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Even Rory's own mother was initially uncertain about her son and his partner becoming parents. "My mom is so Roman Catholic, so Irish, I think that her response sprang from that background and not from looking at us. But my mom is intelligent enough that she witnessed and watched and observed, and as she continued to be around us, and with us around all the nieces and nephews in our family, she thought, "Why not these two?' We won her over. Now she is ecstatic."
The desire for a child is hardly a need hidden in the heart of every gay man. Many of Frank and Rory's friends do not share the delight in the new arrival that family does.
"In a gay environment, almost none of your friends are going to have children," says Frank. No one in the couple's social circle has young children. "[Our friends] were turned off because we talk about the baby so much. You can almost see, as soon as the subject comes up, they are trying to fight making some sort of grimace."
Frank and Rory both think that while gay parents experience social disadvantages from those who do not accept homosexuality, in some ways homosexual people actually have advantages as parents.
"I think we as a couple are more sensitive," says Rory. "I think that's a positive that comes from being gay. We are more aware of the differences between people, and more accepting of these differences."
Frank and Rory plan to teach Mark about his Eastern European heritage. The three will celebrate a yearly "gotchaday" on the date that Mark was adopted. While birthdays will be celebrated with friends and family, gotchaday will be for just the three of them. While in Europe to adopt Mark, Frank purchased 16 gifts and toys from the area where Mark was born. The gifts have been hidden away to present to Mark on each of the next 16 gotchadays. "It will always be a reminder, every year, that this is where you are from," says Rory. "One day we'll all go there, when he is big enough to understand."
Mark, now aged 19 months, has gained eight pounds and grown an inch and a half in the four months since his adoption. His face has filled out so much that he is recognizable as the thin and quiet boy of four moths ago almost solely by his coloration. He can now walk, zipping through the house with the erratic speed only a nearly-two-year-old can attain. He has appeared at last on the percentiles for height and weight for his age. And to the relief of Rory and Frank, he now loves to take baths. "Especially with all his clothes on," says Rory.
"I never dreamed this would be as great as it was," says Frank.
Rory agrees. "It's all worth it. Whatever you go through, it's worth it when he laughs." The last decade has seen an increase in families like Frank and Rory's. Researchers now estimate that the total number of American children living with at least one gay parent ranges from six million to 14 million. But hard numbers about gay parents are hard to come by, as evidenced in the eight-million person gap in the estimated range. Gay people have reason for their reticence to be counted and studied -- ex-spouses have successfully used a former spouse's homosexuality to have the children removed by the court. For many gay parents, keeping their families safe has meant keeping their families in the closet.The closet is safer when negative stereotypes about homosexuals continue to saturate our culture: fears that they will molest children, that they will influence children to themselves become homosexual, that they will fail to provide them with role models of the opposite sex of the parent or parents, that gay-fathered sons will be effeminate and lesbian-mothered daughters overtly masculine.
Two states (Florida and New Hampshire) have even adopted laws that expressly bar lesbians and gay men from adopting children. Some states, like North Carolina, allow gays and lesbians to adopt, but only singly, not as co-parenting couples. The child does not legally belong to both. Legally, while Rory may change Marks' diapers and celebrate his birthdays, Mark is only Frank's child.
Mom and Mom (and Mom and Mom)
Together now for five and a half years, Sonja Austin and Beverly Mitzel are raising four children: two girls who live primarily with Sonja's former partner and part-time with Sonja and Beverly, Beverly's adopted son Jordan, and a fostered boy, Joseph, that Beverly hopes soon to adopt.
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