My big fat gay Jewish family
By Caryn Aviv
I will never forget the day I was propositioned to become a gay co-parent. I was 32 and had already been thinking about the baby question, but was still single and fuzzy on the details. So when David gingerly popped the question, "Would you be interested in having a kid with me and Gregg?" I thought the earth was moving underneath my car as we drove through the Castro district in San Francisco.
David and I met a few years earlier at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, the local gay and lesbian synagogue. I had recently arrived in town to start a new chapter in life after finishing research in Jerusalem for a Ph.D. Newly out of the closet and eager to connect with the gay Jewish community, I signed up as a part-time Hebrew school teacher. David had returned from his graduate school research in Moscow with his husband Gregg, to resume his post as head of the synagogue’s school. We hit it off immediately, so much so that we started writing the first of our three books together.
Two years later, my would-be gay dads had moved to Denver for David’s teaching gig at a university. I was still living in San Francisco, and we were still talking about co-parenting. But now the weekly conversations became complicated by distance. How would an overeducated, nice Jewish girl from Chicago make such a life-altering decision? I decided to develop a Powerpoint presentation analyzing all the pros and cons of all the various options. Advertisement Did I want to be a single lesbian mom by choice in San Francisco and have either David or Gregg act as the sperm donor and "special uncle?" Certainly not, given Bay Area real estate prices, and no viable partner on the horizon to help with diapers and a mortgage. Did I want to act as a surrogate for David and Gregg to have and raise a baby in Denver? That idea seemed even more unappealing. If I moved to Denver, would I ever find a suitable girlfriend, instead of the revolving door of Jewish recovering alcoholics and emotionally needy cat-lovers I had been dating in San Francisco? Could I consider living in a state without a Trader Joe’s? Clearly, the stakes were higher than I thought.
I spent a year exploring a move to Denver. It was a gamble to leave behind a well-paying job, my beloved city, and a seemingly endless supply of inappropriate lesbian dating choices. I reasoned that we would either figure it out or not, and if the whole plan didn’t work, I could always move back to California and learn to love cats.
While debating a move, I put my research skills to work. From my contacts at the synagogue, I interviewed lesbian moms and gay dads who were doing this already. "Just make sure you have all your agreements in writing in case people split up!" intoned one solemn lesbian mom who was battling her ex-wife in court. "Try to find a duplex to make daily logistics easier," advised a happy gay dad who lived with his partner next to his lesbian co-parent and kid in the Castro.
Fast forward another year. I moved to Denver, and rented an attic owned by a lovely gay couple who applauded my moxie and family plans. David and Gregg and I began to spend a lot of time together, essentially weaving ourselves into a family even without the presence of a kid. After six months of intense conversation, we decided to seal the deal, with a contract, of course.
We had worked through all the usual things that straight couples negotiate (except the sex), like values, money, and which families we’d visit for Rosh Hashanah and Passover. We also considered our legal options, given that Colorado law doesn’t really know how to handle a family with three parents. I think we all felt giddy about the prospect of trying to get pregnant, and our plan was to start inseminating at the beginning of the school year. All our parents began buying baby clothes as soon as they heard the news. Life was ripe with possibility.
On our second try, a great miracle happened. I got pregnant. Who knew it would be so easy? In retrospect, I wouldn’t have chosen to experience the insomnia and hormonal lunacy of pregnancy as a single person. But in a sense, I wasn’t really single. I had the support of not one, but two excited future dads who watched with fascination and awe at the growing blob in my belly that waved and gurgled on the ultrasound machine at the OB’s office. Nine months later, I showed up at the hospital with my birth ball, doula, and two dads. The nurses didn’t know what to make of us, but I was too engrossed by the crazy things that were happening to my body to care much by that point. And even though I don’t consider myself religious, the first words out of my mouth after our daughter Sasha arrived were "Baruch Hashem!" (Blessed is God!)
Fast forward another two years. It’s been almost a decade since I first met my gay dads. We often simply watch with delight as our daughter Sasha happily runs around after David and Gregg’s two dogs. It gives me indescribable pleasure to watch Sasha laugh, dance to Shir-La-La (outrageously hip Jewish kiddie rock), and get excited at the prospect of lighting candles for Shabbat.
Many straight folks, when they hear about my family, earnestly ask me how we do it. I often get questions like, "Does Sasha get confused about who her parents are?"
I’ve learned to answer these questions graciously, reminding myself that it’s a learning opportunity for people to expand their understanding of the word "family." In other words, I have lots of chances to act as a poster child for the gay rights/gay family movement, and I take that responsibility seriously. Here’s what I tell people: "Think of a divorced family in two houses, except in our case, there’s no acrimony, just lots and lots of love." Their eyes light up with this analogy, but in many ways, the shorthand is completely wrong.
Unlike divorced families, we intentionally created this family structure, without any legal recognition, and without any of the rupture and pain that often accompanies divorce. Clearly, we need to find better and more illuminating explanations. But perhaps it would be better if we gay folks simply stopped relying on straight analogies altogether to describe our families.
I know that this kind of co-parenting isn’t for everyone. And I know that some people reading this will probably cringe out of fear for our child’s future and bemoan what is happening to the Jewish people. That’s okay.
What I do know is that for me, my gay dads, and hopefully for our daughter Sasha, the big fat gay Jewish family we’ve chosen to create makes perfect sense. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Caryn Aviv is a lecturer at the University of Denver and the author of ’New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora’
Haaretz.com