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| Photo credit: Pexels.com |
“No! You’re lying!”
My friend’s child – all of six years old – stomped
downstairs, yelling this behind him.
“No, I’m not,” our nine-year-old replied, as patiently as he
could, as he followed the littler one down the stairs.
The kid stood in front of us with a determined look. “Jackson
said he doesn’t have a dad. But everyone has
a dad or you can’t be born!”
Oh! Hello, Knox family.
Have you just arrived? Pull up a chair and get comfortable. Welcome to queer family life.
Honestly, I never much thought of my hetero privilege until
I lost it. For many years, I had what I thought was a husband. And now that same
person is my wife.
But before she lived as she, I just floated through life,
completely oblivious, on this lovely little cloud of privilege.
Why? Because it was easy to do so. Our entire society is
set up for families to have one mom and one dad.
It’s the automatic.
The default. The assumption.
Don’t believe me? The next time you’re out, drive by a new housing
development – or a new medical office, or a car dealership – geared towards
families, and look at the sign, If it has a family on it, it will likely contain one mom, one dad, and one or two kids. (And usually
everyone is white – but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.)
Automatic.
Filling out forms for your kids at the dentist or the new
dance school? How many of those forms still ask for “father’s name” and “mother’s
name”? My guess is at least 75%, despite queer families having existed for,
like, ever.
Default.
“What does your husband do?” the hair stylist would ask,
even if I never offered up my spouse’s gender in a conversation.
“He works in high tech,” I would reply. And on our conversation
would go while she made my roots not grey anymore.
Assumption.
I never looked too hard at this stuff because I didn’t have
to. Nothing about my family was questioned, so why would I question it? We were
nuclear and middle class and owned a home in a safe neighbourhood just beyond
the city’s greenbelt. Two sedans. A garden of perennials. A couple of dogs. We
were Pleasantville.
And now, with one change to one spouse’s gender identity, I
am keenly aware that we’re not so Pleasantville anymore.
How many times have I crossed out “father’s contact
information” and wrote “mother” in its place over the last few months? Answer: A
few times now, with a gentle conversation ensuing with the form-giver on the
importance of inclusion.
And, while there are thousands of same-sex families living in
Canada, finding any advertising geared towards us outside of Pride week is like
finding Willy Wonka’s golden ticket.
But, as an unapologetically social person, the most noticeable
difference comes from the once-easy conversations with strangers.
“What does your husband do?” the woman doing my nails will
ask.
“My wife, actually,” I’ll reply, as casually as I can. (That
moment of vulnerability still makes me a little nervous.) “She’s in high tech.”
Pause in conversation.
Subtle face change.
“Oh.”
What happens after that “Oh,” is anyone’s guess. Sometimes,
things go on as usual. Other times, I know we’re not going to be chatting quite
as openly as we were a few seconds before. The chatter cools. People become more
professional. Not rude, but definitely not friendly anymore.
And that hurts a little, by the way. Every. Single. Time.
The automatic. The default. The assumption.
And maybe I wouldn’t notice this quite as much if I had not
enjoyed that glorious privilege for so long. Going from easy to not-quite-so-easy
is a learning experience for me.
We’ve stopped holding hands in public. When my beautiful
wife leans in for a kiss in the driveway before heading off to work, I
automatically glance around first to see who’s watching. It’s a safety thing,
and not something I had to do before.
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| Pride 2016: we marched in the parade and held hands the entire time. I miss being able to do this the other 364 days each year. |
We’ve come a long way as a society, but I’m now learning
firsthand how far we still have to go.
So, how do we get
there?
Well, when a little kid comes downstairs declaring how impossible
it is for a child not to have a dad, we can do some educating.
In this case, I told him lots of people don’t have a dad or
don’t have a mom. That some people have two dads or two moms, and that’s
perfectly normal. (His own mom, one of my good friends and a wonderful ally,
happily let me explain what had simply never come up with him in conversation
before.)
I showed him pictures of our family and said, “See? Two moms
and three kids. No dad.” And then I showed him more pictures of more families I
know. Two dads and an adopted son with a different skin colour. Two other dads
with four smiling children. Two moms with two beautiful girls.
“Oh. Okay, then,” he said happily, and ran back upstairs to
play. Jackson shrugged and followed him.
And that’s how we’re
going to get there. Because now, when this kid is older and maybe helping
create forms at his first job, he’s going to make sure those forms don’t say “mother”
and “father.” Because now he’ll know that isn’t everyone’s normal, even if it
is his.
And long before then, he’ll be the kid correcting other kids’
assumptions. “Yeah? Well I know a family with two moms and they don’t even need
a dad to be born!”
Meanwhile, I’ll keep going back to the same nail salon, despite
the awkward I-don’t-know-what-to-say silence. I’m determined to become a part
of their normal, so the next woman married to another woman doesn’t get met
with the same.
Let’s change the
automatic. Question the default. Obliterate the assumptions. (And have cute nails.)