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Gee, my parents are . . .
How does a youngster handle such an unconventional home life -- when the
adults in charge are the same sex? Three who have known it talk about it.
By Murray Dubin
Six months ago, the State of New Jersey changed its rules and gave 2-year-old Adam a permanent daddy. Two of them, in fact.
His foster parents, Jon Holden and Michael Galluccio of Bergen County, a gay couple who have been together for 16 years, were accepted as adoptive parents. Previously, New Jersey had not permitted gay, lesbian or unmarried heterosexual couples to adopt jointly.
When Holden and Galluccio sued, the state modified its policy.
Today, Holden, 34, is a stay-at-home dad and class father at Adam's nursery school. He and his partner are also the foster parents of a girl, 17-month-old Madison, and hope to adopt her, too.
"Things are fine here," says Holden, who's just legally changed his name to Galluccio, "so that we all have one family name.
". . . Winter's over, and now we can all go out and play."
It is flux time for the American family, a time of blended and newly configured households. Social scientists have offered us precious few conclusions about family makeup, but one in recent years has been that for children, two parents are generally better than one.
But what if the two parents are of the same sex, what then for their children?
Abby Nance, 18, whose mother has lived with Susan LosCalzo since 1984:
"In third or fourth grade, I realized that our life at home wasn't like everyone else's because my friends would ask me where Susan slept. We had a two-bedroom house. That was the first time I felt rejection from my peers."
Jeremy Smith, 26, whose mother began living with Marge Vitale when he was about 3:
"We grew up in Voorhees and my sister told friends about my mom, but I never told anyone. We're twins, and had the same friends, so they knew. But no one cared."
Maya Jaffe, 18, whose mother has lived with Helen Leneman for about 16 years:
"In sixth or seventh grade, anything that makes you remotely different was terrible. I had glasses and braces and remember referring to Helen as my aunt. She looks like my mom and I just didn't want to say she was my mom's partner."
No one knows much about the long-term ramifications -- if any -- of growing up in a same-sex household. Finding adults who grew up with two mothers or two fathers is not simple.
"The obstacle is that there are not that many yet. There's been no baby boom," says Charlotte J. Patterson, a University of Virginia associate professor of psychology who's done research on gay and lesbian families.
She knows of no research comparing young adults who have same-sex parents with young adults who do not. She did a study in 1992 of children ages 4 to 9 with lesbian mothers -- 37 families and 37 children. Almost all were born as a result of donor insemination. Just a few were adopted.
First, she says, it should be clear that "being gay or lesbian does not protect a child against a relationship breakup."
That being said, she says that the children of two women do not look or act much differently from other children. The girls do not want to play with boys' toys, and there is no indication of "more cross-gender behavior."
Compared with national models of children their age, the 37 youngsters were well-adjusted with just a few noteworthy differences, Patterson says.
The differences were in self-concept and reaction to stress.
"They had a greater sense of well being, and they also had greater reactions to stress. They flew off the handle more easily and couldn't go to sleep as easily. They also admitted to more of this.
"One interpretation is that due to the minority status of the families, they do feel more stress. And possibly, they've figured out how to handle that and, like anyone who does a task well, they feel good about themselves."
She adds that the mothers disagree and offer another interpretation: "They suggest that growing up with two mothers just makes them feel more comfortable talking about feelings in general."
Hindsight supposedly makes us smarter, offering time and distance. But it can also cloud memories and gauze over old wounds. What follows are memories from three same-sex families:
Abby Nance just completed her freshman year at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C.
"When I'm explaining Susan to people, I call her my other mom. When I was little, I called her 'Momma Susan.' "
Abby was about 4 when Susan LosCalzo, now 50, moved in with Kathy Nance, 49. Nance's 13-year marriage had ended two years before in Texas. Her father was "in and out" of Abby's life.
The family moved to New Orleans. "We're Unitarian Universalists. Susan was my Sunday school teacher. She and my mom met in church."
Awkward, painful moments dot her childhood, but awkward, painful moments dot most of our childhoods. It's just that Abby's were about her mother and Susan.
"One girl in third grade was afraid Susan was going to hit on her. I remember getting upset when someone would insult my mother or say something about her haircut. She had this butch look. When I was 16 and started to date, a boy said that since my mom was a lesbian, wasn't it genetic?
"It made me stick out. . . . It was an issue in junior high, not as much in high school, but it did affect dating for me. High school guys are not the most mature. . . . And I think the lack of a father figure made me shyer around guys."
Now, she says, everything is fine.
"I've come to college, and I'm not the only one, not the only child of homosexuals. In college, you're less viewed about your family. I'm much more comfortable with me, with my mom, with everything."
Kathy Nance, a social worker, raised her only child "trying to make sure that as many other things were normal as I could. I tried not to do things that would embarrass her." Nance says that she tried to "put her in a setting where important values were treated importantly. It was OK for me to be a lesbian, OK for her to be a kid.
"I think she was fine until she was 11 or 12. . . . I remember a year in junior high when she wouldn't have kids over for slumber parties because of us.
"She once said to me, 'Can't you pretend you're not gay?' I think it was perceived embarrassment. I don't know that anything was ever said. No, my memory was a fear that something would be said."
If Abby's friends were visiting, her two parents were careful not to be demonstratively affectionate, "unless we knew the friend very well," her mother remembers.
"But in high school, I think it almost became cool for her to have a lesbian mom."
It was never cool for Jeremy Smith, 26, a limousine driver who lives in South Philadelphia. It's just the way it was. His parents divorced when he was 2.
"Marge lived with us 16 years, and died when I was 18. My earliest memory of her? I was 7 and it was my brother's birthday. My mom got him a giant Styrofoam airplane and Marge told me not to tell him, and I did. Hey, I was a little kid, and I couldn't keep a secret.
"I never thought of Marge as not part of the family. . . . Marge and I did stuff together more than my mom and I did. She took me fishing, bowling. She taught me about jewelry. She was the first watch-repairwoman on Jewelers' Row."
He's not talked much about his "second mom" before, but maybe it's time. He has an older brother, Benjamin, and a twin sister, Lauren.
"I remember my mom sitting me and my sister down and telling us that she and Marge were lovers. . . . It was after school and I was eating a cereal, Cheerios, for a snack. Marge would sometimes lecture us about stuff, so I told Mom not to tell Marge she'd told us because Marge would lecture us. I was trying to be funny.
"I never gave it a thought. My mom was my mom, Marge was my second mom. Then there was my father and his wife. That was my family." He seems calm and at peace with his past, but it wasn't always that way. "I never mentioned it to anyone. I guess I was afraid of what might happen. I remember once, in fifth grade, we were coming home from school, and this boy, Chris, said something about my mom being a dyke. My sister clocked him in the face, knocked him out. . . .
"And when the older sister of a boy I knew said something when I was about 13, and then the boy repeated it, I slapped him around. . . . My friends knew, but they didn't care. I didn't tell them, but after she died they said they'd always known.
"She had breast cancer. . . . We watched her die. That was hard. . . . I still mourn. I miss her so much."
Carole Smith, now living in Germantown, says adults don't give children enough credit. When she told the children about her relationship with Marge, "their reaction was, 'So what? What else is new?'
"It was hard for the twins when she passed away. They were in high school and had referred to her as their aunt. . . . Hard to mourn if you can't be open and honest about it."
She adds that Jeremy was angry with her when she became serious with another woman, an old friend, several months after the death. "He thought it was too soon, but so did everyone else."
Smith is still with that woman. Her name is Marge, too.
Maya Jaffe's parents divorced when she was 2, and Helen Leneman moved in soon after.
"I don't remember dealing with it until the sixth grade or so. I think all my teachers knew," says Jaffe, who just completed her freshman year at Cornell University.
"I tried to avoid talking about my family, and I wouldn't mention Helen. I just wished people weren't so closed-minded."
She remembers "coming out" about her family to one friend in the sixth grade. "Gradually, I came out to others."
When Maya was in seventh grade, her mother, Sima Lieberman, and Helen had her join a teen group for the children of gays and lesbians in Rockville, Md., where they lived.
"It was nice. I was always on my guard, but this was a place where I didn't have to be."
"I was lucky. I never lost any good friends. I remember in eighth grade, a girl who was not my friend asked if my mother was a lesbian and I said no. Then I felt ashamed I had said that."
She had adult men in her life, most of whom were gay. "They were the role models I had, but I never saw that as a negative. I consider myself pretty well adjusted. "
Lieberman worked hard at keeping her daughter on an even keel. She selected the Montgomery County, Md., school system for its openness and quality. They went to gay and lesbian synagogues, lesbian pride marches, support groups. "She was thrilled," Lieberman remembers of the support group. "She said, 'Everybody's like me.'
"We were always very open. We talked about prejudices and what some people wouldn't accept. I think junior high was rough for her. Who is it safe with, who do you tell? She had sleepovers and went around closing doors. I think she was in her own closet."
Sometimes Maya would say she lived with her mom, sometimes with her mom and aunt, sometimes she just didn't explain. "It was a process," says her mother, a biologist, "and we never insisted and tried to put no pressure on her.
"I remember once she crossed out mother and father on a form in eighth grade and wrote in 'co-mother.' She said it wasn't fair, always mother and father."
Maya, Jeremy and Abby all romantically prefer members of the opposite sex. All say they are probably less homophobic than the average person.
The romantic choices that toddler Adam Galluccio will make one day are not yet on his fathers' minds. But his being the son of two men has been.
"We did a lot of research before we started," says father Jon. "We didn't want to bring a child into a home that was unhealthy. We realize that the odds are pretty good that he'll get picked on. But it's not that much different than being picked on for being short or for being Irish or for being anything.
"I was picked on in high school because I was short. My parents didn't realize to look out for that, to prepare me. Well, I'm one up on my parents, and I think he'll handle that adversity better than I."
©1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.