When someone gets pregnant, lots of people get excited: the mother, whose body is changing day to day, but also the dad (or dads, in our case). They get the news of the stick that turned pink and share their own nervous reaction.
For me, as a father-to-be, the idea of expecting a child was completely theoretical. My body wasn’t changing. I didn’t have people coming up to me inappropriately patting my belly or giving me advice on controlling the nausea.
But I did face “The Question.”
When an openly gay man tells friends and colleagues that he and his partner are expecting a child, eyebrows uniformly raise as people struggle to figure out how such an event would be biologically possible. Are they using a surrogate? Or in the case of some folks, do they have access to some new fancy technology that we straight people don’t even know about yet?
I usually let people squirm for one or two seconds before telling them the story of co- parenting; of building a family with our dear friend, Caryn; of our three-parent, two-house, one-home family. I tell them about the moment when, after deciding we wanted to become parents, Gregg and I, in a shocking moment of clarity, took Caryn up on her visionary proposal to create a new kind of extended family. I tell them about that March morning when Caryn appeared at our doorstep at 8 a.m. with that pink stick in her hand, smiling and doing a little happy dance, saying she had gotten pregnant in just two months of trying.
When I finish the story about how our happy family came into being, a litany of questions remains. But the most persistent among them is “So which one of you is the real father?”
I never understood the power of biology quite so starkly as when I began building my family. Given my relationship – to a man – I’ve always encouraged others to think about family in new ways, and to emphasize that family members are the people who care for one another, who create webs of mutual interdependence upon which the other relies. At first when people would ask “Which one of you is the real father?” I would play dumb, pretending that I didn’t really know what the question-asker was getting at.
“We’re both the dads, of course.”
But the inevitable “clarification” query would follow.
“I mean, which one of you is the real dad, the biological dad?”
Crushed, I had to do everything possible not to get sweaty palms and respond out of frustration that the world into which I was bringing a child was still so overwhelmingly dominated by the idea that a sperm and an egg make a family. After a deep breath, I would casually respond “The only people who have or need that information are me, Gregg and Caryn.” But “The Question” forces some people to persist.
One recent evening, I was at a dinner party with some colleagues when the above script played out exactly. And when I gave the polite response, the question-asker went on. “But you know, don’t you? Why don’t I get to know?”
Coming to my rescue like a knight in shining armor, another colleague, who knows me much better than this overly
curious person, beat me to the only response that fit at this point.
“Because it’s none of your business.”
When Caryn, Gregg and I embarked on the road of co-parenting, we knew we would be put under the microscope by all of those people around us who were curious at what co-parenting might look like. I love curious people. That’s why I became a professor. Curiosity is what sparks creativity and the advancement of knowledge. Curiosity is the thing people can harness to create social change. Curiosity is what builds relationships.
So I’ve been caught between my own beliefs and my feelings. I want people to ask probing questions about my family, to feel comfortable enough to explore my life and the social change that we’re engaged in. And yet, I don’t want people butting into my private life as freely as people seem to be doing. Do people have more license to ask us overly personal questions because of who we are and what we’re doing, because we’re all very social, open people? Or is it because, simply, we are an object of curiosity and are doing something most people couldn’t imagine if they tried?
It’s obviously a combination of all of these.
My favorite line of questioning is the “how” question. Caryn jokes that it was an accident. I call it the “immaculate conception.” And sometimes when I get the always sheepishly asked – but nonetheless asked – question, “So how did you guys do it?” I know the asker has a list of possible options running through her head (sex, turkey baster, doctor’s office, something else?).
I try to keep my answer light, if not always tasteful. “Well, you’ve heard of the turkey baster, right? Well, that’s a male fantasy. Trust me, no guy can fill up a turkey baster.”
I then give more detail about the syringe, that we did it all at home, that no doctors were involved, and that this child was conceived out of as much love as the most loving families who actually had sex to produce a child. OK, maybe I don’t say it so crudely, but that’s what I’m thinking.
David Shneer is associate professor of history and director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver and is author of “New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora.” He was legally married to his partner in 2003 in Canada.
