Arts
Lucie Blue Tremblay:
Folk Concert Benefits Pride
Queerly Pursuing the Wiccan Path
Rocking and Writing Against Depression
Navel Gazing Author Predicts the 'End of Gay'
Choosing Fatherhood
David Strah's 24 Stories Inspire Gay Parents
Reviewed by Scott Sherman
| Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood by David Strah with Susanna Margolis Tarcher/Putnam, 2003. |
For most straight couples, parenthood – should they want it – comes pretty easily. A little fooling around, nine months of pickles and ice cream, a few hours of labor and voila, as Joan Rivers once tastefully put it, look who’s here on a leash.
Gay couples have it much harder. Ignoring, for now, the societal prejudices and legal barriers we may face, gay parenting brings a hundred other questions: Considering surrogacy? Do you find an anonymous egg/sperm donor or make a baby with a friend? Who carries the fetus? Is surrogacy even legal in your state? What if someone changes their mind? What about adoption? Domestic or international? Special needs or non-disabled? Do you want an infant or a toddler? Would you consider an older child? How about a child of another race? The list goes on and on.
David Strah, in his wonderful celebration of gay fatherhood, Gay Dads, (co-written with Susanna Margolis) answers none of those questions for you. In his brief introduction, and in the portraits of gay families that follow, Strah takes no sides. Regardless of how you got the kids, every gay family, in his eyes, is a work of art: beautiful, priceless and one-of-a-kind.
Thankfully, Strah recognizes that works of art don’t need fancy framing. Gay Dads consists of 24 chapters, each telling the story of a different gay family (the last, Strah’s own). Strah tells their tales in language that is blessedly clear and direct. He doesn’t distract us with fussy prose or political polemics, letting his subjects speak for themselves.
And although each of the chapters is fairly short – about nine or ten pages apiece –you’ll really feel like you’ve gotten to know these remarkably unremarkable families. For each family, Strah describes how the parents-to-be decided from where their children would come. Just about every conceivable option is presented: surrogacy, domestic and international adoption, biracial households, foster parenting and co-parenting are all covered.
The stories are also varied in the amount of struggle the parents endured to become parents. For some families, their children arrived as easily and welcomed as the sun on a Vermont summer day. Others faced – and overcame – all kinds of bigotry and obstacles, from resistant families to hostile social workers to swastika-painting neighbors.
Strah treats all these families equally. No one’s story is presented any less dramatically than anyone else’s. The author knows that every tale in this book is worth telling, and his respect and affection for his subjects shines through.
Strah’s stories are accompanied by black-and-white pictures of each of the families. Like Strah’s writing, the photos, taken by Kris Timden, are marvelously unpretentious and don’t get in the way of letting their subjects shine through. I only wish the photographs were larger, but I suppose I’ll have to wait until the coffee-table book version for that.
As a gay dad myself, I wish I’d had Strah’s book as inspiration during those moments when parenthood seemed impossibly far away. However, I’m glad I have it now, to read about families like mine, and to share with family and friends.
Openly gay men who are choosing to become parents are often swimming headfirst into new and untested waters. We couldn’t ask for a better guide than Strah to show us the way. He doesn’t try to teach us how to swim, but, by illuminating the navigational paths of others, he shows us how rewarding diving in can be.
Scott Sherman lives with his partner and son in Richmond.