I write for (part of) my living.  Typically I write personal and narrative essays and the like, on educational themes.  Today, though, I've had this burning need to get this other thing on paper.  Normally, I'd have gotten it down and started sending it to my normal publishers, but this is different and I wouldn't even know where to begin publishing it and I'd like some feedback on it and well...my experience has been that, if I don't get these things out in the world when they come to me then they evaporate and I  see them elsewhere later on.  It may sound crazy, but I really believe that God or Allah or some other thing whispers these ideas in my ear sometimes, and that there's a "do this or I'm going to get someone else to do it" urgency to it.  So here it is.  Hopefully, I'll be able to sleep tonight.

I have to admit- it's wicked scary to do this this way.  

Two articles today gave me cause for reflection about children of LGBT families and the development of identity: "I'm Not Gay, but My Four Mums Are," in the Sydney Morning Herald profiles 21-year-old Eamon Waterford, who was born into a two-mom family, but acquired two more when they split up and repartnered. (Thanks, Abigail.) The article is full of plaudits for same-sex couples and our ability to raise well-adjusted children, though Eamon wryly notes LGBT parents' ability "to mess their kids up in exactly the same way hetero parents will do." It does not, however, shy away from exploring some of the distinctive issues in our families, such as Eamon's search to find a comfortable relationship with his biological father and his wife. Also, unlike most coverage of same-sex families, this one does not cite any ultra-right "authorities" spouting prejudice disguised as scientific "evidence," though it does note that conservative opposition exists.

One old chestnut the article does cover, though, is the question of whether children of same-sex parents will be gay or lesbian themselves: