The Night Before Kindergarten

Dear Julia and Nathan,

Tomorrow you will go off to the big world of kindergarten.  I can’t believe this day has come.  Just yesterday I feel like I was bringing you home. 

When you turned 5 this year, I knew it was momentous.  But nothing can compare to handing you off to your first real teacher tomorrow in proving how fast you’ve grown.

I don’t know if I can adequately express to you how proud I am of you, and how much I love you.  Giving you to Mrs. M. tomorrow will be one of the hardest things I’ll ever do, because I know there’s no turning back.  Tomorrow starts an entirely new phase in your life – in all our lives.  And believe me when I tell you I’m so blessed and honored to be able to walk through it with you.  But know that driving away tomorrow my eyes will be filled with tears.  Tears for the babies you were, and for the people you are becoming.

Julia:
You are so anxious about school.  You have been for months.  And I’ve done everything I can to allay your fears and encourage you to see school as something exciting.  It’s ok to be frightened.  It’s new, and scary, and you’re still so very little.  I have no doubt, though, that you’ll be quite the kindergarten expert come back to school night next week.  You’re so very brave, my love, and I can’t wait to watch you go from a nervous preschooler to the confident student I know you will be.  You've got this, I promise.

Nathan:

You are so ready for this.  Sometimes I worry you’re so ready that they’ll want to shove you in first grade.  But socially this is where you need to be.  You’re still so very five.  I know you’re going to be the mayor of kindergarten in no time.  You haven’t met a kid yet who you can’t be friends with.  I wonder, though, if a little bit of anxiety will peek through tomorrow.  I’m so grateful that you and your sissy will have each other, because I won’t have to worry that you’ll ever be alone.  I adore your enthusiasm for simply everything that comes your way, and I hope you can keep that joy as you walk this new journey called school.

I love you both so much.  And as hard as tomorrow might be, as scary as it might seem, no matter what happens, we’ll always be here to pull you into our arms at the end of the day.  You might be growing up and we might have to learn to let go a little more than we’re used to, but you’ll always be my Peanut and Little Man. 

Love,

Mommy

Imagine If Who You Are Was Used As An Insult

Why is it so hard?  What’s so difficult about NOT using the “r” word?  I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that everyone who uses that word (and trust me, there are a lot), doesn’t have SOMEONE in their life that this word targets.  The guy who bags your groceries at the supermarket?  Your cousin?  The kid you saw sitting alone in the high school cafeteria?  Your neighbor?  Your best friend’s child?

Show me a person whose life hasn’t been touched by someone who the “r” word targets and I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

The thing is, you might not even know that the person behind you at the zoo while you tell your child to “stop being a(n) ‘r’” (true story happened to a good friend) has a child with special needs.  You might not know that the kid bagging your groceries every week has Cerebral Palsy.  You might not know that the cashier at that super expensive department store you bought your shoes at is working a second job to pay for therapy for her child with Autism.  You might not even know that your boss, who you see and talk to every day, has a sister with Down Syndrome she helps care for.  The truth is, it shouldn’t matter who’s around you, and what their or your connection is with people the “r” word targets.  Because integrity is what you do when nobody is looking, and using the “r” word is disgusting, ignorant, and hateful.

Movies like “The Change-Up” and “Tropic Thunder” are movies that prey on people for profit.  When Ryan Reynolds tells Jason Bateman in “The Change-Up” that one of his twins looks a little “downsy” and people let it go in the name of “comedy” we tell each other that there are people in this world that matter so little to us they are nothing more than a punchline.  I know, I know, comedians and movies make fun of people and groups all the time.  Heck, I’m a lesbian mom with two kids, I’ve heard plenty of gay jokes (not that I think they’re ok either).  But guess what, I can stand up and defend myself.  I’ve been called a “dyke” in the store and been able to make a decision about whether or not I do something about it.  The people that the “r” word targets don’t have that ability.

There was an entire campaign awhile back on television to remove the phrase “that’s so gay” from common vernacular.  You can watch one of them here:

“Imagine if who you are was used as an insult.”

Now, imagine if who you are was used as an insult and you were powerless to do anything about it.

Why is it that Hollywood champions the cause for us LGBT folks but continues to use people with special needs as a punchline?  Because the “r” word still gets a laugh, and people still make money.

There’s only one way to stop that.  And it requires using your pocketbook.  Or not using it, as the case may be.  GQ recently lost subscribers over an article about regional style in which the “journalist” said Bostonians had a sort of “style Down Syndrome.” GQ later removed the statement from the article but has yet to make a statement on the issue.  I don’t know if I know anyone who subscribes to GQ, and I don’t know anyone (I don’t think) who plans to see “The Change-Up.”  But if you stand with me in making sure people with disabilities are portrayed as more than a punchline, at the very least do the one thing you can, and refuse to give your money to this trash.

A few months ago, I stood in line with my five year olds to go through security at the Glee Live concert.  Yes, my five year olds watch Glee.  Most of it is right over their heads, and all they care about is if Finn and Rachel are singing.  But while they watch, they get to see a gorgeous girl play the role of Becky, a cheerleader with Down Syndrome.  They see her as part of the school: active, contributing.  And while we stood in line a young girl (12 or 13) was in front of us waiting with her mom.  She was holding a sign and wearing a puffy painted shirt expressing her love for all things Glee.  As she turned around to show us her sign I saw that she had Down Syndrome.  And my eyes filled with tears as I realized that more than teaching my kids that people with disabilities are equal and contributing members of society, Glee has given kids with disabilities a show on tv that celebrates them, includes them, incorporates them as simply part of the high school landscape.  Shows like “Parenthood” tackle the very real challenges of raising a young child on the autism spectrum, but in the very next scene delight in the joys and successes of that same child.  Target includes kids of all abilities in its circulars.  There are PLENTY of options out there to enjoy popular culture and spend your money without supporting people and organizations who treat defenseless people as worthless.

Money talks.  Use yours for good.  And if you use the “r” word, please stop.  And Pledge to never use it again here: http://www.r-word.org/

The Paradox of Choice*

When I was a kid and started kindergarten, I went to the school down the street from my house.  The daughter of a public school teacher, we were squarely in the middle-class socio-economic column.  We lived in a working-class neighborhood, and my elementary school was fairly diverse, both racially and economically.  The only choice we had insofar as where we went to school was whether or not we chose to move to be near a more desirable school. 

My how things have changed.  In two weeks I will officially be the mother of two kindergarten students.  Getting to this point has not been easy, and still now, two weeks before school starts, we aren’t exactly sure where they will be hanging up their backpacks this year.

We moved into our last house in a bit of a rush.  We’d had to literally threaten our landlord with legal action because he’d refused to repair the air conditioner during August’s triple digit weather while Julia had 104 fever.  This was the final straw in our dealings with him, and we moved out to be closer to my office.  We didn’t have much time to research schools and such, and honestly we didn’t even know if we’d be in the house long enough for it to matter.  Unfortunately, we discovered that the school of residence for where we were living was not a place we wanted to send the twins.  We were, however, right around the corner from a fantastic, and highly desirable, charter school.  In addition, ever since I was pregnant with the twins, I’d had on my radar another charter school that had multiple campuses.  We naively believed that we would get one of these two options, especially considering the one school had three campuses we were ok with moving near. 

As a plan C, we also put in for an transfer to the highest performing elementary school in our district.  What was ridiculous was that apparently we missed the “open enrollment” period because we didn’t already have students in the district.  Had we known about open enrollment, we could have saved ourselves a lot of frustration, but apparently notification was done by way of the phone system that parents with children already in school have access to.  A lot of good that does those of us with only 5 year olds.  But they decided to put together a waiting list, despite telling us that the chances were pretty much nil. 

Well, at one charter school, we got one spot.  And at the lottery draw I was told that I had no option for another spot unless another kid turned down their spot – almost 50 times over.  Nate got a spot but Julia was like 50^th on the waitlist.  Scratch that one off the list.  The other charter school came up empty for us too, at ALL THREE campuses.  I was heartbroken.

So, we did some extensive research, and ended up moving back to where we lived when we got pregnant and had the babies.  A lot had changed in the district since then, and all the elementary schools were now K-8, and doing well.  The high school had been transformed by way of a brand new campus site.  The school district is one of the few in the area NOT on the State watch list for finances, and the schools performed better than even the best elementary in the district we currently lived in (a district that is still awaiting possible State takeover).  Now, before you lecture me about test scores and API and how they don’t tell the whole story, trust me I know this.  Trust that I’ve done my research enough to make decisions for my kids based on more than a number on a piece of paper.

So, we find a house, move back to our old neighborhood, and the day the ink is placed on the lease agreement, Heidi goes to sign the kids up for school.  We were very excited, because we found a house in the boundaries of our first choice school.  Heidi goes to sign them up only to be told (in MAY, mind you) that they are already at capacity and Nate and Julia are like 11 and 12 on the waitlist and will likely be “overflowed” to the next closest school.  Ok, well, that school was on our radar and we’d actually looked at a few houses within the boundaries of that school as well, so that was fine by us.  A district employee told us not to worry, because movement of a few kids would probably make that unnecessary.  They just wouldn’t know until closer to the school year’s start.

Two weeks ago, I get two letters in the mail, telling me that the kids’ transfers to our school of choice in our old district were approved.  Are you kidding me?  Well, a lot of good that does us now, because we don’t even live in the district anymore.  But after moving, increasing our expenses by doing so, and gearing ourselves up for completely changing our expectations, finding out we never had to move was frustrating. 

Meanwhile, after a few tense emails with the principal of what we hoped would be their school (about keeping them in the same class – a topic for a whole other post), we found out just last week that the school they will likely overflow to (and now it’s almost a certainty) is one even FURTHER from our house and never even on our radar at all.  Heidi called me on Friday after she’d received an email from the principal of the school they are supposed to go to and started off with, “ok, you’re going to be mad, so just know you’re going to be mad.”  She was right.  But, to be fair, I took a breath and did some research.  This school isn’t bad at all.   It just wasn’t on our radar because it’s in an older neighborhood where we wouldn’t prefer to live.  But it’s a school that was relocated to the old high school campus and therefore the kindergarten classrooms and playgrounds are all brand new because they converted the old shop classrooms.  It’s the only elementary updating its website.  Kindergarten orientation is at 5pm to accommodate working parents.  The PTA is active enough to be doing an ice cream social after orientation for the whole school.  It’s the district school site for kids in the GATE program.  Now, we won’t know for sure for another week if this is the school they will attend, but given what we were told by the principal, it seems to be almost a sure thing.  I even spoke to the Admin at this school and asked about putting the twins in the same class and she made it sound like it would be no big deal, and while I’ll believe that when I see it, it certainly didn’t seem to be the federal case the other school made it out to be.

So, I’d gotten to a point where I felt really good about this school, and the path in front of us.  Until today.  Right after lunchtime my cell phone rings and it’s a number I don’t recognize so I let it go to voicemail.  Sure enough, it’s one of the campuses of the charter school that was my first choice telling me they had a spot for us, and possibly two spots by the time I have to make a decision about the spot on Friday morning. 

Sigh.  You know, I’m almost hoping the second spot doesn’t open up.  Because then the decision is made.  But you guys, this is where I’ve wanted them to go since I was PREGNANT.  I think the philosophy is fabulous, you can see the results in their test scores as well as the stories of the kids after they move on to high school.  But.  The school is now 27 miles from our house.  It’s full day kinder as opposed to half.  It’s 27 miles from home.  It’s amazing.  But it’s 27 miles from our house. 

Now, I wholeheartedly believe if we had gotten this call in May we’d have moved much closer to the school because the high schools out that way are great too.  But now, well, what are we supposed to do?  Suck it up for a year and do the commute and deal with it?  Because really there aren’t shots at 1^st grade spots.  It pretty much is a “if you don’t get a kinder spot, you won’t get a spot,” kind of school.

You know, the reality is, I know that success in school has often little to do with what’s measurable in the classroom.  Success in school depends on my involvement in their educations first and foremost.  And I know that if we’re involved in their education and advocating for them, the school they are at isn’t always the most important thing.  But the paradox of choice is that when you have a choice in front of you, even when presented with two equally acceptable options, you will always look to see if one choice outdoes another in some way in order to tip the scales.    

So now we wait, and see what Friday brings.  But I’m already believing that maybe the choice isn’t really a choice, because the hardship on a day to day for a school so far away when we don’t have the flexibility anymore to just pick up and move is just too much.  

But I can’t close the door just yet.  This school has been my dream for five years for them, and I will wait until the last possible second to let it go.

*If you're interested in where this came from, there's a great book called The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz.  Fascinating stuff.

Indeed

The other day before leaving for work Heidi had left notes for each of the kids in their rooms.  She does this sometimes on days she doesn’t get to see them much, and this particular day she had missed out on some of her normal time with them because of a birthday party we had to go to.  The kids loved it.  Julia had said that she wanted to write a note for Heidi and then promptly forgot about it until about 8:45pm, an hour or so after bedtime.  I was frustrated, having just started a movie and hoping to enjoy a quiet evening.  I got up, retrieved her a piece of paper and a crayon.  She then asked me how to spell various words and we talked about how she could sound out the words she wanted to use and do her very best to spell them.  My movie was paused and I was anxious to get back to it.  She said “I’ll find a book to help me.”  Ok baby, I told her, be good and don’t color on anything except the paper.

Two hours later the movie is over and I head up to bed, stopping to check on the kids.  I walk into Julia’s room expecting to find a note somewhere for me to deliver to Heidi.

 Let me interrupt at this point by saying that currently Julia has the distinction of being a five year old that has to be barricaded into her room.  We’ve resorted to the old baby gate because she absolutely refuses to stay in her room.  No amount of rewards or punishments seems to do the trick.  So the baby gate goes up until she falls asleep and then it comes off.  If she has to potty she calls me and I’ll come up and take her to the potty.  But this is a child who WILL NOT stay put.  And if all she did was head to the playroom and sit quietly with her toys, then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  No.  Julia has been found creating wall art, decorating the bathroom with toothpaste, and just in general up to no good.  So the baby gate it is. 

Anyway, when I was in her room, I didn’t see a note, so I assumed she’d given up on the project and I felt horribly, thinking I would help her in the morning so she could write a note for Heidi. 

I closed her door and went into my room only to find a note for Heidi on her nightstand.  Little stinker.  She must have gotten her brother to deliver the note on her behalf.  Resourceful.  I pick up the note to read what she’s written, and about fall over laughing. 

Apparently her book of choice to help her write her letter?  The Bible. 

Exhibit A:

In case you can’t read her writing, it appears she’s written:

“Indeed now your servant has found you peace.  Set. So I born a pigs.  I love Momo.  [Happy Face]”

While I’m not sure where the pig reference is from specifically, the “Indeed now your servant has found you…” is the beginning of Genesis 19:19 (at least that’s the phraseology used in her Precious Moments Bible), which I discovered when googling what she had written to figure out what verse it was.  What’s ironic about this is that Genesis 19:19 is the middle of the passages about Sodom and Gomorrah, so often used as one of the clobber passages against families like ours.  The humor in this must not be overlooked. 

I called Heidi immediately, as she was on her way home, and was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.  I refused to read her the note on the phone, however, because it was too good not to be able to see her face.  The next morning, she told Julia how much she loved her note and Julia was very proud. 

And for the record? 

She scaled the baby gate to put the note in our room. 

Dammit.

Justice for All

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that a horrible verdict came down in a horrible case concerning the murder of a little girl named Caylee Anthony.  Like the rest of the world, I’d love to know what the jury was thinking.  Ultimately, that little girl’s mother will have to answer for her actions at some point.

I was discussing the case last night and the conversation turned to media frenzy, rumors of Casey Anthony being pregnant with her attorney’s child, and celebrity.  My theory on it is that the more we turn the cameras on her, even as much of a reviled person she is, the easier it becomes for her to go from pariah to media darling.  Shut off the cameras, ignore her, let her try and walk the streets in public without being recognized.  Her life will not be pleasant, nor should it be.  But if we keep documenting and reporting her every move, every rumor, every detail of her disgusting life, the better the chance is that we’ll turn around one day and she’ll be the next contestant on Dancing With the Stars. 

Even that, though, isn’t what bothers me the most.  What bothers me the most is what nobody really wants to talk about.  Why are we so invested in this case?  Why are we so passionate about “Justice for Caylee?”  I’d love to say that it’s because we are appalled every time a child is abused, murdered, or abducted, and it is patently wrong for us not to be invested in these cases.  I might buy that.  And I think for many of us, that’s true.  This was different though.  This was an incredibly high profile case.  What makes it high profile?  Why does the media grasp on to a story like this and plaster all over every news and social media site until the public is worked into a mob mentality?  What makes this case unique?

It’s not the fact that a child was murdered and then lied about.  It’s not the fact that her grandparents participated in the deception.  It’s not the fact that Casey Anthony clearly is some sort of psychopath who partied while her daughter was denied a death with dignity.  All of those things are awful.  Wrong.  Evil. 

But it helps quite a bit in the court of public opinion that Caylee Anthony was a little white girl with a white mom living in suburban Florida. 

That’s ok.  I’ll sit and wait for the indignation to pass.

Ok, now.  Think about it.  Think about all the high profile kidnapping and child murder cases.  Caylee Anthony, Jaycee Dugard, Madeline McCann, Haleigh Cummings, Brittanee Drexel.  When was the last time a missing African American boy from the inner city made the news? 

Take a trip over to the website for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  A quick search for my home state of California reveals 384 missing kids.  125 of them Caucasian.  Less than a third.  Nationally, less than half of missing children are white (44%) And yet the news doesn’t cover the stories of these kids.  The public doesn’t rage at a system that isn’t delivering justice for these kids. 

Recently, in my hometown paper, the story of a young girl who suffered extreme abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother (her biological aunt who took her and her siblings in) came to light.  She’s 19 now, but when she managed to escape her environment, which included severe beatings, broken bones, confinement to a closet, she was 15.  She’d been living with her aunt since she was a small child.  When she finally was treated for her injuries, they documented over 100 active injuries.  Broken bones, healing scars, missing teeth.  The closet she was regularly confined to was barely enough space for her to turn around in.  She was pulled from school by her aunt and apparently there was one CPS visit that didn’t turn up anything (clearly they didn’t look very hard).  She’s 19 now and living on her own with the help of public assistance.  She’s attending college.  Haven’t heard of the story?  No, I thought not.  Lilly Manning is black. 

Why wasn’t the press camped out at the courtroom when Lilly’s aunt and her husband went to trial?  Where was everyone’s righteous indignation then?  Why hasn’t someone demanded justice for Lilly?  She was lucky enough to survive, but so was Jaycee Dugard.  Jaycee Dugard is getting book deals and $20 million from the State of California.  Lilly is living on food stamps.  Yes, every case is different, but clearly there’s a huge disconnect here between the kids who get attention in the media and the kids who don’t.

I’m not saying Caylee Anthony doesn’t deserve our outrage at the lack of justice delivered on her behalf.  I’m saying don’t be lulled into thinking that the kids who get the media attention are the only ones out there.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of kids who deserve justice.  If you learn anything from Caylee Anthony’s case, learn that most kids never get that justice.  It is right for us to be outraged.  It is right for us to be appalled and disgusted that these things happen.  It is right for us to stand up and demand justice.  But we’ve got to stand up and demand justice for all the kids out there and start demanding visibility for the kids who don’t have the benefit of white privilege just as much as those who do. 

Always and Never

When you’re a struggling infertile deep in the midst of treatment, you fantasize about what life will be like when you finally bring a child home.  You watch moms around you and you create this mental list of thing things you’ll “never” do (or “always” do, as the case may be), and you’ll silently chastise the moms you see violating this invisible list of musts and mustn’ts in your head.  You think that these moms you see must not know what a gift they have in their children.  Surely they must be fertile, because if she had to work for her child she’d know how precious and amazing her children are and never (or always) do x, y, or z.  We all do it. 

“I’ll never speak to my child in frustration.  My child is a gift, and I will not waste words on him/her that are anything less than positive.”
Really?  When your beautiful gift decides to scale the washing machine in order to get to the bleach up on the shelf, manage to open the childproof cap, and dump said bleach into the DRYER filled with her own clothes, I’m sure the only words out of your mouth will be calm and collected.  You know what’s fun too?  Finding a bathroom mirror covered in hair spray because your five year old daughter can’t control the irresistible urge to spray any spray bottle within a 50 mile radius of those precious little fingers.  Frustration?  No.  I love when my house smells like febreze, hairspray, and every perfume I’ve ever owned all at one time.

“My child will only eat organic food I make myself.  I’ll never let my child eat processed sugars or McDonald’s.” 
Right.  And when your littlest gift is barely on the weight chart and refuses to eat anything you put in front of her, you’ll drive through the golden arches every freaking day to get her some chicken nuggets if she would only eat for chrissakes.  What?  Gogurt?  Have 10, kid.  For the love of all that is holy, please EAT.

“I’ll never (or only – depending on your leanings) co-sleep with my child.”
Really? For a good few months my son slept in his carseat.  And the swing.  And laying next to me nursing.  For crying out loud just sleep.  I almost don’t care where.

“I’ll only breastfeed.”
Good luck with that, and by God I hope you manage it.  But guess what.  Breastfeeding is fucking HARD.  Made harder when you’re anemic from blood loss in delivery, a baby in the NICU, and being exhausted.  And your milk never actually comes in.  How about, “I’ll breastfeed if I can, and not beat myself up if I can’t, and for eff’s sake I’ll never judge anyone else for their ability or inability (or CHOICE) to breastfeed.

“Plastic toys made in China will not be in my home.”
You might not buy them.  But someone, usually a grandparent, will.  And before you can say “lead content” your lovely little one will have shoved that officially licensed, anything-but-gender-neutral, plastic piece of crap in his mouth and decided it’s his favorite toy in the whole world.  Soon you’ll be posting pictures on facebook of how cute he is asleep with it.

“I’ll never bribe my children with food/toys/treats for behavior.”
HA!  I should have bought stock in M&Ms before we started potty training.  Sometimes, food works.  Whether it’s potty training or promising ice cream if they behave in the grocery store, food can be a great motivator.  And really, you’re doing the other shoppers a public service because that ice cream promise is keeping your little guy from a royal meltdown in the middle of the produce aisle.

“I will never use the tv as a babysitter, and when/if my child watches television, it will only be educational and positive programming.”
Do you ever want to take a shower longer than 15 seconds?  Shave your legs?  Figure out if what they say about removable shower heads is true?  Then guess what?  The tv is going to be your friend.  And eventually, they will learn who SpongeBob is.  Because when they go to the dentist and they give them a balloon and a bag of goodies there will be SpongeBob toothpaste in there, and it just.  Happens.  And then they’re 5 and the last thing you want to do is watch another freaking episode of Caillou.  So you don’t mind that your son would rather watch ESPN and your daughter asks you to watch House Hunters (or Glee) because it’s nice to watch something with them that doesn’t require you to want to jam a pencil in your eye. 

Have I made my point?  Raising children is HARD.  It doesn’t matter if you got pregnant in the back of a Chevrolet Impala on prom night or spent 10 years and furnished your RE’s house twice in order to have a child.  Yes, make no mistake, children are a gift.  And we shouldn’t speak to them in frustration, and we should feed them nutritious food, and we should monitor what they watch, and make sure we protect them at every step and turn as best we can.  But for crying out loud don’t believe for a second that whatever that list of “nevers” and “always” in your head isn’t going to go straight out the window as soon as that kid(s) shows up. (PS, this also will happen with your “birth plan.”)  Sometimes, that mom in the store telling little Susie and Johnny to get over here RIGHT NOW FOR THE LOVE OF GOD is just sleep deprived, overworked, underpaid, and doing her very best.  And more often than not, she’ll finish in the store, load her littles up in the car, and spend two or three minutes crying at the steering wheel for violating her own inner list of “nevers” and “always”.  She’ll look over her shoulder and tell them “Mommy’s sorry for being frustrated, she loves you very much.”  And she’ll try to remind herself not to be so hard on herself.  She’ll climb up the stairs and check on them while they sleep and promise to try harder. 

I might be trying to be funny on some of this, but the reality is, it’s SO EASY to judge other people’s parenting.  Sometimes I think infertiles are the best at it.  I’m guilty too.  So I’m making a new promise.  I’ll focus more on MY decisions rather than second-guessing someone else’s.  And I won’t use “always” or “never” when I talk about things I will and won’t do with my kids and remind myself that it’s ok to make mistakes. 

My kids are an amazing gift.  They’re gifts that can be sweet, and loving, and frustrating, and button-pushing, and tiring.  Kids are all those things no matter how easy or hard they were to come by.  I hope you can live up to every “always” and “never” on your list.  I can’t.  And I’m a better parent because I’ve given up on some of those “always” and “nevers”.  If I hadn’t, I’d never known the joys of co-sleeping, learned how to support fellow moms who couldn’t breastfeed, watched my daughter’s eyes light up at the sight of a hideous plastic princess vanity on Christmas morning, or enjoyed singing along with my kids to the songs from “Glee” because I let them watch it with me.  Is it perfect?  Nope.  And it’s much better that way.

Donor Unknown

I had heard about the film “Donor Unknown” via a message board I infrequently post to. The Tribeca film festival was screening it on their website on Friday, and I reluctantly reserved myself a seat. I say reluctantly, because I’m always a little leery of how donor sperm issues are portrayed in the media. I’ve already had to fight the “what does their father look like” from people close enough to me, and equating our sperm donor with a person to whom my children are tied from a familial perspective always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The film is about a group of young adult, donor-conceived children who find each other and ultimately their sperm donor, through the help of the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR). We are members of the registry, and have made contact, and a small private facebook group, of families with children who are “donor siblings” of Nate & Julia. They include a set of girl twins, a daughter, two sons (two different families), another set of boy/girl twins, and us. We’ve since learned there’s another daughter, and contact has been made to hopefully have them join us on facebook.

We’ve had the pleasure of meeting one of the families in person, and our children have enjoyed time together. I would consider us friends. What I don’t consider their son, at this time in this journey, my children’s brother. While they share genetic material, they do not share parents.

The film was centered specifically around the youngest of the donor-conceived children of California Cryobank donor #150. At one point in the film, after the identity of the donor is revealed (he came forward after seeing a story in the New York Times), she finds the donor’s father and visits him, calling him her “grandfather.” This didn’t sit well with me, for a lot of reasons. One, it seemed a violation of the donor’s privacy. While I believe our children have the right to have medical information about their donors, and the opportunity to meet them once everyone is an adult, co-opting a donor’s family as one’s own seems to be overstepping this boundary considerably. Two, in my opinion, this man was not (he’s since passed away) her grandfather. He may be related to her by genetics, but her grandfathers would be the men who were fathers to the parents who raised her.

Now, here’s where my belief in what makes family may be playing too large a role in my opinions on this. Because bloodlines to me have absolutely nothing to do with family. My best friends are family to me. My friend Bianca and I might as well be sisters. I love her.  Our friendship has withstood time, falling outs, and traumatic events.  Her mother treats me like her own daughter. Heidi’s best friend’s mother is “Nana Deborah” to our children. She has not one drop of blood relationship to them.  So my inability to see the donor’s extended family as an extended family to the donor conceived children is largely a product of my inability to believe that blood is thicker than water.

What were poignant to me were the relationships that had developed between the donor conceived children. Regardless of whether they called themselves sisters or brothers, clearly these kids needed these relationships. One of the young women noted that not only were these the first donor siblings she’d met, but the first donor conceived people she’d ever met. While I believe it’s my responsibility to expose my children to other kids like them, that wasn’t always possible for these earlier trailblazers because families had no way to connect with one another. In today’s age of the DSR, gay and lesbian parenting groups, and the internet, finding other people like you is easier and easier.

Unfortunately, the film was filmworthy partially because the donor himself was a caricature. Living at Venice Beach in an old, beat-up RV; homeless by choice; his eccentricities became a strong focus of the film. One of the mothers mentioned that learning about him was almost the death of a fantasy she held in her head about the kind of person he was. I have no such fantasies about our donor. In my mind he’s a college student finding easy ways to make money while getting through school. Maybe he believes he’s helping families achieve their dreams of children or maybe he believes it’s an easy way to make a buck. The reality is I have more information on my donor’s family and health history than I have on my own. I’m disappointed that the donor in this film is the way he is, not because of some crazy dream I have about what a donor should be, but because who he is gets so much attention that who the kids are is overshadowed.

I get it. It’s much more interesting to do a movie about a wacky guy and the kids his sperm made. But like everything surrounding “alternative” family building – whether it’s lesbian families, IVF, surrogacy – the REAL stories aren’t interesting. It’s much more sensational to make movies about guys like the donor in this movie, or films about surrogates who change their minds, or IVF embryo switching. Meanwhile, mainstream people believe that these sensationalized stories are the norm rather than the exception. While it may be boring to read about what real families dealing with these things are actually like, the more we hold up movies like “Donor Unknown” as an opportunity for people to understand how are families are built, the more we do ourselves a disservice. On top of it, holding up the donor as some sort of icon in our families minimizes the completeness of our own familial unit. If we want OUR stories told, then we have to be willing to tell it. To remove the hushed whispers. To make conceiving via a donor, be it a sperm donor or an egg donor (the differences between which are so vast that deserves a whole other post), something that doesn’t make people think of some crazy guy living in an RV as your child’s “father.”

My children have two mothers. They have a plethora of aunts, uncles, friends, Godparents, and all sort of folks who have influence in their lives. Half of their genetic make up is tied to a man I’ll likely never meet. Yes, I made that decision for my children and I can’t un-make it. Will they resent me for it later? Possibly. And if so, probably only for a short time. The reality is, it’s not my kids I worry about when it comes to understanding and assimilating the information surrounding being donor-conceived. It’s the rest of the world. But the only way to change people’s perceptions is to stop producing media – be it news articles or movies – that glorifies the exceptions among us.