By Bev Davison, MSW
{ITAL Dear Journal,
Ben here again. Yesterday was my 9th birthday, and my mom and I were looking at albums of all my parties. In my 1st birthday party album, I saw this woman holding me, helping me unwrap presents in all the pictures. My mom said she was a friend who used to live with us, and she moved out when I was 2.
I was confused, because this woman was with me in all the photos. She looked very happy, and so did I. I asked my mom questions, but she wouldn't talk about her. Maybe my mom liked this woman a lot. You see, she has girlfriends instead of boyfriends. I think she was her girlfriend. If she was my mom's girlfriend when I was a baby, I wonder if she loved me, too?
It's hard being a kid, because grown-ups don't know what to say when kids have a lot of questions. I feel like that now. When my mom wasn't looking, I snuck through her closet and found more albums. There were pictures of the three of us everywhere. It looked like this woman helped my mom take care of me. I wonder if she was another mom to me? I think having two moms would be great, you see I don't have a dad, so if she were my other mom, I'd have two parents. Sometimes I get scared because if anything ever happened to my mom, who would take care of me?
If this woman was my other mom, I wonder why she left? I wonder why she never came back to see me and find out how I was doing. It makes me feel sad to look at those pictures and wonder about her. I guess I'll never understand why grown-ups have to leave. I just hope that she didn't leave because of me.}
When a child suffers a loss, no matter what the age, and no matter how much he or she remembers, a painful memory is forever etched into his psyche. It is typical for children to automatically assume they are responsible when a parent leaves, dies, or is absent. Children with same-sex parents are at greater risk of loss because there are no laws to protect their relationships with both parents. Gay parents are at risk of parenting from a place of fear – fear the state may take their kids, fear they will lose custody in a divorce, fear their children will be ridiculed. Gay parents need to have the security of knowing they can fully protect their children. Without it, their anxieties rise which can stop their hearts from being free and open to the wonder and amazement of loving a child.
Ben's journal entry tries to depict what emotional scars he is left with when there is an unexplained absence in his life about the woman who cared for him. He lives with the belief that she left because of him. He may never know that the woman desperately tried to stay in his life after his birth mother stopped her from seeing him after their relationship ended. He may never know the hours she spent fighting to see him, only to have the court say she is not recognized as a parent, even though she helped plan for him, care for him, and was his mother in every way except legally. He may never know that all she ever wanted to do was protect him. But she couldn't do any of those things because there were no laws that would protect their relationship.
The reality of these emotional traumas are exactly why we need to advocate for fair and equal adoption laws in this state. It is our responsibility to protect our children; we protect them from strangers, from running out into the street, and from the scary monsters in the dark. The biggest monsters harming them now are apathy and fear. The apathy of the community and the fear perpetuated by the right-wing.
It is difficult to protect ourselves and our kids from unjust laws; and it is exhausting to always defend our rights. However, working to create laws that will allow children to maintain relationships with both of their parents, to ensure both parents can consent to medical treatment, and to ensure that both parents can economically provide for their child's future, is a parental responsibility that we can no longer overlook. We cannot sit idly by and hope that our children will grow up and have a safer, more just world than the one we had. We have to create it for them.
The Coalition for Adoption Rights Equality has been working for two years for these very reasons – to protect our children. CARE has been lobbying legislators and educating the public on the need to change the adoption code and make it equitable for children of same-sex parents.
Today CARE and its allies need your help more than ever. Two bills currently before the Michigan House, HB 5690 and 5691, would sanction private adoption agencies from discriminating against not only gay/lesbian parents, but any parent who contradicts that agency's "written moral or religious policies." In addition, Representative Scott Hummel, as of this writing, is getting ready to introduce his bill that would restrict unmarried couples from adopting jointly – in direct contradiction of CARE's efforts.
Let's show our legislators we will not sit back and allow our kids to suffer harm. For Ben, he may never know he was wanted and loved by both his parents, but maybe for future children, we can make a difference. I hope that all of you will help make that difference by participating in We Are Family Lobby Day on Tuesday May 11 in Lansing, and together we can change the world for our kids.
We Are Family Lobby Day is being held at 124 N. Capitol, Lansing on the 5th floor in the Mackinac Room. It is sponsored by the Coalition for Adoption Rights Equality, AFSC, Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, Triangle Foundation, Michigan Equality, PFLAG, Lesbian Mom's Network, and Papa Dad's Network. For more info, contact [email protected].
