Bye Dad.

So, my dad died yesterday. Lung cancer. I know, I know… what a shock that several decades of inhaling tar might not be the ideal conditions for healthy lungs, but who knew?

Okay, we all knew. For a really, really long time.

I had a dream the other night that I was taking a long bus ride. We made a short pit stop, and for some reason my dad was there, with my mother and sister. He was in a wheelchair, with a nurse by his side. I walked up to him and asked him if I could help, and he accepted. He was helpless with a sweet and gentle disposition… qualities I longed for from him as a child. The dream wasn’t much of a stretch: I’d done home care for the ill and elderly before, so it felt natural to change his diaper, get him dressed, stroke his forehead and tell him he was doing really well.

When I woke up, I lay in bed with a profound sense of loss and sadness. My own son had crawled into bed with us sometime in the night, and lay snuggled up beside me, his eyelashes long and dark against his soft cheek. I wonder if my dad ever woke up like that, looking at me beside him, feeling as though his heart would burst with love. Given our strained relationship during my childhood, I find it very difficult to imagine even in the strongest flights of fancy.

But the feelings I felt in the dream… protectiveness, love, tenderness… they lingered. My dad may not have liked me much when I was an effeminate kid, never mind later on as a sissified teenager and openly-gay adult. But I’ve seen his kindness towards others. His generosity. His humour. His way of helping people without making them feel like a charity case. In some ways, it made his obvious disgust towards me doubly hard to bear, but I saw it and, I hope, learned to emulate these humane qualities.

I can’t imagine disliking my son. I can’t imagine my lip curling in disgust at the way he speaks, or walks or cries. I can’t imagine not looking at him, even in the midst of the worst tantrum imaginable, and feel love for him. Not like my dad.

Like any pain or trauma caused in childhood, my dad’s rejection of me has lingered and shaped my personality. My aversion to unfairness, cruelty or rejection is such that I can completely disconnect from a friend or loved one whose behaviour manifests as such. Part survival technique, part avoidance, I think. I just move on, and I rarely look back. Perhaps that’s a gift as well, in its own way. I don’t feel saddled with difficult relationships, and am free of friends who are a drag on my sense of peace and harmony.

I used to think my dad regretted kicking me out of his home. The few times we’d see each other, I fancied there was sadness in his eyes – a lament for his actions and the reality of our history. But last year, at the funeral for a family friend, I realized it wasn’t regret or sadness. He just seemed embarrassed to be seen near me. In some ways it was liberating: I wasn’t failing in forgiving my parents, or in maintaining a separation caused so many years ago by their hatred of gay people. They’d maintained it too.

My sister, who is very close to our parents, is handling everything right now. She’s struggling through her own fear and sadness of losing the dad who adored her. And she’s concerned for her own daughter, who my dad treasured as the sports-playing, rough and tumble kid he always wanted. A while back she asked if I wanted to see our dad before he died. I said that if he wanted to see us, we would absolutely come. Her lack of reply told me everything I needed to know.

My dad excluded me from his life, from his love, from his support and nurturing. And now, surrounded by his wife, his daughter and his granddaughter, he has passed from this world. I inquired about a funeral service, but was tactfully told that it was to be just a small graveside affair, as he wished. No dates, no location, no invitation.

He’s excluding me from his death as well, but in an odd way I’m okay with that. The dusty remains of our relationship as father and son are too fragmented to resurrect at this point. I’m relieved that he passed peacefully, and I’m glad he had his beloved daughter and granddaughter with him. In a way, and despite the sadness I feel at what was lost so long ago, I’m glad they were able to give him the kids he wanted, instead of the son he had.  

A friend of mine challenged me this week, remarking that she remembered my father sometimes being nice to me, and quite nice to her. I pointed out that she was a hot young redhead at the time, and my father was careful to be nice in public. But she was right, in a way. My dad did do some nice things for me. He’d give me lunch money, unasked. He’d bring home treats from their bulk food store. He’d occasionally try to soften the fury of my mother’s continual rage.

But his frequent expressions of disgust towards my effeminacy, towards my orientation, towards my personality as a gay person, were the mortal blows that killed our relationship. Enough time has passed that I can appreciate the things he did, or attempted to do. But the sneers, the expulsion from “his” home, the threats… they did their ugly work and they did it well. The wounds were never healed by a making of amends, or apologies, or explanations, or any show of remorse. There was no love given to keep it alive.

I’m sad. I feel the loss of something I never got to have. My dad was overjoyed that he finally got the ‘son’ he wanted in my sporty, amiable and fun niece. But I never got the dad I wanted… someone who loved me unconditionally, who made me feel like I was of value, who protected me and nurtured me.

Now, in my middle-age, I am reconciled that I never will get that. But at least one of us finally got what they needed, and that’s just going to have to be enough.

As Butch As We Gonna Be

I’ve never been terribly butch. Okay, if I’m completely honest with myself, my degree of butchness falls somewhere on the scale between Charles Nelson Reilly and Miss Piggy (if you’re too young to know who either of those celebrities are, please don’t tell me). I may not lisp or swish, but a lack of sibilant sashaying does nothing to detract from my androgynous voice, arched eyebrows and the ability to suck in my stomach for up to 14 hours a day.

Given my inclinations towards the more feminine expressions of existence, nobody is more surprised than me that my son, Pre-Schooler N, is a little bundle of rambunctious, rollicking, raucous boyhood. Yet, despite my earlier and continuing attempts at introducing baby dolls, tea sets and other non-gender-specific playthings, he has always gravitated towards construction diggers, talking cars and toy trains named after an assortment of British royalty.

It’s not that I don’t like Hot Wheels or Thomas the Tank Engine, but I can’t quite figure out my son’s predilection towards traditionally masculine pursuits. He loves to kick and throw a ball, race around with his friends and generally behave like the boisterous boy that he is. I guess that’s why I've come consider that children are born with an innate inclination towards gender expression, despite  outside intervention or encouragement.  How else can I explain my uber-butchy little kid, whose only interest in Barbie or Ken is to see how fast they can scoot down his toy garage’s ramp or hammer in a plastic peg with their heads?

That being said, I remain convinced that raising a well-rounded child means avoiding the boundaries that might hem him into a single note of gender expression. I do believe that boys are frequently more naturally aggressive than the female of the species. Is this an absolute conviction? No, of course not. Hell, I was a femmie little sissy who loved playing quietly with dolls and wearing colourful clothes while listening to Julie Andrews LPs. And god knows there are (thankfully) a wonderful abundance of girls who play cowboys, frolic in mud and eschew pink fabric as though it were sartorial poison. But there certainly does seem to be a biological component at play.

Case in point: We’re a no-hitting household, full stop. I don’t hit my kid, and don’t generally raise my voice above an imperious reprieve. But historically we’ve had issues with Pre-Schooler N smacking other kids (or occasionally us) when frustrated or angry. And he gives ferocious bear hugs that are positively stifling at times. I can tell he’d love to rough house and wrestle, but the closest I can get is holding him tight while squeeling “Not gonna let you go! Sorry! You’ll have to stay like this forever!”

He loves it.

But I ensure there are plenty of lessons about being gentle, playing quietly and running instead of racing around like an ad for Ritalin Smoothies. Sometimes it’s exhausting, and there are people who insist that a boy’s natural impulses should be allowed to run wild. But I figure we’d all be peeing our pants and suckling at our aged mothers’ breasts if we simply allowed our ‘natural impulses’ to go rampantly un-curbed.

Sometimes it’s not easy. One of Pre-Schooler N’s favourite playmates has been watching violent Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man cartoons since the age of 2, and delights in bellowing out “Hulk Smash!!!!” while breaking shit or pretending to beat other kids into submission with fists, sticks or any other weapon-like item at hand. It’s seriously disturbing to me, even though many parents think it’s “only natural.” Yeah, well when you’re ready to let your kid crap all over your living room without benefit of toilet training or a diaper, I might buy into your conclusions regarding ‘natural behaviour.’

 I was lucky, I guess. I grew up with non-violent cartoons like Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs and the fabulous Super Friends who passed their adventures avoiding capture by innocuous energy nets and trapping their enemies in glowy magical lassos.

Come hell or high water, my kid isn’t going to have his four-year old mind programmed to believe that busting stuff and hitting people is fun, funny or anything other than plain bad behaviour. “Good luck with that,” snarked one mother of a cherubic hellion that is equal parts adorable lovebug and squalling stubborn brat. I don’t think she was being mean, but has rather surrendered to the idea that her son’s more volatile aspects are impossible to curb.

Maybe I’m just more stubborn than some. Or perhaps the idea of future dealings with an overly-aggressive, entitled pre-and-post-teen is just too appalling for me to entertain; 3-year-olds who slap mommy tend to turn into bigger kids with harder fists. Either way, this middle-aged sissy will continue to hand out penalties for aggressive behaviour, and insist on gentle and considerate manners when I have a sneaking suspicion that my little monster would rather be wreaking destruction alongside his less-well-controlled brethren.

But hopefully, when he’s 25 and not doing time for aggravated assault or regretting an abusive relationship, I’ll feel all the effort, censure and time-outs were worth it.

Or I’ll have died of utter fucking exhaustion, and the increasing sense that the sound of my own voice only marginally less irritating than blessed eternal sleep. 

I Now Pronounce You Man and Wife. You May Drink Your Juice Box.

Having given up cable television a number of years ago, I freely admit I’m probably behind the times when it comes to the youth of today. I’ve never regretted my decision – George Brush Jr had just been re-elected and I simply couldn’t stand looking at his smug, simian visage for one moment longer. But it did mean that much of popular culture began to pass me by.

This is not necessarily a bad thing:

It’s not like I was totally out of touch. I knew Britney was Spears-heading the newest movement of Lolita singers, offering up equal portions of Cleavage and Jesus as they humped their way to mega-stardom. And I’d seen just enough of Paris Hilton to invest heavily in the pharmaceutical industry (hey, those herpes ain’t gonna dry up on their own). But I don’t think I realized exactly how far pre-teen sexuality had ventured into mainstream parenting.

My first clue dropped in Pre-Schooler N’s first year of daycare. We’d only been enrolled a few weeks when I overheard a parent talking about one of the boys’ “harem” of girlfriends at said facility. This was done with a knowing wink and suggestive leer that quite literally made my stomach clench.

“Harem?” Seriously?

I mean, Jesus, these kids haven’t even made it out of diapers yet and we’re already matching them up with members of the opposite sex? Of course, the kids themselves go along with it, giggling away because they love the attention and the ability to entertain adults in a novel manner. But I’m mystified as to why we need to start the whole boyfriend/girlfriend bullshit with them while they’re still having naps. 

And while we’re on the subject of naps – I could actually feel my eyeballs straining to exit their sockets when it was recently remarked by one parent that her daughter insisted on sharing a daycare nap mat with her ‘boyfriend.’  Now, call me old fashioned, but I think it should be mandatory that a couple be past the point of calling their privates ‘pee-pees’ or ‘tink-tinks’ before sleeping together.

Interestingly enough, my own son has largely been immune to these match-making efforts. The other parents seem a little more muted about boy/girl stuff around us faggier families. Perhaps they think we’ll be offended by the assumption that our son will be heterosexual, or even that we have big gay plans for his future dating activities.

Both assumptions are nonsense, though. Odds are that Pre-Schooler N will follow his brethren in going ga-ga over all things boobie-related as puberty rears its hideous head. I personally don’t care if he dates a boy, a girl, a boy-girl, a girl-boy or anything in between, as long as he or she is polite, caring and possessed of a better-than-average credit rating (I’m absolutely open to bribery).

The irony here, of course, is that we gay men have for decades been living under the assumption of predatory behaviour when it comes to children. At even the faintest hint of homosexuality, suspicious parental eyes follow our every move as we help tie shoelaces, give piggy-back rides and hug their offspring.

From the age of about fifteen onwards, I simply kept myself apart from children, having been inundated with statistically-unfounded accusations from the Anita Bryants or Michelle Buchannans of this world. They decreed that all gay men were pedophiles, and the world listened. Children must be protected from any hint of homosexuality, they cry, these wee innocents who may be irrecoverably stained by seeing John and Peter smooching at the mall. But hey, let’s start them good and early on the righteous path to pro-creation and suburban tract housing.

"Remember kids, if you squeeze him more than once it’s a sin"

Even now I am careful around other people’s children, carefully scanning for potential homo-hysteria before engaging with kids who couldn’t give a flying fuck who you sleep with as long as you hand them the right flavour of popsicle. It’s second nature to most of us gay guys, I think – not to mention self-protective and smart.

But how truly farcical it is to see society around me shoving their kids into romanticized friendships, assigning gender roles and sexuality and orientation in a macabre sort of dress rehearsal for the horrors to come in ten or twelve years. I’m guessing it would all seem a little less cute to many parents if Little Tammy-Jo decided that their daughter was destined to be her Mrs. I mean, for Christ’s sake, let the little monsters just be kids while they can enjoy it. If you’re that desperate for storybook romances, stick to Harlequin, not Dick and Jane. 

"Hey Dad, I got me two girlfriends now!"

Father's Day, Farther Away

It's still very weird to think of myself as a father. Maybe it's some lingering gender dysphoria from childhood... that message that boys act one way, while girls behave another. So if I liked bright colours, pop music and my grade 7 student teacher, Mr. Sullivan, then I must be a girl, right?

Well, no. I've actually never felt like a girl. And I certainly don't feel like a mom. I guess the closest word in my brain is 'parent,' even though it seems a little, I dunno, impersonal. I do feel like 'Papa,' which is what Pre-Schooler N calls me. It's a name that makes me feel happy when I hear it. I'm comfortable in it. 'Dad?' Well, not so much.

I called my father dad. Once upon a time. Before my girlish gait, ginger curls and generally sissified manner fomented his sadness and, I think, loneliness into a rupture that was as permanent as it was inevitable. Looking back, I think my dad was lonely. He was friendly with neighbours, and kind to the many customers at our family store who adored him, but he also seemed a little isolated... particularly in retrospect.

I think that, in a son, he had high hopes for a comrade, for a built-in friend that would emulate him, and share games of sport with him, and love him in all the suitably masculine ways that regular boys love their fathers. I think that behind his expressions of anger and disgust at the way I turned out masked a deep disappointment that he had lost his hopes for a trusted companion.

Sometimes, when I am lost in thought, in the hour before sleep tugs away my many plans and my trickier memories, I wonder what disappointments will lie between my own son and myself in the years to come. Will he yearn for a manly companion, a stoic patriarch who cheers goals and whistles at female passersby? Will he look at his friends' brusque fathers and feel embarrassed by the effeminate papa who gives him kisses and hugs with such impunity?

Perhaps.

Or maybe not. Who knows?

There's also the possibility that Pre-Schooler N will morph into a staunchly conservative christian crazypants, praying for his homosexual parent's salvation. I believe his own joyful soul and kind heart would preclude such an unlikely event, but there's just no way of telling where these roads and pathways lead.

May life have mercy on this poor child

Surely my own father had no inkling in regards to how deeply our paths would separate. He's now nearing the end of his days, felled by the cigarettes that plagued every family car trip since I can remember, and filled our home with sepulchral wraiths that glowed below every lamplight. But he's surrounded by family who love him: my sister, a stalwart ally whom he's always loved and respected, our mother, married to him for nearly half-a-century, and my sister's daughter, who is more a son to him than I could ever have been.

Niece E has truly been a companion to my father... the companion I believe he always wanted. She excels in sports, is cheerful and kind, and has a natural optimism that reminds me of him. He adores her, as she does him.

And I'm happy he finally got what he wanted. I love that he experienced sunny days of cheering on his granddaughter as she scored the winning goal, and reveled in her interest in the household jobs he always insisted on doing himself. I'm truly glad that he got that out of life, even if it couldn't have been with me, his son. It makes me feel as though I'm no longer responsible for denying him one of his great hopes in life.

It also makes it easier to accept that he is truly no longer my 'dad,' even though there's no denying that his parentage made an indelible mark upon my life.

But today, on Father's Day, I'd like to commemorate the gifts I've carried from him in my own life. Things that I know I learned from him, and that I like about myself. Here's what he taught me, in no particularly order:

How to be generous. Not in a showy, 'aren't-I-wonderful-and-benevolent' way, but in a quiet manner done with a minimum of fuss that puts the recipient at ease, and without feeling like a charity case.

My cat Charlotte and her frequent nuzzling companion 

How to make a first impression. By being genuinely friendly, finding a real pleasure in meeting someone for the first time, and expressing honest curiosity in them.

How to do it yourself. Granted, many of my fathers DIY projects ended in tears and tantrums (particularly if I was corralled into 'helping'), but he always found a way to cobble something together to make it work.

And, most  importantly, how to be kind. My father is a kind person, who is keenly observant of needs and hurts. The fact that he wasn't terribly kind to me can't negate the fact that he was tenderly indulgent to the needs of elderly customers, or the infirm, or anyone not as well off in life as he. I like to think that I'm a compassionate person, and I honestly believe that part of that compassion was learned through observing my father with others.

So, I honour those things I gleaned from him, and I hope I'm passing them on to my own son. I hope Pre-Schooler N grows up feeling my love and my amazement at the good fortune that brought him into my life. I hope that our paths travel closely throughout our lives, with plenty of convergence and shared journeys. But most of all, I hope with all my heart that, at the end of my own life, the love between us is strong,true and known.

Next week: a return to humour as I plan our escape from Pride Day!

Dance Monkey Dance!

"Okay sweetie, sing your special song for Auntie J!"

"No honey, the other song. You know the one, the special one! "

(Start humming along helpfully, finally breaking into full song at the chorus to child's mortification. Child mutters along half-halfheartedly just to shut you up).

"That's right, that's the one! Oh, we can't hear you honey, sing a little louder!"

"Yay! That was sooo good baby! Yay!!! Again, again!!"

It is while graciously accepting compliments at my son's lackluster effort to be rewarded with another bowl of raspberries that I realize I have somehow morphed into Gypsy Rose Lee.

I have no idea how this happened. I am fully, painfully aware that Pre-Schooler N couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, and that his dance abilities fall squarely into the 'bounce up and down until you fall over' category of gracelessness, but for some reason any effort at musical entertainment seems to bring out the worst sort of stage parent in me.

Because let's face it, parenthood is a competition. It's a blood sport. It's the fucking Hunger Games of the playground. And no matter how hard you try to resist, you will still be pulled into the wet sucking mud hole of 'who did it first' and 'who did it better' as soon as the first Mama Katniss enters the field of play.

It's not like I was unprepared. I'd seen the excruciatingly polite eviscerations that occur on the playgrounds or at daycare. "Oh, I see little Eustace is still wearing a diaper. We were so blessed that our precious Brittanie-Lee-Ashleey-Kahytlinn toilet-trained almost immediately after delivering herself by C-section. Have I shown you the marvelous job she did stitching me up before clamping off her own umbilical cord? But I'm sure he's juuuuust fine. After all, there are so many programs for backwards kids nowadays.'

And those are the nice ones.

I have to say that I've escaped relatively unharmed during such skirmishes. It seems that the mommy wars have little use for gay adoptive fathers, so many of us get a pass because we're male and homosexual -- ergo, someone they can bitch to about the other moms, and occasionally tap as potential adviser to difficult home decor projects or the occasional home hair-care emergency.

I knew parents lie. All the time. They invent cute little stories, photoshop snot out of family photos, and enlarge their child's modest achievements to proportions even more unrealistic than a clueless single guy filling out the "penis size" section of an online dating quiz.

I was determined not to be the same. I love my kid, and am happy that he's a normal, appropriately-developed nearly-four-year old child with nice manners and a lovely smile. But there I was, making him perform for his supper (well, dessert) like one of those nauseating pageant moms on reality television.

So, why? Why the impulse to show the world how wonderful our kids are? For me, I think it's the lingering worry that my kid will develop some sort of delays or behavioural issue. When we first moved to Quebec, we plunked him into a daycare that was billed as bilingual, only to discover that the vast majority of kids and workers spoke little or no English. While the other kids sang French nursery rhymes, Pre-Schooler N would be off to the side, playing with trains.

His teacher, a bossy, earnest woman who proudly declared she had gone to school in English, expressed deep concerns about his development. Granted, she had to repeat it a few times, as the manner with which she masticated le langue de les anglophones reminded me of the way my  aged grandfather used to work his way through a tough steak. She mentioned ADHD (every parent's nightmare), language delays and even used the word autism at one point -- always quickly backtracking and pointing out she was not qualified to make such a diagnosis. She simply repeated that there was 'something wrong' and that we needed to take him to a specialist tout de suite.

So we dutifully carted our son to Montreal, where he was put through a rigorous series of test by a very nice (and actually bilingual) specialist. She told us he needed to work on his ability to enunciate the letters d and g.  That's it. No sign of ADHD. No sign of Autism. No sign of anything. His language comprehension even tested slightly higher than his age group.

She also pointed out that anglophone kids who went to French or bilingual daycares often didn't talk much while in that environment. It's confusing for them to hear words in an unknown language, and English words spoken in heavy accents with poor grammar. It doesn't make sense to their developing minds.

A month later we moved Pre-Schooler N into a home-based daycare that is predominantly English. He loves it there. His language skills are just fine, and they're great with him. But maybe that explains my brief descent into the world of utterly-annoying stage papa.

Either way, I'm quite finished with those impulses. Naturally, if my child suddenly develops the ability to chirp arias while accompanying himself on harp, only breaking for an elucidating interpretive dance during the third stanza, well, then all bets are off. But until then, he's my little tone-deaf shuffler, happily working his way through childhood with a toy train clutched in one hand, and my heart in the other.

This one is actually us.

De-Visiting The Past

One of the nightmares I most dread -- after a second term for Rob Ford and my father's hitherto recessive baldness gene  -- is the prospect of moving back to the town of my childhood.

Now, it's not so much that said town is a yawning pit of mediocrity whose main distinction is the staggering volume of drive-through anythings. Or that the ancient downtown mall, partially housed in one of the town's few remaining heritage buildings, is now home to dollar stores, a yarn shop, and perhaps the worst Greek restaurant to ever serve tinned black olives. It's not even the fact that most downtown restaurants close by 8pm on weeknights, or that VHS rentals are still widely advertised.

Okay, yes, it's actually all of those things.

But it's also the memories associated with the town that act like emotional kryptonite on my psyche. I'm actually quite lucky that we lived in the country, in a small development nestled by a large, placid lake. The city was twenty minutes away by car, a rare treat for the occasional shopping trip or jaunt to the movies.

A good thing too, as stories of my less-fortunate LGBT townie kin are rife with tales of verbal abuse, stalking and drive-by eggings. I was relatively safe in the countryside, accepted (if occasionally grudgingly) by neighbours, and surrounded by lots of woods to escape to when things got tough at home. 

Home life was, well, not good. My folks wasted no opportunity to disparage gay people (men in particular), so the effeminacy that plagued my every move and syllable from toddlerhood onward did nothing to curry favour in their eyes. Add to that a sister who was a genius at both academics and managing our capricious parents, and you have one oddball of a gay kid left pretty much to his own devices.

Not actually me. This kid has way more style.

Now, as an adult, I still have trouble feeling affection or affinity for that struggling gay boy. I find it hard to like him, to like myself as a child and teenager. I suppose it's my fear of sliding back into that life, and that persona, that makes the idea of returning 'home' anathema to me. I didn't like who I was then, or my role as the weak and fearful misfit within my own life. But return I did, last week, with my 3-year-old son. 

It was an interesting experience, seeing the town through the eyes of a financially secure, relatively confident adult. Driving down the main street felt much the same as it did when I was 11 years old, suffocating quietly in the back of our family car as my parents puffed cigarette after cigarette. Back then, any request to open the window was viewed as criticism of their smoking habit, so I admit reveling in all four windows being down as Pre-Schooler N and I tooled around town singing at the top of our lungs. 

Lucky kids. We had to breathe through our shirts or suffer.

We visited a childhood friend, now raising her own family in a subdivision just outside of town. Her life seems idyllic enough: carefully potted plants, loving children, handsome husband and well-appointed home. She was always the star of our childhood, with cute boyfriends and model good-looks that still make her seem ten years younger than her drivers license claims. I lived vicariously through her triumphant high school life, never feeling her equal but grateful for her friendship at the time. 

That's changed, of course. Chatting with her for a few hours, I realized that I no longer felt the need to impress or flatter her. We spoke as equals, and I left feeling as though I had lain to rest the insecure child who had always viewed her with such awe and envy. I no longer want her life. I much prefer my own.

That evening, Pre-Schooler N and I had dinner with a woman who had stood in as a defacto mother for me after separating from my own family. She's nearly 80 now, but seeing her joyfully discover my son's sweetness and sense of fun was magical for me. It was as though my son was meeting one of the truest members of my family, someone who was excited to meet him and celebrated his presence. Again, I felt the needy, grasping teenager that she first reached out to recede a little more into my past.

Our final stop was my childhood home, now up for sale. This was the biggie, as part of me yearned to make an appointment to tour the place under the guise of a perspective buyer. What would it be like to tread the stairs, open my bedroom door, and remember the scared, unhappy boy who once live there?

The temptation was so strong. I could have done it. I could have re-visited who I had been and where I had begun to become who I am today. But I didn't. I drove past, I pointed it out to my sleepy son, smiled as he yawned, and left it behind as we drove home.

And for the first time, I felt real affection for the boy who survived his family and his environment. So now those pieces of him that I still carry in my body and in my mind sit perhaps a little more comfortably. Maybe I don't need to say goodbye to him, so much as blow a kiss and show him how grand it all turned out.

Adopting a Stoic Attitude

Anyone who knows me will happily vouch for my life-long struggle with Full Disclosure Syndrome. FDS is a (completely made-up) disease that has robbed me of the ability to hide, subvert or otherwise fake an emotional response to anything from childhood trauma to which riding lawnmower clashes least with my hair. But if parenthood is teaching me anything, it's that sometimes I need to just shut up.

My biggest recurring peeve is unfairness. Yes, yes, I realize that the world did not come with an instruction manual, batteries, or any sort of assurance that things would be equal and balanced for all. But when a person or persons behaves differently (and generally pejoratively) towards myself, my family or my ilk, I tend to get pretty damn pissy. As a gay adoptive parent, this has become even more of an issue.

I recently interviewed actor/writer Johnny O'Callaghan for a preview piece on his one-man-show Who's Your Daddy, a true story account of his journey adopting an AIDS orphan from Uganda. When Johnny describes his friends and family's reaction to his decision, he pretty much nails it on the head: Reactions of dismissal, disbelief, half-hearted indulgence and bemused congratulations abounded when he began his Herculean array of obstacles to overcome -- all of which he did on his own, with little outside help.

It felt very familiar. When the decision was made to pursue adoption, I experienced the same sort of reactions. I think maybe most people didn't take it seriously, or figured it was just some lark that would peter out once things got difficult. Certainly the largess of the work undertaken in fostering and adopting Pre-Schooler N was taken on very much in isolation, with little in the way of help offered or proactive engagement. To this day, we are a very self-sufficient family unit, with relatively sparse involvement in our friends and families' lives. 

I contrast this with the rapturous furor that greets an impending birth. A palpable excitement begins, with countless hours of shared planning, joyous anticipation and oodles of gifts, odds and sods meant to ease the arrival of a new life. Nine months of support and involvement climax in an orgy of congratulations and doting, as the newly-enlarged family gratefully accepts what is surely their due.

Eat that cupcake Liz!

Despite my diagnosis of the hitherto-stated FDS (or FUDS, as I like to call it) I'm actually a fairly private person. Asking for help is anathema to me, so unless it's offered I generally find my own way in things. In some ways this is a blessing. I haven't had to deal with interference from well-meaning know-it-alls, or expend energy in being tactful when it comes to some hideous hand-knitted atrocity that some well-meaning sartorial neanderthal has decided would look just darling on my unsuspecting son. 

It's also meant that I've kept a strong degree of self-sufficiency -- an important holdover from the days when I lived on dry pasta and cheddar cheese powder. And I love that my son feels that we're a close family, and that we take care of each other.  Our little indomitable group of plucky adventurers.

But it's a shame so many of our friends and family don't really know him. We're lucky that First Cousins A and H attend the same daycare, and Sister-In-Law #2 welcomes play-dates, so it's not like he has zero extra-familial contact. Professor D's parents seem to like him, and see him every month or two.

I've been estranged from most of my own family since I leapt out of the closet so many years ago, but Sister T and her daughter are affectionate when we meet once or twice a year. Aside from these and a couple of stalwart friends, there's definitely a sense of island-hood.

Perhaps our rocky start as foster parents (perennial exhaustion and uncertainty that we were doing the right thing) set the tone for the lack of involvement. We had to hit the ground running with a 13 month old baby, and zero help or supplies. It was overwhelming, and we almost called it quits during the first week.

Or maybe we're annoying parents, keeping our kid from misbehaving even if it means those around us having to listen to too many Please Put That Down's or You Need To Do Better Listening's. But then again, if I let my energetic toddler roar around with abandon, I'm quite sure outside reaction would be anything but contented. My own loathing of parents who allow their children to mouth off, break shit and basically act like savages is certainly warrant against letting things slide with Pre-Schooler N. Surely they'd rather vigilance than tantrums, right?

Or maybe it's that we're such a different iteration of family. Gay parents, First-Nation kid, etc. Maybe we just don't seem 'real,' somehow. I honestly have no idea... maybe it's all of the above, with a few extra reasons tossed in that I'm not even aware of.

To be honest, I don't think it's worth trying to find out.

I mean, sure, I want my son to grow up surrounded by people who love and support him - and even a tiny amount of free babysitting would have been a freakin' godsend - but I can't coerce anyone to want to be part of his life, or our lives. Almost certainly, it's not a conversation in which anyone wants to take part. Which brings us back to the shutting up part.

But I'm just not good at shutting up. I stink at avoiding conversations that point out the disparity between the treatment of us as a gay adoptive family and the natural fecundity of hetero breeding. I may not list all the ways we could have desperately used any sort of help or involvement, or demand payback for my own previous efforts and aid, but it has forever impacted the way I feel about some of the people in my life.

So yeah, I'm a little bitter. But I'm also pretty fatalistic about this stuff. If they don't feel it, then nothing can be done. I can muster understanding, and focus on the miraculous turn of events that brought this priceless treasure of a child into my life

But I sure as hell know that the next time someone tells me where they're registered for baby-shower gifts, I'm going to cheerfully promise that I'll be giving them the exact same thing they so helpfully sent along during that exhausting, stress-filled period when my son arrived:

Polite congratulations and a big ol' box of nuthin'  :)