Just out., June 19, 1998, Page 39, Image 39

39
It's Father's Day again...
And co-parenting lesbians everywhere must decide
whether to dodge or deal with a sticky subject
O
ur son, also known in his infancy as the
Center of Our Universe (though that is a
title he now has to share with his younger
sister), recently ended his term in the
world of preschool education. The last day of
class was anticlimactic. After two years of com ­
ing and going and demanding play dates with
the passion of a Shakespearean actor trying to
get a part, I would have expected some rite of
passage. A closure. Alas, there was none.
When I picked him up after
class I saw that the last day’s pro-
ing kids— in those bygone days of sleep and
massive sections of uninterrupted time, before
stretch marks, scuff marks and marking the
time by developmental milestones— we gave
fatherhood a lot of thought. We knew it might
be tough not having anyone who our kids
could identify as their father. We knew they
would wonder what he looked like, how he
acted, whether he became prematurely bald or
had acne, whether he had the cranial capacity
of an elephant or a flea. We knew they would
wonder why he didn’t care to know them as his
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ject had been Father’s Day gifts,
which made sense considering Mother’s Day
was given quite the hurrah just a short time
ago. Glancing from the chaos of the craft table
to our son’s “cubby,” I casually wondered who
was going to be the recipient of our son’s cre­
ation.
1 mention the casualness of my wondering
because some people can make an issue out of
anything. Lesbian mothers are, if anything,
worse than average: When was the last time
you met a lesbian who could let anything lie
without a debate, a vote or a consensus?
Father’s Day is probably an issue for some
lesbian moms who, like ourselves, have formed
families where there is no paternal unit in situ.
Some moms probably have hour-long parent-
teacher conferences in order to prepare a plan
to handle the situation. O f course, if the
teacher involved is apt to announce to the
class— in a voice more fitting the Wicked
Witch of the West than a molder of young
minds— that little Johnny won’t be participat­
ing today since he has no father, then obvious­
ly some damage control would be in order.
Mercifully, we have been spared that experi­
ence. Or we may be hopelessly naive and about
to have a horrid wake-up call to the realities of
life in the United States.
Until then, we’re on the path of least resis­
tance. It’s not that we’re lazy, mind you, it’s just
that if we’re going to get good and worked up
and in a fair froth, we want something solid to
get worked up over. This was not it.
As it happens, our son made something for
two people, his grandfather and his godfather.
A gift for the one, and a card for the other. All
of which have by now been delivered and are
gracing refrigerators or mantelpieces as appro­
priate.
Fathers are certainly not a foreign subject
for us. When we were first thinking about hav-
children, why he would choose to remain
anonymous.
It is a sensible dichotomy that we can think
children may be raised healthily and happily
without a father in their lives, and also think
having a good father is a wonderful and valu­
able thing. We can applaud our good friends
who are fathers and watch with joy their spe­
cial relationships with their kids. But when one
of our kids’ schoolmates asks us why they don’t
have a dad, we can also answer honestly that it
is because we fell in love with each other and
not someone who was a man, so there is no
dad in our family, there are two moms.
Basically it is as simple as that.
Though it may be hard at times, 1 think the
Father’s Days don’t need to be difficult times
for us— though they may be some years. There
will be pouts, tantrums, hateful words and
worse. But I hope that our kids will get to
understand, bit by bit, that we honor fathers as
much more than a bit of semen in a cup, even
with the gift that it brought us, and that part of
our return for that gift is his anonymity. Our
son especially needs to know that he has a rich
role to play in life, and that we are looking for­
ward to it should he choose to play it. As my
wife likes to say, "N o pressure here, but we sure
would love some grandchildren some d ay ...”
A s for our son, 1 don’t think he thought
much of the Father’s Day business this year. He
is innocently satisfied with his family and his
only argument with us as parents is that we
don’t allow him many of the freedoms enjoyed
by his compatriots, like unlimited access to
busy streets and movies fit for teenage audi­
ences. (H e’s not going to win these battles,
bloody as they may become.)
The one thing he did say about Father’s
Day, the little scamp, was that at least he didn’t
have to make two presents again like last
month.
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