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WaPo: "Our daughter wanted a mommy, so she picked one of her dads"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/11/daughter-...
Cracking orchid faggot firefighter kitty cat
  05/12/24
Opinion Our daughter wanted a mommy, so she picked one of h...
supple tan puppy
  05/12/24
"they’d come into the world with the help of a ge...
supple tan puppy
  05/12/24
You would think they would just say that the egg donor was t...
aggressive garnet institution electric furnace
  05/12/24
this sick shit should be illegal
useless elite philosopher-king
  05/12/24
...
aquamarine office
  05/12/24
...
Cracking orchid faggot firefighter kitty cat
  05/12/24
"My husband and I, two men, had known this moment might...
Amethyst Big Parlor Immigrant
  05/12/24
lmao how is the writer's name actually Hyram Coinblatt?
Amethyst Big Parlor Immigrant
  05/12/24
Dick Just, actually
useless elite philosopher-king
  05/12/24
...
razzmatazz self-absorbed university mad cow disease
  05/12/24
https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4376391&mc=140&...
idiotic juggernaut hospital
  05/12/24
“Then again, when Mother’s Day preparations bega...
fluffy vigorous cuckoldry
  05/12/24
then: "chill, my lifestyle won't affect yours at all.&q...
supple tan puppy
  05/12/24
...
Cracking orchid faggot firefighter kitty cat
  05/12/24
...
Smoky Property Sweet Tailpipe
  05/12/24
...
aquamarine office
  05/12/24
...
hairraiser field organic girlfriend
  05/12/24
...
Excitant crackhouse
  05/12/24
Poor kid
wonderful round eye area
  05/12/24
Just kill all faggots
Stimulating seedy faggotry library
  05/12/24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4G40jNZABI
Azure rehab
  05/12/24
Happy Mothers Day, from the Washington Post
Slate Impertinent Scourge Upon The Earth Therapy
  05/12/24
"The Term 'Mother' Dies in Darkness"
supple tan puppy
  05/12/24
...
Slate Impertinent Scourge Upon The Earth Therapy
  05/12/24
“Baby haver”
aquamarine office
  05/12/24
...
razzle awkward station
  05/12/24
...
bonkers theater
  05/12/24
here's the author: https://njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com...
Laughsome Cordovan Trailer Park
  05/12/24
So this dude is definitely diddling kids, right?
drunken ape business firm
  05/12/24
Wonder if RSF subscribes to “New Jersey Jewish News&rd...
Electric yarmulke
  05/12/24
that guy was born long in the tooth
aquamarine office
  05/12/24
every | single | time
Adulterous odious voyeur
  05/12/24
So we embarked on a new era — no longer Papa and Daddy...
idiotic juggernaut hospital
  05/12/24
"initially, I had tried to pair his new Mommy title wit...
Provocative range
  05/12/24
Profoundly sad how society has failed that little girl
Exciting Fighting International Law Enforcement Agency Factory Reset Button
  05/12/24
...
aquamarine office
  05/12/24
...
hairraiser field organic girlfriend
  05/12/24
...
Excitant crackhouse
  05/12/24
So if the husband had decided on his own to use she/her pron...
Nudist turquoise church
  05/12/24
also lol @ getting dadded around by a 3.5 yo girl
aquamarine office
  05/12/24
...
drunken ape business firm
  05/12/24
And then one day, for no reason at all...
territorial chapel reading party
  05/12/24
I'm straight as fuck and went to my youngest's preschool Mot...
Curious rigor
  05/12/24


Poast new message in this thread



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 8:27 AM
Author: Cracking orchid faggot firefighter kitty cat

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/11/daughter-gay-dad-mommy/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655192)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 8:56 AM
Author: supple tan puppy

Opinion Our daughter wanted a mommy, so she picked one of her dads

Are women really the only people who can be maternal?

By Richard Just

May 11, 2024 at 6:30 a.m. EDT

Richard Just is managing editor for longform at NOTUS and former editor of The Washington Post Magazine.

Sometime last fall, our oldest daughter, then 3½ years old, began telling us she wanted a mom. My husband and I, two men, had known this moment might come. We had done everything we could to lay the groundwork for her and her little sister to feel pride in our nontraditional family: We’d stocked up on two-dad children’s books and recounted many times the story of how they’d come into the world with the help of a generous egg donor and an amazing surrogate. But, at least for our older daughter, none of these preventive measures had seemed to soften the blow of realizing that every other kid she knew had a mom.

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For a week or two, she seemed genuinely upset. But then came a twist that neither my husband nor I expected: She announced that she would now call my husband “mommy.” And that, in her mind, seemed to settle it: Almost as quickly as she had become fixated on not having a mother, her funk seemed to lift, and she was back to being the energetic, funny, smart kid we had always known.

I was happy she was once again happy, but I wasn’t quite sure what we should do about this change in title. Was it okay to let her bend reality this way? Wasn’t this too big a concession to heteronormativity? Shouldn’t we teach our kids to be proud that they are part of an LGBT family, rather than letting them sweep those differences under the rug?

My husband, though, had no ambivalence: If this was what our daughter needed, then he was going with it. I saw the logic in that — and, anyway, it was his title and therefore his decision.

So we embarked on a new era — no longer Papa and Daddy but now Mommy and Daddy. At first, I thought it might turn out to be a quickly forgotten phase, but our daughter — in a way that was entirely in keeping with her personality and that I had to admit I truly admired — made it clear she was digging in: Any time I slipped up and referred to him as Papa, she swiftly corrected me.

Pretty soon, she began to police my husband’s pronouns as well. Initially, I had tried to pair his new Mommy title with the male pronouns that he uses — a small concession to reality, I guess — but it wasn’t long before our daughter began to insist that he be referred to as she and her. She had always evinced traits of a future copy editor — from an early age, if we missed or mangled a word in a story she had memorized, she was quick to let us know — and now she directed the full force of her editorial judgment at any deviations from the gender identity she had chosen for her mom-father. “She!” she would gruffly instruct me, as I unthinkingly mis-mis-gendered the man I had been married to for 10 years. “Why do you say ‘he’?”

To hammer home the point, she began every so often calling him “she-mother,” a title my husband delighted in. Occasionally, she would generously say that I, too, could be a “she-mother,” and she would have two moms.

People thought all of this was weird — or at least, I think they did, since just about everyone was too polite to say anything. As soon as she used the word “mommy” in public, I would hurry — a little embarrassed, a little proud — to explain the situation to whomever we were with. Her nursery-school teachers were, needless to say, confused. Then again, when Mother’s Day preparations began at school, things were simple. Her teachers the previous year had, after consulting us, rebranded the holiday as Parents’ Day — a gesture we really appreciated — but this time we required no special accommodation. Mother’s Day would proceed uninterrupted, since our daughter now had a mother.

But did she? That was the question — or a version of it — that I have kept turning over in my head these past months. If a mother is simply a woman who is raising a child, then, no, our daughters do not have one. But are women really the only people who can be maternal? Why can’t the roles that were historically assigned to mothers be fulfilled by parents — or loved ones — of any kind?

These should be obvious points in 2024, but in four years as a gay dad, I’ve been struck by how much unnecessary gendering still exists around families and parenting, even in our liberal East Coast community: the local Spanish-language program that’s advertised as “Mommy and Me,” the email to me and other class parents that started “Hi class moms!” I don’t stew about these things — there are never, as far as I can tell, any bad intentions involved — but I worry about the message regarding gender roles that’s being delivered to our kids. And I wonder about the messages being sent to other parents, of all types. What about nonbinary parents who aren’t reflected in the mom-dad dichotomy? What about straight dads who seem to be getting an implicit directive: Don’t function too much like a stereotypical mom?

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Our experiences, I realize, play into many culture-war topics du jour. But we are people, not ideological concepts. My husband and I are nothing more and nothing less than two parents who would do anything for their kids — including, at least for now, reconsidering the terms we use to describe our family and ourselves.

In the end, I’ve come to believe our daughter has been telling us something beautiful and profound: that she has everything she needs — including those attributes that society has normally treated as the provenance of mothers — right here in her two-dad family. And so, on this Mother’s Day, I am filled with gratitude — to my wise and spirited daughter, for challenging me to rethink labels that I never imagined I would question, and to my husband, for being the best she-mother a kid could ever have.



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655224)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:07 AM
Author: supple tan puppy

"they’d come into the world with the help of a generous egg donor and an amazing surrogate." iow, their daughter already had a mother.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655251)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:44 AM
Author: aggressive garnet institution electric furnace

You would think they would just say that the egg donor was the mom because the egg donor was the mom but I guess this is one of those Santa situations?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655315)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:17 AM
Author: useless elite philosopher-king

this sick shit should be illegal

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655262)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:22 PM
Author: aquamarine office



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656346)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 8:57 AM
Author: Cracking orchid faggot firefighter kitty cat



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655233)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:18 AM
Author: Amethyst Big Parlor Immigrant

"My husband and I, two men, had known this moment might come."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655266)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:19 AM
Author: Amethyst Big Parlor Immigrant

lmao how is the writer's name actually Hyram Coinblatt?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655268)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:21 AM
Author: useless elite philosopher-king

Dick Just, actually

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655272)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:49 PM
Author: razzmatazz self-absorbed university mad cow disease



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655663)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:23 AM
Author: idiotic juggernaut hospital

https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4376391&mc=140&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655275)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:43 AM
Author: fluffy vigorous cuckoldry

“Then again, when Mother’s Day preparations began at school, things were simple. Her teachers the previous year had, after consulting us, rebranded the holiday as Parents’ Day”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655312)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:53 AM
Author: supple tan puppy

then: "chill, my lifestyle won't affect yours at all."

now: "my lifestyle controls what you say, think, and do."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655332)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 11:44 AM
Author: Cracking orchid faggot firefighter kitty cat



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655565)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 1:40 PM
Author: Smoky Property Sweet Tailpipe



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655810)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:23 PM
Author: aquamarine office



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656348)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 8:51 PM
Author: hairraiser field organic girlfriend



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656726)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:31 PM
Author: Excitant crackhouse



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656806)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:07 PM
Author: wonderful round eye area

Poor kid

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655592)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:12 PM
Author: Stimulating seedy faggotry library

Just kill all faggots

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655597)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:19 PM
Author: Azure rehab

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4G40jNZABI

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655608)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:43 PM
Author: Slate Impertinent Scourge Upon The Earth Therapy

Happy Mothers Day, from the Washington Post

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655652)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:45 PM
Author: supple tan puppy

"The Term 'Mother' Dies in Darkness"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655658)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:54 PM
Author: Slate Impertinent Scourge Upon The Earth Therapy



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655679)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:23 PM
Author: aquamarine office

“Baby haver”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656349)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 1:41 PM
Author: razzle awkward station



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655814)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:39 PM
Author: bonkers theater



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656395)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:49 PM
Author: Laughsome Cordovan Trailer Park

here's the author:

https://njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com/event/great-minds-salon-how-the-washinton-post-magazine-comes-together-each-week/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655664)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 12:51 PM
Author: drunken ape business firm

So this dude is definitely diddling kids, right?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655675)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:14 PM
Author: Electric yarmulke

Wonder if RSF subscribes to “New Jersey Jewish News”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656337)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:24 PM
Author: aquamarine office

that guy was born long in the tooth

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656352)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:11 PM
Author: Adulterous odious voyeur

every | single | time

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656766)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 1:10 PM
Author: idiotic juggernaut hospital

So we embarked on a new era — no longer Papa and Daddy but now Mommy and Daddy. At first, I thought it might turn out to be a quickly forgotten phase, but our daughter — in a way that was entirely in keeping with her personality and that I had to admit I truly admired — made it clear she was digging in: Any time I slipped up and referred to him as Papa, she swiftly corrected me.

Pretty soon, she began to police my husband’s pronouns as well. Initially, I had tried to pair his new Mommy title with the male pronouns that he uses — a small concession to reality, I guess — but it wasn’t long before our daughter began to insist that he be referred to as she and her. She had always evinced traits of a future copy editor — from an early age, if we missed or mangled a word in a story she had memorized, she was quick to let us know — and now she directed the full force of her editorial judgment at any deviations from the gender identity she had chosen for her mom-father. “She!” she would gruffly instruct me, as I unthinkingly mis-mis-gendered the man I had been married to for 10 years. “Why do you say ‘he’?”

To hammer home the point, she began every so often calling him “she-mother,” a title my husband delighted in. Occasionally, she would generously say that I, too, could be a “she-mother,” and she would have two moms.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47655715)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 8:45 PM
Author: Provocative range

"initially, I had tried to pair his new Mommy title with the male pronouns that he uses — a small concession to reality, I guess"

bigot



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656721)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 4:12 PM
Author: Exciting Fighting International Law Enforcement Agency Factory Reset Button

Profoundly sad how society has failed that little girl

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656205)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:24 PM
Author: aquamarine office



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656353)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:00 PM
Author: hairraiser field organic girlfriend



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656739)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:56 PM
Author: Excitant crackhouse



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656844)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:38 PM
Author: Nudist turquoise church

So if the husband had decided on his own to use she/her pronouns, that would be "reality," but it's make-believe if the kid decides.

-------------------------------

"Pretty soon, she began to police my husband’s pronouns as well. Initially, I had tried to pair his new Mommy title with the male pronouns that he uses — a small concession to reality, I guess — but it wasn’t long before our daughter began to insist that he be referred to as she and her."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656394)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:47 PM
Author: aquamarine office

also lol @ getting dadded around by a 3.5 yo girl

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656410)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 5:51 PM
Author: drunken ape business firm



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656418)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:13 PM
Author: territorial chapel reading party

And then one day, for no reason at all...

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656768)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 12th, 2024 9:24 PM
Author: Curious rigor

I'm straight as fuck and went to my youngest's preschool Mother's Day presentation to receive my comatose wife's gift that my youngest had made. We all had a good time talking about how I was the ugliest mommy there before I took two of the moms there home for a threesome.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5527762&forum_id=2#47656789)