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When I was just nine years old, I landed the role of Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie. The cast and crew quickly became my second family and there was a sense of compassion, faith, togetherness, support and camaraderie with everyone on the set. I was particularly close to Michael Landon, an amazing man who was a father figure to me, both on and off screen. He was warm and nurturing and he had a powerful impact on my life. We were so close that my family even had a yearly tradition of going on vacation with Michael and his family.
Flash forward many years and I now have a family of my own, complete with four grown boys, two grown stepsons, a stepdaughter and a granddaughter. My own family includes my dearest friends and their children as well. I am so blessed. I tell people I don’t have a family tree, I have a family shrub!
Looking back on my life, my family has been ever-changing. It’s been filled with a diverse group of people. What I’ve learned over the years is that families are strong units that aren’t held together by biology; they’re held together by love.
Families look different now than they did a few decades ago. Whether they consist of a mother and father, two mommies, two daddies, single parents, a foster family, grandparents or whatever, it’s not about what the family looks like. It’s about how much they love one another.
Being a parent is the most rewarding thing I will ever do in my life. If it is something you want, I pray your dreams of parenting come true. Every child deserves to be raised in a stable home with parents who love him or her.
I’ve read and have been touched by all the stories in this book. The lengths that people have gone through to build their families amazes me. I hope their stories help you along in your journey to parenthood.
by Charlie Condou
Actor, Writer, Father and Activist
When I came out to my family, they were wonderful about it and it wasn’t an issue. There’s one thing my mum said to me, though, that I’ll always remember: “I feel so sad for you, because you always wanted to be a parent.”
To be honest, I had always wanted to be a dad and it never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be able to have kids. I didn’t know how I was going to start a family, but I just assumed I would.
I was raised in a liberal household and came out to my family when I was eighteen years old. It was the early 90s and a very different time back then. I never saw examples of same-sex couples raising children together and there were no gay parent role models to look up to on TV or in the media. Had I seen other gay men in loving relationships, building families together, it would have removed a lot of fear from my teenage years and made my path to self-acceptance smoother.
My mother loved my sister and me ferociously and has always been supportive of us both. After I came out to her, though, my perspective on family building changed. I could no longer assume that having children was something that would eventually just happen when the right person came along. It would be a little more complicated than that. There was no clear path for me to follow.
At the time, surrogacy was still in its infancy (not to mention extremely expensive) and gay men in the UK were still considered too deviant to adopt. I realized that same-sex couples had to plan more than most people, but it’s hard to see how that could be considered a bad thing. My sister told me, “When something is this important to you, you’ll find a way.”
She was right.
When I was in my thirties, my friend Catherine and I had the “insurance policy” conversation that many gay men have with their female friends: “If we’re still single by the time we’re forty, we should have kids together.” Things were different with Catherine, though. This time the conversation was more serious. We discovered that we had the same morals and same ideals in regards to child rearing.
I eventually met my husband back in 2005. Over the next couple of years, the conversations about having children became more real. We discussed every aspect in regards to what our three-way co-parenting relationship would look like, considered every worst-case scenario we could think of and shared our plans with our families. Everyone was on board and after three cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF), we had our first positive pregnancy test.
Even though Catherine’s house was not far from ours, we all agreed it would be best if she moved in with us for the last bit of the pregnancy and stayed for the first three months after the baby arrived. It turns out that a third pair of hands made a huge difference when our daughter was finally born! We never had to worry about one of us not getting enough sleep, because someone was always there to step in and help. We were able to take turns pacing up and down to comfort our colicky baby and it always seemed that one of us had enough energy to do household chores like making dinner.
We now have two children; one is six years old and the other is three and a half. As parents, we have our own separate lives and our children split the days of the week between both households, but we also make the time to go on holidays, celebrate Christmas and eat meals together as a family. Our arrangement might look unusual to some people but, for our family, it’s wonderful because we’re all so close.
I think the reason our family situation works so well is that we’re upfront and open about everything. We listen to each other and make sure that situations and scenarios work for everyone involved. For those of you wanting to start a family of your own, I think those things are key. Be really clear on what it is you want to do and talk as much as you can. You can never have too many discussions. Talk about worst-case scenarios. What would you do if this happened? What would you do if that happened? Also, be open to change, because even though you may think you have thought of every scenario beforehand, chances are that when your child is eventually born, he or she will just turn all your well-thought-out plans upside down anyway.
Regardless of how you decide to expand your own family, this book is a great resource to help you get started and it provides valuable information to help you along the way. It’s a fantastic read and I wish it had been available when I began my own journey. In my mind, it’s the ultimate resource for any LGBT person wanting to be a parent and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did. Good luck to you. I wish you the best as you begin your own journey to parenthood and enter the next wonderful stage of your life!
Marriage equality has been expanding across the globe at a rapid pace and on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in all fifty states. You know what they say: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!
As lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender relationships become more accepted, so do LGBT family units. The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, released research in 2013 showing that an estimated three million LGBT individuals have likely had a child and that 2 percent of Americans (roughly six million people) had an LGBT-identified parent. Now that marriage equality is legal throughout the country, these numbers will likely increase as more LGBT people come to the understanding that getting married, settling down and raising a family are obtainable goals and not just dreams.
When my husband and I decided to expand our family, we started evaluating the best way to move forward. We didn’t realize researching the topic would be so difficult and time-consuming. There were many choices for same-sex parents looking to have children; however, it was almost impossible to know about them all, let alone research them. What was an open adoption and how was it different from adoption in general? What was co-parenting? These were terms I had never heard of before.
While researching various methods and contacting different agencies, we eventually found the answers to many of our questions regarding