time heterosexual people are now saying, I don't want to have children. What are these people at 60 going to be very sad about not having children. And what I'm really saying is that for the women around this table, consider having children, heterosexual or non heterosexual, they really have to consider that this is an option for the first time in history. I mean, people can say no to children in the sense. And do we know what the price is the price? Are we hurting ourselves by do we know? longitudinally? I guess we have no studies do. What's the price? Is there a price? I know what if I'm sexually frustrated? I know what the price is? If I haven't had a child do I know. And I am a woman or man, sexual or homicidal? Unknown Speaker 1:16:50 I don't know if this this will ring true for others, as I say this, but I think that historically, culture has always through religious communities, offered people the opportunity to not reproduce. Unknown Speaker 1:17:03 Well, but because to me, that's, Unknown Speaker 1:17:06 that's not such a temper. I think that has always been an option. through that route. There are human beings who don't wish children. I don't know that. People are always consciously motivated. But one of the things that one knows in a religious community is that we will not reproduce. Unknown Speaker 1:17:31 There's a trade off that that's ritual pay off. And there's a trade off. But if I keep couples that ice was elected not to have children, infantilize each other. And it's a way for me to hear you know, husband and wife to truly you know, it's absolutely absurd to me to hear this and I'm thinking is this just one couple of this is not a scientific survey? Are these people to statically recreating babies before my eyes, the stupid Catholics do people? They're certainly not telling you that they're unhappy because they didn't have children. Unknown Speaker 1:18:15 I would say that the people I know that having that children actually, I have never heard any of them express a regret that they didn't I feel that they made a choice that actually turned out to work for them. I on the other hand, was someone always debating like in two years, I'm going to I think it would have been a real mistake for me to not affect children. And luckily I didn't make that mistake. I think that people who have children feel they make a mistake. So it's not I don't think there's a blanket answer to that. Unknown Speaker 1:18:54 You don't have children. If they want children in their lives there are children out there to be affiliated with in a variety of ways. Unknown Speaker 1:19:06 But single parents will see the women were not encouraged to adopt children until no children oh Unknown Speaker 1:19:17 we do have to conclude because I think the next closing session of the conference thank you. Thank you. Oh, Unknown Speaker 1:19:26 oh, there are copies of this article if you wish to have one please help yourself. Yeah. You I know what I Really Genesis as if you want Unknown Speaker 1:20:13 to see somebody oh I don't know I'm just trying to yeah I've never mentioned