MY 2 DADS
JJ has 2 daddies. Let the wackiness ensue.
My Two Daddies (Can Beat Up Your One) – The Single!
This post has been a long time in the making, but I’m super stoked to finally introduce “My Two Daddies (Can Beat Up Your One)” — the single, the finished product, the labor of love. And oh yeah, the fundraiser…
Y’see, I had such a blast writing, performing and recording this — yet I know it’s not going Platinum or winning any Grammies (CMA award, maybe?). It’s pretty much a vanity project wrapped in a love letter to my son (with a smidge of me working through my insecurities as a father). But I figured while I’m sharing it with the universe, I’d try to raise some money for a good cause. And I’ve found no better cause that supports other families with Two Daddies (or Two Mommies) than Family Equality Council.
But before I prattle on too much about my own benevolence… THE SONG!
I originally wrote the lyrics as part of a copywriting workshop. I was attending a design conference in the Texas hill country, and our assignment was to write a country song using our own life as the subject. JJ was about 18 months old at the time, and already I was pondering worrying what trials he might face as the adopted son of two gay men. I pictured our little fella getting picked on by some mustachioed, homophobic toddler (I know, my imagination runneth over) and in response, JJ puffs out his chest, chubby fists on his be-daipered hips, the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly playing in the background…
…and thus was born “My Two Daddies” — the mock battle cry of a picked-on kid who’s unequivocally proud of who he is, where he comes from, and that he’s dang lucky to have “the two best daddies that you’ve ever seen.”
Click to hear a snippet
NOW ABOUT THAT FUNDRAISING BIT…
All the profits from song sales will go to Family Equality Council, so please mosey over to iTunes or Amazon and pony up your 99 cents. Our family (and others like ours) sure appreciates your contribution!
And if you’re feeling a might more generous, please consider making a donation directly to my fundraising page at Family Equality Council, where I’ll be tracking donations made from song sales as well as what’s contributed on the fundraising page. My goal is to raise $500 by Father’s Day (June 16) — but I’d be pleased as punch to raise and/or extend that based on how things go… more here >>
Same-Sex Marriage: What We’re Really Fighting For
While last week was a monumental one for marriage equality and its supporters, it was also quite eventful for our little family. A quick recap:
I was coming off a “theater high,” having performed the weekend prior in Xanadu with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington. However, re-entry into real life was rather bumpy. I hadn’t been around for JJ’s nightly routine in almost a week, and he acquired a few new tricks in my absence: finding new (and unending) reasons to get of bed, coloring on walls, and a higher register in his screaming voice chief among them.
Our family dog baby girl was recovering from her third surgery in as many months — and she’s still not out of the woods.
Papa and I had our first date night in months. It was about as romantic as you’d expect between toddler parents (i.e. sharing stresses, trying to stay awake, drinking). Yet the real high point was me kneeling over the toilet at 4am, and then either parked on top of it or in bed for the next three days.
It wasn’t all screaming and sickness. An interview we’d done with NPR (not about gay marriage, but remote controls) aired on Morning Edition. While they used very little of what we recorded, and apparently I wasn’t miked well enough so can only be heard muttering in the background, it was great to hear Papa and JJ get some airtime!
Add to all that, ongoing struggles with money, work, eating/exercise habits, potty training, pacifier addiction, too much TV, not enough family time… It’s not surprising the Supreme Court hearings about Proposition 8 and DOMA snuck up on me.
I’m sure I’d gotten a dozen emails from various organizations I follow, and had even seen some chatter about it online. But with everything going on in my life, I was in a bit of a bubble… and not the cool Glinda the Good Witch kind.
So I was genuinely shocked when I logged onto Facebook late Tuesday morning and saw a sea of red — dozens and dozens of friends had replaced their profile photos with equal signs to show their support of same-sex marriage.
I was also genuinely moved. I not only felt accepted, but advocated for. And I felt a sense of community I’d never experienced on Facebook before. And it wasn’t just my LGBT friends — but a number of my heterosexual friends. It was having so many of them mixed in that made it feel more real, like more of a change had taken place.
As the day progressed, the numbers of red avatars grew. People (yours truly included) started creating their own versions, which ranged from the politically clever to the absurdly silly. Several friends who’d made it to the rallies started posting photos of the crowds. Various news sites and blogs started uploading recordings from the hearings. And by the second day of hearings, there were already stories about the profile photo phenomenon happening on Facebook. All told, nearly 3 million people changed their profile pics to some variation of the red and pink equal sign.
I want to acknowledge all those straight friends in particular: I felt and appreciated the love. It didn’t just make me feel equal, it made me feel like I was being carried around on your shoulders at the end of Rudy.
Now before I get too sappy (too late?), I need to answer the question posed in the title.
What are we really fighting for?
While the show of virtual support was wonderful, and indicates in a small way how things have shifted, that’s not enough in itself. And the court battles are not just so we can get married. Gays have been creating their own weddings (commitment ceremonies, civil unions, beach parties) for decades. The same goes for building our own families, whether it’s through biology, adoption, surrogacy or circumstance. We’ve also learned ways to circumvent the walls blocking us from healthcare benefits, visitation rights, inheritance issues and parenting restrictions, so that we can protect these self-made families the best we can. We’re an industrious bunch.
But being a family is hard, regardless of who has what parts. And legal marriage makes all the stuff I’ve described — both the personal stories and the general issues — a little bit easier to manage. So to answer my question: We’re fighting for all of it. For marriage, for equality, for our families, for our lives.
Because when one week finds you dealing with food poisoning, dog surgeries, remote controls, temper tantrums and crayon graffiti, you’ll take all the legal/societal/spiritual/financial/emotional help you can get.
An abridged version of this article also appears on The Good Men Project.
Have a Happy, Twisted Valentine’s Day!
Click to view larger...if you dare.
I created this disturbing little Photoshop masterpiece on Valentine’s Day, probably the first or second year Papa and I were together. It features my much-less gray (but still gigantic) head on Papa’s bare-assed baby body. We always joked that this would be what our children would look like. Thank God we were wrong.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Happy Birthday Son! Love, Your Soon-To-Be (Legally) Married Dads & the State of Maryland
Victory Speeches, Birthday Wishes & Wedding Bells
Exhausted from a very trying week and a half, I stayed up as late as I could to watch election (and Question 6) results last night. I gave up around 11 and trudged upstairs to get ready for bed — and when I came out of the bathroom, the election had been called for Obama. I went to sleep happy about that, but stressed knowing the votes for Question 6 were uncomfortably close.
I woke up around 1am to pee, checked Facebook and started tearing up reading all the posts about the victory for marriage equality in Maryland. And not just general “Woohoo!” posts, but status updates from several friends announcing their intentions to get married in 2013, as well as many, many posts, emails and messages to me personally congratulating our family.
After my 1am nature call/sigh of relief/internal jump for joy, I updated my Facebook status:
Woke up to pee and am now tearing up after checking Facebook and seeing that same-sex marriage will finally be legal in Maryland. Can’t wait to tell Jon in the morning (on his 3rd birthday) that Daddy and Papa are gonna get married!
But at 6:30am (after a very un-fitful night of non-sleep) I was awakened by JJ turning on our light and then loudly whining because Papa couldn’t play with him because Papa had to plunge the toilet and couldn’t find said plunger, so then I had to get up and help hunt for it, as well as appease the cranky (now) 3 year-old and change a very wet diaper. Needless to say, there were no birds chirping sweetly, flitting about and putting wedding garlands in my hair.
But as I was changing JJ’s diaper, I wished him Happy Birthday and told him I had a special birthday surprise for him: Daddy and Papa were going to get married! His reaction was to stare in mild confusion and disinterest. I reminded him he had been to Uncle Baby’s and Aunt Amy’s wedding (which he was too young to remember)… still no reaction. I told him, “You get to be the ring bearer!” <Blinks>
A few minutes later when Papa came downstairs, I asked JJ to tell Papa what I’d told him. I of course had to jog his memory about the whole marriage thing, but when I asked him to tell what he (JJ) was going to do at the wedding, he declared proudly, “I”m get to ring the bell!”
We already have rings, so we don’t technically need a ring bearer. And besides, the image of JJ running around ringing a big, loud bell after his Daddy and Papa say their legal “I Do’s” seems just about perfect.
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Here are a few of my favorite congratulatory messages:
Congrats to Marylanders! Brent & Nick, I am so there when (and if) you decide to get married. Whether it’s a big blow-out like last time or a quiet city hall affair, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Love you both!! And your little boo-boo too!
My old friend Brent is just one of many citizens of Maryland who can finally get married to the person he loves! Let go of prejudice! Gold bless America!
My [Facebook] feed is pretty good for now. A few people have been negative nancies, but not too bad. I have one friend in Maryland who made me teary this morning because he got up to pee in the middle of the night and saw that gay marriage is now legal in his state… he was so happy that he could tell his son today, on his 3rd birthday, that his dads are going to get married. That made me happy.
HUGS!!!! Yay to your family!!!
CONGRATULATIONS my friend!!! Happy happy joy joy!!
I just found out that my brother and his partner of 15 years are now allowed to get married and have a “legal” family with their son. I love and look up to them both so much. They set such a wonderful example and inspiration not as gays but as people who love and make it work every day. They’ve taught me so much over the years and guided me out of my naiveté, to prevent heartache and prolonged drama that plague so many in our community. They deserve the best life and happiness. When I grow up, I want to be just like them.
Vote, Baby, Vote!
It’s been a very busy — and milestoney — week and a half.
JJ went trick-or-treating for the first time…
…We hosted his 3rd birthday party for a dozen or so kids (I lost count after a while)…
…I performed “My 2 Daddies (Can Beat Up Your 1)”* at my chorus’ annual retreat… And won the Judges Award!
And tonight is the Presidential election. Hitting even closer to home (literally and figuratively) — a big decision regarding our family rests in the hands of our fellow Marylanders…
That’s a little photo I whipped up for my Facebook page, along with this message:
I realize the vast majority of my Facebook friends support same-sex marriage, but we ALL have family members, neighbors, co-workers, etc. that might not. So if you know someone in Maryland that might be on the fence, feel free to use our family as an example of ones that would benefit/suffer depending on how they vote.
(PS: And in case you question my little “ad,” as exploiting my child for political purposes, it wasn’t US that wanted to put our equality to a vote…)
I had wanted to do a lot more — I even considered swiping a neighbor’s “Vote for 6″ sign, seeing as how we had so much going on these last couple of weeks and didn’t have time to pick up our own. But aside from making a contribution early on in the campaign, I think we’ve probably had the most impact by just being a family. Being out there in the community — hosting birthday parties, trick-or-treating, shopping for groceries, taking family walks through the neighborhood. Living our lives as if we ARE married, regardless of what others think or the law books say.
To be honest, my everyday life won’t change much if the law gets overturned. It would be great to have all the protections in place for us and JJ, but many of those we’ve already set in place on our own. What does bother me is if the law gets defeated (as it has once already, and has been in many, many states), is the feeling of being officially and legally rejected in my own state. The realization that when push came to shove and when forced to choose, my fellow Marylanders might decide, nope — you’re not worthy. You’re not good enough. Your son is not deserving of the same security as others.
But I’m hopeful. Americans ARE continuing to rise up and be good human beings. Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, DC and good old Iowa. I’m hopeful because I have to be — it’s part of my job as a Dad.
And oh yeah, JJ’s actual birthday is Nov. 7 — wouldn’t having a couple of married Dads be an awesome birthday present?!?! Fingers crossed, and please vote YES on Question 6!
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*Stay tuned… a recording is being made, and hope to share it with you all soon!
Feeling Cocky
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all who liked/shared/commented/tweeted/retweeted/posted/etc in support of my goofy collage, and ultimately in support of marriage equality in my wonderful state of Maryland.
After tallying up all your cluckety-clicks, it looks like I’ll be donating $179 to Marylanders for Marriage Equality! If you’ve got a minute and few bucks, would you consider making a donation yourself to help MD4ME push this through? Our governor has signed a bill approving same-sex marriage, but enough opposition signatures were gathered to get a referendum on the ballot in November. So the day before JJ’s third birthday, Marylanders will be voting on whether or not his dads can be legally married. We could really use your help. I can’t promise you a wedding invite, but I can promise you the reception won’t be serving chicken sandwiches.
Bet let’s move on from the chicken nonsense. If you’re anything like me, you’re tired of hearing about and/or participating in this debate, and have completely lost your appetite for poultry for the foreseeable future. So I defer to the sage of our times to deliver the epilogue…
As Jon Stewart so eloquently (and snarkily, natch) summed it up:
“For people who are gay or support gay marriage, I get how seeing thousands of people come out to make this statement is incredibly disheartening. But take solace in this: gay marriage is happening. Like many drive-thru window lanes, it ain’t going backwards. And your bonus is this — you get gay marriage. And all your political opponents are going to get is type 2 diabetes.”
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| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Fast Feud Nation – Chik-fil-A Appreciation Day | ||||
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Card-carrying Dad
It took me forever to find the four Father’s Day cards I needed to buy this year. Yes, I said FOUR: one for Papa from me, one for Papa from JJ, one for my Dad from me, and one for my Dad from JJ. I realize I could do some doubling-up there, but being a 2-dad household makes Father’s Day a pretty big deal, and I want to make sure everyone gets all the love and appreciation in paper form that they so richly deserve.
Here are a few things I learned from my quest for the perfect Father’s Day cards…
Father’s Day cards are the most goofy and sexist of all the greeting card industry-created holidays. In my vast multi-store research, I’ve found they generally fall into four themes hackneyed clichés:
1. GRILLING, AKA: Yeah, yeah, it’s “the only kind of cooking a real man does”… so guess what? You’re cooking today.
2. HAMMOCKS / RECLINERS, AKA: You’re allowed to relax today, but only this once because you’re generally a very lazy person who I can barely tolerate.
3. TOOLS, AKA: Hey, Mr. Handyman, I hope this card reminds you of all the stuff you promised you’d do around the house but haven’t. Did I mention you’re lazy?
4. TIES / BRIEFCASES, AKA: While I appreciate that you work to support our family, please be aware that I spend way more time with the kids, so you’re kind of a second-class parent… Are the burgers done yet?
Keep in mind that ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of these cards were created with the assumption they’d be purchased by women for their husbands, fathers, or husbands’ fathers. So there seems to be (at least in the sampling I’ve presented to make my point) a whole lotta generalization and stereotyping going on here. Where are the cards for the dads that DON’T like to grill or hammer or wear a tie or spend their days in a recliner glued to ESPN?
I've never undertood these creepy kids-dressed-as-adults cards
And if you’re a dad who sleeps next to another dad, forget it. It’s hard enough finding a gender-neutral Valentine’s Day or Anniversary card in anything resembling a mainstream retail store. Try finding a Father’s Day card to a husband FROM a husband. It’s about as common as a department store ad depicting two kids with their gay dads. It’s out there, just not a lot of people are doing it.
Luckily, there are some folks at least trying. Family Equality Council and Children’s Tylenol created some same-sex Father’s Day e-cards you can customize and send for free. This is a great idea and I applaud the effort. My only beef is that they are for both dads together. I’m my own person, and so is Papa. Joint Father’s Day cards might be okay for those freaky couples who share an email address, but not us. Plus, JJ knows us as “Daddy” and “Papa” — he doesn’t get yet that he has two fathers.
On the topic of Papa, I’ve mentioned before the lack of non-grandpa “Papa” references out there. The same applies to greeting cards. Unless I’m mistaken, these cards are not singing the praises of the Spanish-speaking, gay Papas of the world.
I know I’ve done a lot of griping here, so I want to end with how excited I am at how things are changing and becoming more accepting and supportive of families like ours. President Obama, JCPenney, the myriad of GLBT advocacy groups — they’ve all contributed to what’s been an incredible few months for gay Americans. Even so, there’s still an abundance of hatred and violence and plain old ignorance — and lots of work still to be done.
Speaking of work, one of the things I found particularly humorous in the hammock-themed cards is that they all talk about how “It’s your day, relax! Kick up your feet! We’ll do all the work today!” Again, these were intended for men with wives who had their own special day the previous month, and presumably do all the heavy lifting the third Sunday in June. What do you do when you’re both supposed to relax? Let the kid run wild? Maybe it’s just because our kiddo is 2-1/2, but there’s no such thing as a relaxing Sunday in our house, Father’s Day or otherwise. Yet I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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(PS: I did find some pretty great cards for all the wonderful guys in my life, which I will be sharing with them privately. 
However, none of them even comes close to fully expressing how lucky I am to have such a wonderful Dad, loving husband and incredible son. So maybe next year I’ll just design my own…)
As a bonus, here’s one final card, which I think includes pretty much all of the aforementioned clichés:
I’m Super, Thanks for Asking! or Why Gay Superheroes Matter
The last time I heard this joke, I fell off my dinosaur laughing...
Gay comic book characters seem to be coming out in full force these days. DC Comics revealed last week that they’d be re-imagining one of their established heroes as gay in the near future; Marvel will feature a wedding on June 20th between one of its X-Men and his non-mutant boyfriend; and Archie Comics’ first gay character Kevin Keller got hitched to his BF in January. While gay and lesbian characters have existed in comics for a couple of decades, this recent batch of outings seems to be garnering more attention due to their close proximity to President Obama’s public support of same-sex marriage. As a gay man, a father, and a comic book fan, I couldn’t be more excited about the worlds (both real and imaginary) JJ’s growing up in!
Same-sex marriages are popping up in Marvel and Archie comics.
However, it’s been frustrating to see some of the reactions these stories have elicited. Of course there are the detractors, boycotters and general poopheads who think all of this is inappropriate, overly political or just plain icky. This post isn’t about them. What bothers me are the comments I’ve seen either A) griping that it’s all a publicity stunt or B) asking with superior indifference, “Who cares? It’s just a comic book.”
Okay, so A) yes, these comics are obviously trying to create buzz and increase sales. The current CEO of Archie Comics admitted as much in a recent article in The Washington Post. The same article quotes the editor of Marvel’s Astonishing X-Men as saying the gay-related storyline evolved from the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York last year, and is an attempt to keep Marvel on the cutting-edge. DC pulled a whopper of a publicity stunt in September with a company-wide reboot of all its books and characters, even resetting iconic titles like Action Comics and Detective Comics back to #1 (they were in the 900′s and 800′s, respectively). This also created the perfect opportunity to rewrite the sexual orientation of a well-known hero. Who am I to complain if a little opportunism brings out, proud (and married) a little further into the mainstream?
As to B)… I agree there are more pressing matters in the world. However, my son is not yet 3 years old and he’s going to have plenty of time to learn about the hardships and heaviness of life. But for now, I’m trying to instill — rather successfully, I might add — my love of superheroes and comics to him. To his toddlery brain, the day’s biggest concerns are pancakes, his new swing set, and playing with/watching/dressing up as superheroes. And being that JJ has two dads, it would thrill me to no end for him to grow up having even a few examples of gay heroes or same sex couples in the comics universe. Because they’ve yet to show up on Sesame Street, Dora or Yo Gabba Gabba. And before someone else says it, those shows would do well to have gay characters. There are numerous examples of married couples, “hetero” animal parents, and mommy/daddy combos on pretty much every kids’ show out there. Hey Diego, I’m sure there’s a baby penguin needing to be reunited with his two dads somewhere… just saying.
So, Mr. So-Above-It-All Commenter, to answer your question: I care. I don’t care who the new gay character will be, just that there is one. Unless it’s The Joker — poor Robin would never hear the end of it.
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So who do I think the gay DC character will be? I’ve read quite a few articles on the subject, and you can tell which were written by non-comics fans. Their speculations have been both obvious (Aquaman is married folks, even in the reboot) and misinformed (the current version of Robin is Batman’s son, so… ick.) It’s looking like it will be someone from Earth 2. They’ve just started to bring those characters into the reboot, and it seems the previously senior members of the DC Universe are now spry, young things. So why not have one of them switch teams as well? All signs are pointing to Alan Scott (the original Green Lantern). His one brief appearance so far (he’s yet to don any super-powered jewelry) shows him as a hunky, jet-setting tycoon, trading sassy banter with his female assistant. Plus, it will make for juicy headlines: “Green Lantern Now Gay!” Green Lantern’s name is fairly recognizable, and the casual reader won’t get past the headline to realize it’s not the same character Ryan Reynolds played in the not-so-stellar GL movie, making the news not as earth-shattering as it sounds. After all, it is just a comic book.
JJ enjoying his new swing set and proudly sporting a Green Lantern shirt.
Happy Birthday Papa!
I got to play full-on SAHD the other day, so took the opportunity to initiate a craft project with JJ. I see all these amazing books, blogs and segments on TV on how to make incredible crafts with your kids and am genuinely intimidated. How will I find the time to come up with ideas? What if JJ’s not into drawing or art or creative stuff? What good will I be to him as a dad?!?
But then I remember he’s still just two, and his favorite things to do still include making messes, touching everything, and destroying stuff. So while he’s limited on how much he can actually create, we’ve got a few more good years of dad/son craft-bonding ahead of us.
The chosen project was to make a birthday card for Papa. Have you ever tried to find a birthday card (or any card for that matter) for a “Papa”? I’ve come across a couple of Father’s Day cards (some of which were for grandfathers) but generally the Papas of the world get the shaft when it comes to cards, books, TV shows, etc. So we had to represent.
I knew I needed to keep it simple for JJ, so it was fun (and challenging) enough to just let him go to town scrawling wildly on colored construction paper with his jumbo Crayons and markers. I then cut them out, punched a bunch of star-shaped holes in them, and strung it up like a mobile. (Bonus: this serves as a fun spelling tool!)
Papa was very pleased, so I’m hoping this will become an annual tradition – with JJ getting more and more involved, and me moving into a more art directorial position. And I guess eventually just the guy who buys the stuff and cleans up.
The artist and his handiwork
MacDaddy 2.0
I’ve spent 15 years gently pushing the Apple Agenda and iLiving by example, and it’s finally bore fruit… Papa has seen the light and purchased his first Mac! STEVE BE PRAISED!
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