I'm in the car, and my 7-year-old daughter is fighting with my 5-year-old son over a game on my iPhone called "Subway Surfer," which I made the mistake of surrendering to them in order to break up another fight that started when she told him that he's "not handsome, just cute" -- ironic given the fact that she'd spelled "cute" with a Q on her last spelling test before the holidays. His ego bruised, tears exploded from his eyes. Apologies were demanded and resisted.
"I didn't say a bad thing!" said my daughter.
"She hurt my feeleeengs," said my boy.
They were both right. And wrong. And hateful. And, OK, they're "qute." And this hideously interminable winter break from school -- like Richard III, I feel, this winter of our discontent -- is chugging way too slowly toward its end. The question pops into my head for the eleventy-millionth time: "Really? You had to have kids?" Why?
At some point in late 2000 or 2001, my partner Don and I came across a book that changed our lives. It was called The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant, by sex columnist and activist Dan Savage. The book was the hilarious, heartbreakingly honest and frank, first-person chronicle of Dan's and his partner Terry's journey to adopt their son. Don and I read the book voraciously. Even though it scared the shit out of us at times, it was ultimately so compelling and inspirational. These guys were doing what I'd never before seen or heard anyone do. Two men. Two gay men in a long-term relationship, talking openly about their desire to become dads. Dan exposed every conceivable societal and bureaucratic obstacle -- not to mention all the personal ones, the internal ones, the fear and self-doubt one has in oneself or in a partner.
Inspiration can come from anywhere, but most often it comes from someone confiding something honest and true about themselves, something that makes you feel like you're not the only one out there wondering how you woke up one day with a husband and two kids singing Lady Gaga in the bathtub at the top of their lungs, or, really, how the hell any stuff happens in life. It's people being inspired to tell stories, which leads to more stories, and more inspiration, like a chain. And it is in this way that I came to be a father, twice, and it is in this way that I came to be friends with and work with Dan Savage and Shonda Rhimes.
I look back at my kids in the rearview mirror doing some weird version of "Miss Mary Mack." I wonder how all this happened. Well, they say it's just that "one thing leads to another." Yes, I find that it usually does.
This Saturday, Jan. 12, I will have the honor of engaging in a conversation with Dan and Shonda about adoption and the role it played in our lives, as part of the Fertility Planit Show conference in Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.fertilityplanitshow.com.
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