Today is Blogging for LGBT Families Day, the 5th annual such celebration and acknowledgment. Having been part of it since the inception, with varied degrees of advance planning and success, I can’t let it pass me by.
But today, I’m feeling both sad and delighted for some of my friends and their LGBT families.
I’m so sad to have heard this weekend that Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and her now-former partner, Lauren Azar, have separated and dissolved their domestic partnership.
Lauren was a classmate of mine in law school. While we haven’t stayed close over the last 13 years, there was a time when we knew each other well. In fact, before she and Tammy met, Lauren briefly dated one of my housemates — an interestingly intimate way to get to know someone. She and Tammy seemed so well matched, but having a spouse who travels constantly, and sharing an under-the-political-microscope life must be extremely difficult. And of course, it is impossible to ever really know what is going on in someone else’s relationship.
Still I can’t help but believe that social support for a relationship helps keep it healthy and intact. Who knows whether theirs would have lasted if they could legally marry? Or if it were as difficult and expensive to dissolve a domestic partnership as it is to legally divorce?
Regardless of the whys, wherefores, or their eventual long term happiness, my heart goes out to both Tammy and Lauren. I hope that they untangle their lives with as little pain and suffering as possible. I hope each of them eventually finds herself in a thriving new family.
The good news I’ve been thinking of this weekend is every bit as good as the bad news was bad. This weekend welcomed to the world an adorable baby boy, Walden, son of another of my law school classmates and her partner. It also welcomed an adorable baby girl, Cady, daughter of one of my undergraduate classmates and her partner.
Walden and Cady, each of you are celebrated, welcomed, and so eagerly anticipated as members of your two-mom families, and your wonderful, thrilled extended families. All four of your mothers are part of a movement that expands how families are perceived — and at the same time, both of you owe your existences to one of the most fundamental human drives. We love, we crave family love, and we are driven to create families and to nurture new members of the next generation.
Walden and Cady, thanks for making that happen for your parents. I know you’ll bring your mommies as much laughter, terror, love, frustration, affection, awe, and exhaustion as Noah and Josie bring to me and to This Mommy.
And to Andrea and Rebecca, Kim and Peg (and big sister Bea!), my most heartfelt congratulations on your beautiful new babies.
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Welcome to the new babies of our world! Love manifest in new lives, that is sweet, sweet news for LGBTQ families everywhere.
Walden’s other mom here. There’s more good news than bad. Here’s why: Break-ups are always sad and my heart goes out to everyone who has had to deal with it. The drained and empty feeling just makes the rest of the issues so much less manageable.
However, the more same sex relationships are recognized as “normal”, the more we can go about the business of dealing with the emotions – the same ones straight people have! – and the less we can worry about the logistics.
In our happy situation, not only is the birth of a new baby to our family empirically a wonderful event, but because Peg and I are legally married, everything that goes on at the hospital, getting a birth certificate, etc. is the same as for any other couple, i.e. “normal”. We have been able to focus on the joys and the dramas of the birth without worrying for a moment that an eyebrow will be raised at my presence. (In fact, the anesthesiologist is a married lesbian interested in having a baby with her spouse and was pumping us for details on using a known donor, all while Peg was in the recovery room…)
I know this country has a long way to go before everyone feels as comfortable as Peg and I have, but we see instances of progress around us all the time, even outside of Massachusetts. I hope that Tammy and Lauren can mend their broken hearts and tend to their emotional needs and feel like they have all the support they deserve. A legal marriage would certainly make certain business-like aspects of a break-up more formulaic, but there’s no statute to help the pain. My love and sympathy go out to them.