In a Family Way
|
In
a Family Way |
by Ari Istar Lev
How exciting for a writer to have
a blank sheet of paper and a new audience! I have been invited (alright
I begged) to publish my lgbt parenting column in Out in the Mountains
and it is with excitement that I write this first column.
My name is Arlene Istar Lev and I am a family
therapist and I specialize in working with lgbt families, in Albany New
York. I recently published two books. The first book, Transgender
Emergence (Haworth Press, 2004), is an academic and clinical tome
on the need to de-pathologize transgender people and develop therapeutic
services that actually serve this population with respect and advocacy.
The second book, The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide
(Berkley/Penguin, 2004) addresses the real life issues that lgbt families
face. Rosie O'Donnell was kind enough to say the book is "both deeply
serious, and belly-laugh funny, while remaining filled with useful advice
and heartwarming personal stories." I won't tell you the price I've
had to pay to force those words out of her. I also write an lgbt parenting
advice column: trust me, my mother thinks the fact that I write an advice
column is very, very funny.
Apparently I still think I have more
to say!! First, like any good parent, queer or otherwise, I'd like to
tell you about my kids. Actually, I'd like to show you pictures. My older
son is nine years old, although I confess I'm not sure where the last
nine years have gone. He just came home tonight after his first week away
from home, on a class trip to a science/nature camp. It poured the entire
week, and the kids came off the bus smelling quite damp, like a moldy
basement. They proudly announced they hadn't showered all week, and one
mom pulled her son's pants down a bit, yelling, "Those are the same
underwear you left home in!" My son jumped off the bus and into my
arms (note: he is an inch taller than my 4-foot 9-inch frame), and without
any shame said, "I had a horrible time. I missed you every day."
So, that's my sensitive child.
My younger son just turned five, and is
a cross between Howie Mandel and Billy Crystal, with a large dash of Eddie
Haskell thrown in for good measure (remember Leave it to Beaver?
"Hello, Mrs. Cleaver, What a lovely day!" he said, while plotting
minor 1950s hoodlum behavior). My younger guy can work a room. He rises
early, spends his nights listening to subversive music, and fills my house
with wall-to-wall with projects and experiments. He's the kid with the
spider in his pocket. His brother is the arachnophobe, and if you spend
a few minutes imagining that dynamic (think Eddie Haskell) you have a
good sense of my daily life.
So, here I am, a nearly-fifty-year-old,
ageing dyke feminist scholar and activist, raising two handsome black
men in our Jewish queer household. And my goal, every couple of months,
is to tell you funny stories about my boys, while we collectively plot
the overthrow of patriarchal, homophobic, racist and otherwise icky government
public policy. Interested?
There is one more hat that I wear (yes,
I'm a femme with a large hat collection). I am a Board Member of Family
Pride (www.familypride.org),
the only national organization dedicated to education, advocacy, and support
for lgbt families. We recently launched a new initiative to compile data
on lgbt families and arm ourselves to fight the right-wing conservatives
who are hell-bent to tell lies about our families. Queer families are
at the center of the Republican backlash, organized by people like Dr.
James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family. Under their
influence, laws are being passed all over the county limiting lgbt people's
right to provide foster care, severing our right to adopt children, and
making same-sex second parent adoptions illegal. This places our children
and families in grave jeopardy.
Family Pride intends to be the voice of
not only reason and compassion, but scholarly knowledge and evidence-based
research – which by the way, is abundant – proving that our
families are healthy and functional. Under the leadership of Family Pride,
lgbt families are refusing to sit at the back of the bus. The Montgomery
Bus Boycott took more than a year, and for that year people refused to
ride the bus. So we invite you to walk, march, and carpool with Family
Pride – we are officially off the bus and standing up for our rights.
We too are focusing on the family, Come watch my younger son slip that
rainbow spider down Dobson's shirt and hear him squeal.
Ari Lev is a family therapist, activist, and lesbian mom. Contact
info: www.choicesconsulting.com
and www.proudparenting.com
(search: Dear Ari)