Same-sex households
forming new family portrait
By Dorothy Korber,
Montereyharold.com from the Web, January 28, 2007
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Margaret
Maddy Condon-Lorenz grins at her reflection in the picture window and cocks an
eyebrow. "The story of how I came to be in a house with two dads," the
12-year-old says with aplomb, "is kind of a miracle."
Giggly and charming, Maddy is the cherished princess of her Elk Grove, Calif.,
family: gay dads Ed Condon and Norman Lorenz, and her little brother, Tim.
Maddy's adoption in 1995 was the first for a gay couple in Sacramento County,
making her both a pioneer and a poster child for same-sex parenting.
"Maddy makes up for the lack of females in this house," Lorenz says
affectionately as his daughter dances off to change clothes -- again.
The news last month of the pregnancy of Mary Cheney, the vice president's
lesbian daughter, focused attention on a national trend: the number of gay
and lesbian parents is on the rise.
Sociologists tracking this say that children of these households tend to be as
well-adjusted and successful as offspring from heterosexual households. By
some measures, they are faring better.
"It's pretty consistent -- the overwhelming finding is that the children are
fine," according to Judith Stacey, a sociology professor at New York University
and a leading researcher in the area of gender and family. "And there are
some findings of certain positive characteristics among them: self-esteem,
popularity, warmer relationships with parents.
"These advantages have to do with the obvious fact that these are very desired
children. They are unbelievably wanted."
That's clearly the case for Maddy and Tim.
Also for Shannon McDonnell-Bryant of Davis, Calif., whose lesbian mothers
decided to use donor sperm to become parents 17 years ago.
And, in Woodland, Calif., it's true for Terra and Skyler Mikalson, children of a
heterosexual marriage whose mother came out as a lesbian five years ago.
Shortly afterward, Terra, not yet 13, realized she was a lesbian herself.
Life isn't always perfect for these families -- kids and parents alike have
faced hazing and condemnation by outsiders. But, within the family circle,
there is abundant love and acceptance.
For them, having two dads or two moms is perfectly normal. Even, as Maddy
says, kind of a miracle.
Condon and Lorenz -- their kids call them Daddy Ed and Daddy Norman -- have been
a couple for 25 years. Condon is executive director of the California Head Start
Association and Lorenz is a consultant with the state Department of Education.
Previously, they owned several Montessori schools in the region.
After a dozen years together, the men realized they wanted to be parents.
In the course of their inquiries into adoption, a pregnant woman sought them
out.
She was Maddy's birth mother. "Out of the blue, she asked if we would like
to adopt her child," Lorenz recalls. "We matched up with her in January of
1994. In March, Maddy was born."
Maddy's two dads were in the delivery room.
"Then they took me home in a convertible," Maddy announces with mock
astonishment. "A convertible!"
Condon took four months off from work to care for the newborn.
"I'd never been left with a baby in my life. At noon on the first day, I
called Norman and said: `You've got to come home!' I was very needy
as a new mother." He laughs. "My post-partum anxiety was quite
real."
Tim, who is 9, joined the family in 1998 when he was 18 months old.
Perhaps Condon was anxious at first, but today both men are relaxed fathers.
They say, and the children agree, that having gay parents has not proved to be a
problem -- or even an issue -- for the kids.
Maddy says people sometimes are a little confused, however. "Almost all my
friends already know," she says. "They're, like, OK with it. But a
lot of other people assume I have a mom. I just say: `No, I have two
dads.'"
Her friends' mothers often treat her like another daughter.
"It's sweet of them and good for Maddy," Condon says. "Raising a girl has
been a different kind of journey for us. It's interesting -- we've found
that parents of boys are more guarded with us than parents of girls. It's
a good thing we had our daughter first -- we're more confident now. Maddy
blazed the way."
For Mother's Day events, the children usually invite their aunt or grandmother,
but last year Lorenz filled the role at tea party.
"Father's Day," Condon says, "is a national holiday in this house."
Ask them about their futures, and the Condon-Lorenz kids sound like a typical
boy and girl. Tim: "I wanted to be a policeman and a fireman, but
now I think I only want to be a policeman. It's too hard to be both."
Maddy: "I want to be an ER nurse and a hair stylist. And an actor."
As for her own gender identity, Maddy has no doubts, according to Lorenz:
"She's very clearly told us, `I am straight.' Maddy loves boys."
"I do," confirms Maddy, still nodding earnestly at her reflection in the window.
"I love boys."
Terra Mikalson loves girls. And that has nothing to do, she says, with her
mother's lesbianism.
At 17, Terra is as slim and poised as a ballerina. She and her brother
Skyler -- a cuddly, precocious 8-year-old -- live with their two moms on a quiet
street near downtown Woodland. The street may be quiet, but the small
house often rocks with laughter.
Five years ago, Poshi Mikalson -- the children's biological mother -- ended her
straight marriage and came out as a lesbian at age 41. She fell in love
with Reed Walker, who has a grown son from her own marriage, and the two women
began building a life together.
For Terra, the hardest thing about that transitional time was not her parents'
divorce. Nor the news that her mother was a lesbian. Nor her own
realization that she herself was a lesbian.
The hardest thing was the bullying of another student at her junior high, a boy
whose relentless hazing made her dread school and even contemplate suicide.
"I went off to junior high and I was very open about myself and all into my
rainbow stuff," Terra says. "I didn't realize that people wouldn't want to
be friends with me. A lot of girls avoided me. And one boy harassed
me every single day for six months. Not because my mom was a lesbian --
that was an afterthought. It was because I was a lesbian."
Listening to her daughter, Poshi Mikalson's eyes fill with tears.
"She was ostracized," says Mikalson. "She was shunned. Once she told
me about it, I got on the phone to the principal and he handled it very well.
But who was the problem here? Not the gay student. The problem was
the homophobic students and the teachers who turned their heads."
Now that Terra is in high school, things have mellowed and her confidence has
grown.
She and her mother both bridle at the suggestion that Terra is gay because Poshi
Mikalson is gay.
"First of all, she was showing signs of being lesbian before I ever came out,"
her mother says. "It's not a choice -- it's who you are. And, if
having a lesbian mother makes a lesbian daughter, so what? By even raising
the question is to suggest that there's something wrong with being gay. Do
you ask straight parents why their kids are straight?"
Terra and Skyler, who both visit their father regularly, see the benefits of
living in this unconventional but loving home.
"I think Skyler is really lucky," Terra says. "He's being raised by Mom
and me and Reed, and he's able to knit and still fart at the dinner table!"
In a townhouse on the outskirts of Davis, there's another dinner table.
This one overflows with textbooks, papers, computer gear, and a huge canister of
red licorice. Beside it is a card table with a partly finished, devilishly
difficult jigsaw puzzle.
The companionable juxtaposition of the two tables says a lot about the
relationship of Sharon McDonnell and her 16-year-old daughter, Shannon. A
high school junior, Shannon is awash in the homework of a full schedule of
honors classes. So her mother does the puzzle nearby.
Neither mother nor daughter knows the identity of the donor whose sperm
impregnated Sharon.
"I was in a long-term relationship with a woman, and we decided to co-parent,"
McDonnell says. "We had Shannon -- and then a year later the relationship
ended."
McDonnell's ex co-adopted Shannon six years ago; the two women share custody.
So Shannon has two single-parent moms.
McDonnell, 48, came out as a lesbian at 20. Her own parents, who reared a
big family on a Rancho Murrieta turkey farm, discouraged her from parenthood.
"They were very adamant that I shouldn't have a child -- but I am stubborn and I
wanted a child, so I did it." She smiles at her daughter. "Now they
adore Shannon."
Asked about the difference between same-sex parenting and heterosexual
parenting, McDonnell shrugs. "Other than the concern that someone would
harm your child because her parents are gay, I don't think there are any
differences. We love this kid. Like other parents, we want to give
her everything she needs."
Shannon believes that her unusual family has made her very tolerant of other
people's differences. It's an attribute many children of gays and lesbians
share, researchers find.
"It's made me more open-minded," says Shannon. "I can see how things are
different, from one family to another. But really not."
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