Family Values
by Laura Matanah
This month marks the beginning of our "What’s it like to have a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender parent?" series. Our first focus is on families headed by lesbian parents.
This series is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC) from an appropriation by the Minnesota Legislature. We give many thanks to the council and to our home state of Minnesota. As always, the majority of our funding comes from readers like you. Thank you for your continued giving.
A few weeks ago my family went out for a special treat: coffee and baked goods at our local cafe. We started talking about a school band fundraiser that had been held at the Eagles’ club several months earlier.
"Sarah was dancing with someone else," said one of the twins, scandalized.
"Yeah, a man," said the other.
"She danced with another woman, too."
"We brought her back to the table."
I laughed, remembering Sarah’s exasperation when she’d described the scene to me afterward. "I just wanted to dance and have some fun, but they kept dragging me off the dance floor. They would only let me dance with [our family friend] Elizabeth."
Sipping my coffee, I said, "You know kids, I trust Sarah. She can go out and dance and have fun with other people, because I know she loves me and she wouldn’t go off with someone else."
"Nope," replied the kids. "She can only dance with friends that we know."
I’m thinking maybe we should turn this around and make it one of their rules for the middle school dances. I know it wouldn’t work though, because they’d respond, "But we’re not married!"
This outing was in honor of their imminent departure for camp and our 10th wedding anniversary. I imagine that being adopted makes the kids particularly invested in family stability, but the extent of their attachment to marriage still astonishes me. It concerns them that their aunt and her partner, Tim, aren’t married. They are puzzled about why my mom and her friend Al haven’t tied the knot. I think growing up in a religious community that practices marriage equality has made them strong believers in marriage.
It was actually my mom who brought our 10th anniversary to the forefront of our attention. We’ve been together 19 years, and my mind was more on being one year away from 20. She sent us a very sweet card and a gift. Suddenly we realized that it was our 10th and the kids were heading off to camp.
When we got married, I was still teaching, and Sarah had a flexible schedule. We’d saved a bunch of money and spent six weeks biking around Europe. We’ve relived that a bit while the kids have been gone, biking around Minneapolis in the evenings after work.
For me getting married was a religious commitment, and a chance to celebrate what our relationship has brought to us, our family, and our friends. It was also placing our relationship in the care of our community, and asking that they help us nurture it. It was and is meaningful, as is all of the time we’ve spent together, and what we’ve learned from our experiences along the way. That said, I don’t think it’s an experience everyone needs to have, or that married relationships are necessarily on a different plane from others.
I think that my children would disagree. It’s fascinating to watch them develop their family values.
