Let's take a moment to get real about the professionals trying to help our kids. The doctors, psychiatrists, nurses, therapists, hospitals, social workers, and counselors who touch my kids lives. There are very few resources for parents who have kids with mental illness and fewer still for those who have kids with severe mental illness based on childhood trauma. When you add in the faith-based nature of many organizations out there for adoption, foster care, and childhood mental illness, as a queer family your options become even more limiting.
I'm going to disclose some information that would be confidential if it weren't ridiculous. My child has been seen by 4 general physicians, 7 psychiatrists, 9 therapists, 3 psychiatric hospitals, 5 different ERs, 3 social workers, 4 counselors, and innumerable nurses. These numbers are likely underestimated since hospital visits spanning weeks surely have rotating staff. In total she has been diagnosed with RAD, ODD, ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorder, Mood Disorder, PTSD, Schizophrenia and Autism. That's an awful lot of "we don't have a fucking clue."
As a parent you have an obligation to ensure the health and well being of your child. Realistically, although their intention is to help, I really haven't met a professional who's been able to significantly help in any way. In one instance I had a therapist who was honest with me after completing an intensive program she told me two things: 1. It wasn't worth us continuing with her program because the problem was my child had some wiring in her brain get messed up when she was a baby. Group doesn't really help with that, not really. 2. That she thought we were doing a fantastic job, all things considered. I'm not sure I agree with #2, but I was grateful for the boost that week.
I still haul my kid to therapy (she osculates between demanding to go "I can't live without" to refusing to go "I'll jump out of the car on the way there"), to a psychiatrist, and, when we need to, an ER or psychiatric hospital. You have to keep your kid safe, and you have to show schools, social workers, your family and friends that you're trying. My parents still believe in a concept that I gave up on a long time ago. They believe that if we just find the right doctor, therapist, medicine combo that the kid will be "fixed". Sometimes my kid believes this.
Lean into your computer screen real close, because i'm about to get real honest. Sometimes our kids can't be fixed. Sometimes fixing takes decades. That rewiring may have to be done by parents, teachers, aunts, grandparents, coaches, friends and neighbors a hundred times each before it'll really stick. How many of us have that many folks interested in our kid? How many of us can honestly say that many folks stuck around when our kids mental illness exploded in some destructive ugliness?
We know our kids. We know what will trigger them, how to keep them calm, how to temper disappointment and curtail the mania. We know what our kids real Diagnosis is, how to help them, what medicines are likely to work and what aren't. We know what the manipulations are and why they had that nightmare tonight. We know why March is always a bad month, why birthdays are bittersweet, and what happens if they do sneak in that 6th cookie. We live our kids every day, no professional can replace that intimate knowledge.
Yes, we should take our kids to the doctors, therapists, and psychiatrists they need. No, we shouldn't always take their treatment and diagnosis as the word of God. No, you shouldn't exhaust yourself running from appointment to appointment. At the end of the day you are your child's best hope of carving out a fruitful and productive life. You're there and in it. If you've got good instincts, trust them. If you can find professionals that are willing to listen to you- keep them. Be wary of ceding too much control and power of your life and your child's to folks whose diagnosis and treatment plans look more like a throw of a dart then a careful examination of your perspective.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Top 10 Queer Parenting Differences
So far we haven't talked much about what it's like to be a queer parent. Which is funny, considering the name of the blog. For all of our straight readers and aspiring queer parent readers... I think the point is that the daily struggle of being a parent is exactly the same whom ever you are. The burden may be more or less if you're single, divorced, poly, but the nature of the every day work is the same. The struggles my kids and I go through every day may be more extreme then other parents, but the nature of the work is fairly similar.
But there has to be some difference? Right?? Being lesbian or queer has to make a difference? Here's my Top 10 list for how I see queer parenting different then straight parenting (in no particular order):
Top 10
1. We're famous! We don't live in San Francisco, we live in the good ol' Midwest of America. We're the famous lesbians with kids at school, at the grocery store, the bank, the post office and the local restaurants. No one knows our names, but everyone knows us. And for those Midwest-phobes... 95% of the folks who remember us, greet us with a smile.
2. Kids at school suck in a homophobic way. Before kids at school realized my kids had lesbian parents they'd make fun of them for their noses. Noses, right? How dumb is that? About as dumb as making fun of someone for their lesbian parents. My kids have been called lesbians, have been made fun of when stepping outside of their traditional gender roles, and have been nervous about bringing friends home to hang out. One kid made fun of my kids because I cried at their band concert (not because I'm gay, just because I cried). I look at what my kids have had to deal with, and what I dealt with as a closeted youth, and it's pretty similar. It doesn't seem to effect them as much, probably because they don't internalize it as someone struggling with their identity might (assuming they're straight).
3. Makeup. I haven't worn makeup in years. YEARS. So when my kids got to that age, I helped them pick out makeup and was kinda like "have at it"! You know what they did? They put it on horribly for a couple weeks (what Middle Schooler doesn't?), then had a couple makeup sessions with friends at school and figured it out.
4. Shaving, apparently that's still important? Not to be a stereotypical lesbian here- but I haven't shaved in 10 years. The annoying thing about shaving and makeup is that although this is a typical American tween/teen thing, as someone who's rejected these... it's hard to let go and let my kids explore their expression (have no fear Christian Right, my kids wear makeup when they want to... and shave their legs).
5. Lack of queer friends. I'm sure there's a bunch of baby toting lesbians out there, but there aren't gay folks with teens our age. Our friends consist of a number of friendly straight folks who live in our neighborhood that have kids our kids age (or younger). It's hard enough meeting gay people when it takes a month to arrange a date night then to meet folks who either you have nothing in common with or they get this repulsed look when you mention kids.
6. Family. For most LGBTQIATS folks family sucks anyway. Sadly, family tends to suck more with kids. When you've got kids with issues, family can really suck. Sadly, all that judgmental bullshit you put up with from family by being gay, x10 by adopting kids, and x20 by having kids with issues. No one at school, in a therapist office, at a doctor's office thinks my kids have issues because they have gay parents, but my homophobic relatives do. You see these lifetime movies where the family pulls together to support the struggling family. In our experience you get the exact opposite. This is one of the biggest challenges to being queer parents- we don't have the family support system to help our family.
7. Trauma. I don't know many queer folks of my generation who haven't experienced some sort of trauma. As much as some individuals experience the "post-gay" story where parents, friends, family, and society doesn't seem to care if you're gay, that wasn't and hasn't been my experience. Queer individuals are still committing suicide at alarming rates, getting kicked out of home, having bibles thrown in their face, being raped, murdered, and abused. The physical and emotional abuse take a toll on our psych. When you're parenting traumatized kids and in some ways dealing with the emotional and sometimes physical abuse they serve up on a daily basis. It can trigger you, can knock down your defenses and erode your self esteem.
8. Mom and Dad moments. As someone who doesn't follow gender norms, it's odd to find yourself forced into them sometimes. Whether it's a typical "mom" or "dad" moment, it's still a parenting moment that needs to happen. Although I'm a woman, I find the conversation about changing a tire a lot more comfortable then the conversation about the best approach to eye-liner. Both conversations happen. I hold my kid when she has a nightmare and read her a book to help her sleep. I bandage her finger when it gets cut chopping carrots. I dole out consequences when rules are broken. It's called parenting... I think "moms" and "dads" sell them self short when they task each other with gendered parent roles.
9. The biggest question I got when I first got the kids was "What do they call you guys." Just to be clear... the kids call me mom. They call my wife mom too. This is only confusing 2% of the time.
10. Figuring out who's wearing the pants. Oh wait.. this is a different top 10 list.
But there has to be some difference? Right?? Being lesbian or queer has to make a difference? Here's my Top 10 list for how I see queer parenting different then straight parenting (in no particular order):
Top 10
1. We're famous! We don't live in San Francisco, we live in the good ol' Midwest of America. We're the famous lesbians with kids at school, at the grocery store, the bank, the post office and the local restaurants. No one knows our names, but everyone knows us. And for those Midwest-phobes... 95% of the folks who remember us, greet us with a smile.
2. Kids at school suck in a homophobic way. Before kids at school realized my kids had lesbian parents they'd make fun of them for their noses. Noses, right? How dumb is that? About as dumb as making fun of someone for their lesbian parents. My kids have been called lesbians, have been made fun of when stepping outside of their traditional gender roles, and have been nervous about bringing friends home to hang out. One kid made fun of my kids because I cried at their band concert (not because I'm gay, just because I cried). I look at what my kids have had to deal with, and what I dealt with as a closeted youth, and it's pretty similar. It doesn't seem to effect them as much, probably because they don't internalize it as someone struggling with their identity might (assuming they're straight).
3. Makeup. I haven't worn makeup in years. YEARS. So when my kids got to that age, I helped them pick out makeup and was kinda like "have at it"! You know what they did? They put it on horribly for a couple weeks (what Middle Schooler doesn't?), then had a couple makeup sessions with friends at school and figured it out.
4. Shaving, apparently that's still important? Not to be a stereotypical lesbian here- but I haven't shaved in 10 years. The annoying thing about shaving and makeup is that although this is a typical American tween/teen thing, as someone who's rejected these... it's hard to let go and let my kids explore their expression (have no fear Christian Right, my kids wear makeup when they want to... and shave their legs).
5. Lack of queer friends. I'm sure there's a bunch of baby toting lesbians out there, but there aren't gay folks with teens our age. Our friends consist of a number of friendly straight folks who live in our neighborhood that have kids our kids age (or younger). It's hard enough meeting gay people when it takes a month to arrange a date night then to meet folks who either you have nothing in common with or they get this repulsed look when you mention kids.
6. Family. For most LGBTQIATS folks family sucks anyway. Sadly, family tends to suck more with kids. When you've got kids with issues, family can really suck. Sadly, all that judgmental bullshit you put up with from family by being gay, x10 by adopting kids, and x20 by having kids with issues. No one at school, in a therapist office, at a doctor's office thinks my kids have issues because they have gay parents, but my homophobic relatives do. You see these lifetime movies where the family pulls together to support the struggling family. In our experience you get the exact opposite. This is one of the biggest challenges to being queer parents- we don't have the family support system to help our family.
7. Trauma. I don't know many queer folks of my generation who haven't experienced some sort of trauma. As much as some individuals experience the "post-gay" story where parents, friends, family, and society doesn't seem to care if you're gay, that wasn't and hasn't been my experience. Queer individuals are still committing suicide at alarming rates, getting kicked out of home, having bibles thrown in their face, being raped, murdered, and abused. The physical and emotional abuse take a toll on our psych. When you're parenting traumatized kids and in some ways dealing with the emotional and sometimes physical abuse they serve up on a daily basis. It can trigger you, can knock down your defenses and erode your self esteem.
8. Mom and Dad moments. As someone who doesn't follow gender norms, it's odd to find yourself forced into them sometimes. Whether it's a typical "mom" or "dad" moment, it's still a parenting moment that needs to happen. Although I'm a woman, I find the conversation about changing a tire a lot more comfortable then the conversation about the best approach to eye-liner. Both conversations happen. I hold my kid when she has a nightmare and read her a book to help her sleep. I bandage her finger when it gets cut chopping carrots. I dole out consequences when rules are broken. It's called parenting... I think "moms" and "dads" sell them self short when they task each other with gendered parent roles.
9. The biggest question I got when I first got the kids was "What do they call you guys." Just to be clear... the kids call me mom. They call my wife mom too. This is only confusing 2% of the time.
10. Figuring out who's wearing the pants. Oh wait.. this is a different top 10 list.
Alternatives
Apologies for the absence. As you may guess, things have been rough this summer.
So I read a post by the ACLU the other day: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/all-kids-nebraska-need-love . I sometimes think about how lucky my kids are to have been born in America in the 21st century. Even 100-200 years ago in early America they would have been regulated to homelessness, poorhouses, asylums, jail. Actually, they probably would have stayed with their birth mother. Did you know that the first child welfare laws were actually based on animal abuse laws?
Then I read this article about traumatized kids put in solitary, and I wonder if we've really come that far? When our legislative and voting bodies don't see the humanity in kids. I'll admit, in the daily grind of parenting I sometimes loose the compassion I need to have for my kid. Most of the time it's there, but not always. I can't imagine, even then, putting my kid in solitary confinement, locking her up and isolating her from people, family, and love.
Every kid deserves those things. Every kid.
Our government is responsible for kids when parents are deemed unfit. These are citizens, vessels of hope and should be receiving goodwill and compassion. Not simply be a budgetary number to be cut. A number to be confined.
Stand up and speak out.
So I read a post by the ACLU the other day: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/all-kids-nebraska-need-love . I sometimes think about how lucky my kids are to have been born in America in the 21st century. Even 100-200 years ago in early America they would have been regulated to homelessness, poorhouses, asylums, jail. Actually, they probably would have stayed with their birth mother. Did you know that the first child welfare laws were actually based on animal abuse laws?
Then I read this article about traumatized kids put in solitary, and I wonder if we've really come that far? When our legislative and voting bodies don't see the humanity in kids. I'll admit, in the daily grind of parenting I sometimes loose the compassion I need to have for my kid. Most of the time it's there, but not always. I can't imagine, even then, putting my kid in solitary confinement, locking her up and isolating her from people, family, and love.
Every kid deserves those things. Every kid.
Our government is responsible for kids when parents are deemed unfit. These are citizens, vessels of hope and should be receiving goodwill and compassion. Not simply be a budgetary number to be cut. A number to be confined.
Stand up and speak out.
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