photo Carissa Gallo
I wrote an entry for the Huffington Post's Gay Voices blog that was published last week - you may have seen me tweet about it? Called The Future Perfect: Planning for Parental Bliss (the title is a link! click click!), it details my pre-parenthood planning obsession. Wait, what? A sample, for the lazy:
"I like to imagine how I'll raise my family and I, like anyone who looks forward to having children, like to imagine how much better behaved my kids will be than all the rest, whose parents have obviously not taken to the Kosher organic sugarless gluten-free family miracle diet I saw on Pinterest."
The piece is written tongue firmly in cheek, but I hope the emotion behind the words isn't taken for granted. One of my biggest concerns as "gay parenthood" becomes an increasingly common term thrown about in mainstream American sociopolitical discourse is that popular attitudes towards it will be shaped by the oftentimes flippant mainstream media representations of same-sex parenting. Take, for instance, new Fox sitcom The New Normal. In the first ten minutes of the pilot episode the gay male couple around which the show revolves meets with a designer baby consultant who recommends, "VIP egg files"; one future father then asks for, "a skinny, blonde child who doesn't cry. Is this extra?" I'm not sure how the show has progressed, because I was honestly too overcome with the urge to take a crap all over the guy's face to keep watching. How many representations of gay male fathers are out there right now in primetime? On Fox? Not enough to let this exploitative b*s waddle into the popular imagination, that's how many. But, I digress...I want to make this a positive post!
Click through for happy things!
Now that that's off my chest, I want to share with you some stuff I do really like. Ever since Jon & Kate Plus 8 went down in flames (remember when it was just an innocent TLC show about the cutest Asian babies that have ever existed?), I've turned to the internet for inspiration and have discovered quite a few "Mommy Blogs" that share a charming (and heartfelt) narrative about parenthood. The first one I was super happy to discover is Andrew and Carissa (Andrew is featured with their daughter, Rinah, at the top of this post.) Carissa is a photographer who contributes to Kinfolk, among other gorgeous publications, so their blog is mind-blowingly pretty and completely engrossing. Others I'm a fan of...
Simple Song - Suann Song's posts about her son Ike (Ike! Ohmigodsocute!) are the sweetest things on the internet.
Taza and Husband - Adorable baby girl + super cute couple parents. There's just so much cuteness.
Two Dads Cook - This one is unforch the only gay parenty blog I've found, and it's not updated enough for me to live vicariously through them PLUS there's no Instagram feed where I can "like" pictures of their son eating cereal or whatever. Gay dads with an adorable son who love to cook and live in the Hamptons or something? This is textbook blogging magic, guys - just update!
With Love Life - My friend Robin had a baby and he is soooooo cute. Plus, she is on Instagram.
With Love Life - My friend Robin had a baby and he is soooooo cute. Plus, she is on Instagram.
If there are some LGBT-oriented parenting blogs I've missed, share them in the comments! And feel free to let me know if The New Normal is your new favorite show ever and you think I should give it another go...or if we're on the same page!
