Get Used to It: Ep. 163, "The Kids Are All Right"

(keyboard clicking) (soft rock music) - Hi, welcome to "Get Used To It." I'm Sheila Kuehl and I'll guide you lovingly through our hour long show. Today we have a very special cast of characters because recently people have been flocking to a wonderful movie called "The Kids Are All Right." And this show is about how the kids really are all right. I have three guests on my show today, all of whom were raised by members of our gay and lesbian community. Well, actually, I'll leave it to you to see if you think they're all right. My guests today in the order in which they're gonna speak, Carl Cade. Welcome Carl. - Thanks. - Carl used to be staff to a member of the LA school board, worked building schools and is now working building malls. - Yep. - [Sheila] Which can be very educational. - Exactly. - We all spend a lot of time in them.. Very happy that you're here. - Great. - Tia Kearns is in school, but she's in the LA school for the arts? - Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. - High school for the arts and actress. And not even an aspiring actress, but a real actress. And I think that's wonderful. Welcome Tia. - Thanks - Emily Gold, who was on my staff actually, when I was in the assembly and the California Senate. Incredibly good staffer. And for the past couple of years has been super mom, a parent of an almost two year old young man named Lucas. Welcome Emily. - Thank you, - Carl let's start with you. This is a story about people who were raised by lesbian people or gay people because outside in the world there's just a lot of talk, and especially with the Prop 8 trial, about whether or not our kids are better off, worse off, normal, warped, whatever has happened to them. So tell us a little bit about your story so we can at least know where you came from. - Sure. Well, I'm 32 now. My mothers decided to have me in the late 70s. I think really at a time when not many lesbians were really thinking that having a child on their own was really a possibility. And I came into this community, it was just sort of figuring out exactly how they felt about kids, and how they could remake motherhood in a way that was empowering to women. And so I think there were a lot of ways in which my mothers sort of figured it out as they went along. They had been activists and so everything about the way that I was raised was very intentional and was very connected with their broader political values for the world. And while I really respect that now, it often seemed really quaint or precious or ambitious. The way that we're gonna make oatmeal this morning is gonna make you a more socially just person in the world sometimes felt kind of hilarious as I grew up and I would realize that I think more as I grew up. - Tell us a little bit more about your mothers. One was your biological mother? - Sure, yeah. My biological mother, Cathy, she chose to have me and she used artificial insemination, donor insemination and really had me on her own, but of course you never really have anyone on your own. And so she had a strong network that included a woman that she had been with many years earlier, who was my godmother, Ruth. And these two women, certainly Cathy, my primary mother, and then Ruth went on to each have long relationships with women who also raised me. And so while I'm sometimes known as Two Moms Carl Cade, I also get this name of Four Moms Carl Cade. And so I have a strong bench in the parenting department. - So most kids when they're little like Lucas is now, for instance, it doesn't occur to them that they're in a family that may not be exactly like everybody else's family. As a matter of fact, virtually all of us are raised in families probably not a whole lot like other families, but was there a moment or a time in your little person life when you began to get the message that maybe there was something different about your family? - Sure, I think one thing was that there were so many things different about my family that figuring out the piece of them being lesbians and separating that from them being vegetarians or them being in the community that I grew up in, college educated, well, it was a constant puzzle as a kid to kind of figure out which of those things was in play at a given time. And also over time to figure out, it wasn't clear one time when I would be more advantaged because my parents were educated, for example, they had a PHD or something, or on the other hand, I may have been a subject of some sort of discrimination because my mothers were lesbians. And so I think there's that way as a kid, as a young kid, who's just coming into consciousness where you're sort of still figuring it all out and by the time you're seven or so you start to maybe really start kind of putting it together. I think definitely as I did that, there were times when I chose to not make clear the way in which I was different and as I got older and that can be hard. And I think that in many ways, that's easier for kids today than it was when I was going through it. - Easier to say that they're coming from a different kind of family? - Exactly. I think at the time I was going through it and I think it was not something that was on television. It was not something that there were popular movies about. It was not something that was- - [Emily] Even talked about, - Even talked about, correct. Except for my mothers wanted to talk about it because they saw every part of their life as being political. And they saw being out as being very important. And so I think as a kid, there is this piece where the importance of your parents, of being who they are and being upfront with who they are kind of comes into conflict sometimes with you wanting to fit in. And that's real. It's not good or bad, it's just a real thing that you kind of have to deal with. - So did you experience it as kind of a worse burden at school than your friends had? Even for other reasons? Because school is the place where suddenly you go to a place and there's lots of kids. - Right. And everybody wants to fit in. - And they've got families that you've never heard of before but there's always somebody whose family is worse or there's something more terrible about their family or whatever. And gay and lesbian families came in for their share of critique from kids. - [Carl] Right. - And that meant their kids did, which I think is why so many people were so worried about having kids to some extent. It was like, well, I don't wanna subject my kids to that. - I didn't really feel that I had in any... I didn't ever feel that I had the most unfortunate family to come in. And so it wasn't so much that, I mean it was so much more nuanced. I did feel like most other people's families were more like each other's than mine was. And that was not always a big problem but it definitely was something where it took time and maturity, I think, to really figure out a way to bring it up that was genuine and was comfortable at the same time. And I think by the time I got into high school, when I did finally get around to telling people, they sort of thought it was no big deal. Their response was, "oh okay," moving on. - Still though. I mean, if you go to a school that's kind of a neighborhood school, often your friends will come over to play if you're a little kid or study, if you're a little bigger. It's hard to keep your parents a secret. - I think that was... and this really changed for my brother who is seven years younger than me, but for me, I really lost some of that in between, probably up until about age seven. My parents who were not about to hide who they were for anybody, were having all of my neighborhood friends kind of over and in our childhood. And then I think there was a point where it became my choice and I kind of got more private about that with some of my friends from school. Always had other friends that I knew from other places that I would have at home and I had tons of friends, but there was a point in those elementary and middle school years where I sort of probably did it less than later my brother would, in terms of having people over and mentioning kind of exactly who my family was and whatnot. Now, simultaneously my parents were telling everybody who they were, and so it didn't always work out that I was keeping any big secret or anything- - So it was kind of a political thing for them, in a way, at first. - [Carl] Yes. - I mean, I think once you have a child, you go, "hey, this was not only a political choice, hello, this is a life and I have to raise it now." But when you said that not very many lesbians were having children, as a matter of fact, there was some unfortunate critique in the lesbian community about parenting, partly because of the same critique about marriage. It's like we don't wanna do what they've done, we don't wanna accept the rules that have been given to us. There was a lot of rejection before it was kind of sorted out. So it was quite a statement, because that was way before the gayby boom. - Right, exactly. No, I think it was very much. There's a utopianism that was kind of going around in that period. You know, it was not that long after Betty Friedan had published "The Feminine Mystique" or "Stonewall" or all of these things. And so there was this idea of we've thrown off the shackles and we don't want to go back into sort of this, I don't wanna use the word "slavery" because you know, hyperbolic, but that system- - Well, it was pretty hyperbolic actually as I recall. - Right. Probably you could tell me. I think at the beginning, and I think having lived within the lesbian community, in some ways, there was this way in which there was a discomfort with having children and the fact that I happened to be a boy child added an extra level of complexity, yeah. - Well, that does bring us to that there's a famous photograph actually, of you. Famous in the lesbian feminist community for a while because your mother was quite a well known photographer. - [Carl] Correct. - So tell us about the West Coast Women's Music Festival. - So as you know, the West Coast Women's Music Festival was put on for quite a few years there and I think it was really a part of, in some ways, that effort of creating a new society with new rules and certain amount of utopianism and centered around women's music. And it was really important that this be women's land. And for some reason it's always that word "land." Like it's not, you know- - We're on the land. That's what we used to say. - We have some land. And so it was women's safe land and bringing albeit a two year old male into this was seen as sort of a problem by some members of that community and others who wanted those people to feel comfortable. And so they came up with what to some people seemed like a compromise, which was they were gonna have at the camp next door this childcare where all those boy children and girl children could go, but the girl children could come back over to the main camp whenever they wanted and the boy children had to stay over in the holding tank or whatever it was. And so my mother and my godmother and a bunch of their friends and a large number of women went over and- - [Emily] Freed you all. - Freed us and stormed the stage. And there's a picture of my mother sort of- - [Sheila] Topless. - Topless. - [Sheila] We could say this. - Yeah, topless with, I was a large kid, so a large me kind of a year and a half or something sort of on her hip. And then sort of telling off this entire hillside of women who I'm sure had every kind of variety of opinion about exactly which way this was going. I think that that debate has changed a lot. I mean, I think that- - [Sheila] Oh, no question, - This idea of the gayby boom but also just the idea that you can raise male children that can be, if not feminist then certainly pro-women and empowering of women. And so I see that as so much of an outgrowth of that particular period of time. And over time, it really has mellowed out, I believe. - Well, Tia, tell us a little bit about your dad and how you got to be part of his family and kind of a little bit of the beginning stuff, much of which you might not remember but I bet you know. - Yeah. Well, my dad had fostered kids before so he really wanted a kid, but he had taken care of kids for periods of time. And then I'm pretty sure it affected him because he had to let them go. They weren't his. And I think he really wanted a kid of his own and I guess I needed a family. And I was five months at the time and he got me. - He got you, all right. - [Tia] Yeah. - So since you've been five months old, you've been raised by your dad, Michael? - [Tia] Yeah. - So tell me in terms of what you remember early on, what it was like growing up with him because he would also have been a single father, right? - Yeah. It really wasn't that different for me. I mean, it wasn't weird for me. I mean, we had tons of family, like friends, family friends, a lot of gay men were around the house all the time and I kind of just was used to it. I grew up with them and like when my dad would go off and work and do shows, I'd be with family members but this big family kinda... - So do you remember early on getting any feeling from friends, especially when you started school? Sort of, what was your experience like as a kid, suddenly maybe hearing from other kids about whether your family was normal or not? - Well, I mean from the minute I could talk, I knew my dad was gay and we talked about it, we read books about it, adoption and gay adoption and me being black and him being white. And in preschool, I mean, I went to a very liberal kind of school, HIPPY school, so I mean that wasn't a problem there. And my kindergarten, I went from kindergarten to eighth grade and there were lesbian teachers and kids who were adopted and it wasn't a big deal. But I think high school, when I first got into high school it was kind of a shock to some people. And I kind of experienced... I mean, I wasn't as willing to say, oh, my dad's gay. I'd kinda wait till like I knew those people would really be around and be my friends, if they liked me then I told them, but yeah. - One of the things that there was some discussion about when Michael first adopted was that because he was HIV positive, people said, well, is this an appropriate thing to do? And now of course, that you're older, you know this too. It's sort of a difficult question but I like people to really understand kind of what people are going through and kind of what they face. Has this been something that has affected the way you think about your own life or I don't know, him or I don't know something? - Not really. I mean, when I was younger, about 10 or something, it kind of worried me that my dad had a disease because he could die and I only had my dad, I didn't have any other parent. That kind of bothered me, but he's pretty healthy, I mean, despite all that medication he takes. Yeah, compared to a lot of my friend's parents and he walks everywhere. I don't know. He's very positive and I don't think he's gonna like... I hope he doesn't die soon, but- - No, no, no. But I mean, it's the same. You're right. It's what you said about, well, I mean other people's parents, we have these same issues. I mean, we all have friends who lost their parents even when we were in junior high school or high school, one thing or another will happen. So when people say, well, I don't think gay people should adopt, what would you say back to them? - It's funny that you say gay people, because I feel like we're all people and it kind of bothers me when people categorize other people. I mean, we're all the same race, black people, white people. I mean, we're all really the same. I feel as though it just bothers me. I mean, I feel that gay people can adopt and should adopt and will adopt. And I feel that they're as capable as anyone to be really good parents. Just kind of- - You seem to be okay to me. - [Tia] Yeah. - But there's been a lot of controversy as you know. And more than any other excuse for discrimination, the people who hate us talk about how we shouldn't be affecting children's lives because we are affecting them somehow negatively, like being gay is catching or something. And I don't know if you've run into any of these kinds of attitudes, but I know you're aware of it. Do you have other friends who've been raised by gay or lesbian parents? - Yeah, I do. - Do you guys ever talk about this stuff? - Well, see, I don't really have many friends who have been raised by gay parents, but a lot of my friends have lesbian moms and I don't know, I feel like we talk about it, but I mean, I feel like I have very positive friends and Prop 8 really affected us as kids who- - [Sheila] Were you surprised? - Yeah. I mean, my dad's not engaged or anything like that, but I mean, if he did wanna get married, he couldn't. That's really- - But did it surprise you that the people of California... I mean, it was sort of a bare majority, but that people would vote against us getting married? - Yeah. I was. - You guys were surprised weren't you? I found a lot of young people that were surprised. - It kind of hurt. It wasn't really... It was kind of (indistinct) and Obama winning too. So it was just kind of like- - Oh, I know. The same night. I know, it was kind of like yay, oh no. I know it kind of all came together, it was a very conflicted time. - Kind of hard to believe. - Yeah. - Something really great happened, and then something didn't. - So do you think when the world belongs to your generation, we might do better? - Oh yeah. Definitely. - [Sheila] That's what I think too. - Yeah. If you have more open-minded people and people willing to listen and change their minds, I feel like it could change. - Well, we have a couple of generations in a way. And of course, now Emily, you're a parent. So there's sort of both ends of this going on kind of thing. But Emily, tell a little of your story about your mom. - So I turned 39 this year. And I was raised here in Los Angeles. Were you up in Northern California? - [Carl] Yeah, San Francisco. - Sorry, okay. So you were. And so my mom coming out in the early seventies. And before I was born, she was a radical feminist. And she really talks about the difference between the feminist movement at the time. It really wasn't a gay movement, she was part of the feminist movement. And there's a quote about a lot of women at that time during her process, left very good husbands because it just simply wasn't compatible with the politics and the consciousness that was happening at that time. So my mom being one of those people, left my dad who was a very good husband as well. I was two years old. And so I stayed very much in touch with my dad as well. I was raised, was co-parented and I had two families. I had my mom's family that was doing a lot of politics at the time. She opened a feminist bookstore here in LA called Sisterhood Bookstore. And I spent a lot of time as a child and eventually working at the bookstore. That was very much a second home to me was the bookstore. And then on the weekends and I think even when I was younger, I'd actually spent half my time. My dad remarried, I was one of four children because his new wife had two children from a previous marriage. There was a lot of blending of the families happening at that time. So there was a big extended family. So I would go then to being one of... from an only child to being one of four children in a very traditional heterosexual family. - And your mom, did your mom remarry? - She ended up being in about a 10 year relationship with a woman from the time I was probably three years old. So she was a primary mother. So I had three mothers, my stepmother, and then my mother, and then her partner as well at the time. And it was similar to what you were talking about, everything was very political and there was a lot of focus on the adults and the community, but not a lot on the children. And for my mom, she had a very difficult time integrating me into that world because not a lot of other women had children at that time. So there was a lot of meetings and a lot of consciousness raising groups and a lot of political actions. And at the same time there was this idea, well, how do we fit this child growing up into this world? And what ended up happening is I ended up just kind of being dragged along. And fortunately, I really enjoyed it. I wasn't resistant to it, but I could see that being very challenging if a child was resistant to it. So that fortunately worked out very well, which was really different than my dad's family because they were just a very traditional family and we would watch TV in the evenings and have dinner and just do very kind of traditional things. So constantly, I was faced with a contrast of these two families. And I think that was very hard for me to develop a very strong sense of self because I felt kind of pulled in different directions. And definitely at school, it was hard to talk about the family that I came from and what then further complicated things is I came out myself at a very young age. And the joke I have with my mom now is when I disclosed to her that I felt like I was a lesbian as well, she told me I was just going through a phase. - Well, of course, it could have been- - So it's been a long phase. - It's been a long phase is right. And you have a partner now? - So yes. And we got married during the window period when the Supreme Court approved our marriages, just before the Prop 8 came down. So we're one of the 18,000 couples, I think, in California that has a marriage license from the state. And then we had our son two years ago in October. And it's very interesting now looking at things as a mother, as opposed to a child raising him in this community as well. And also having him be male adds a whole other element to gender and sexuality and how these things come together. We have a known donor and so his father is very involved. And so he's, we think, a very fortunate child. He has two moms and a dad, eight grandparents. He just has a huge fan club and he's thriving. I think that- - Hey, the more presence, the better. That's what they know at least at that age. - Right. And the love and the attention that is showered on him constantly. He's a really amazingly independent and strong willed little guy. So different than how I remember myself at his age. - When you were younger, it was difficult for you because you had trouble talking or not trouble, but you didn't wanna talk about your family, just your mom's family? So you would talk about your dad's family because that was the normal one? - Yeah, I think though, I didn't really wanna even bring up the subject of family because if I talked about my dad, there would be the question of, well, where's your mom? And so then that would sort of lead into... And it also seemed, it was complicated. I would say, well, I have a mom and her partner and a dad and a stepmom and a stepbrother. And still there were divorces happening and remarriages but it felt like in the 70s it was somewhat unusual to sort of have these blended families. And I think more so then that it was unusual than it is now. - I mean, it sounds like- - But you know what was awesome? - Tia is the only one here that didn't have to keep secrets. That's cool. - And that's, yeah, it was also difficult because I came out when I was really young and I was worried that people were going to say that your mother made you gay. I was very aware of that stigma. And I knew that that was something a critique of lesbians having children and I didn't wanna perpetuate that by coming out myself. - So what do you think of that theory? - Well, I think that, unfortunately the premise that sort of assumes that there's something wrong with being gay in the first place, and so that in of itself is bothersome. And I think that we had just such a wonderful opportunity to see that there's so many different families and I mean, for myself, so many people who are older and come from heterosexual families, it took them a really long time to figure things out but then when they look back on their childhood, they say, of course, that they were gay, but they didn't have a language, they didn't have an understanding and we had all of that. So I think we just... Sorry, I'm speaking for you as well. That we had an opportunity to understand ourselves. - But it was lonely for you- - In a different way- - I mean, I knew you when you were a kid because I rented the house in back of your mom's house. - Right. Which is where I'm living right now. - I know. - It's a wonderful circle, I think. - It is. - You were very quiet. I mean, I didn't... - I was painfully shy and painfully self-conscious and it took a really long time to really come into my own, not until my twenties, I would say. - So how do you think it's gonna be for Lucas? - I see him as having such a different experience. I mean, already I can see it. I think a lot of it is just who he is and I think just the environment that he's growing up in. I mean, he's just an amazingly confident little guy, so I don't see him... And also, it's reassuring to hear people's experiences that are younger now, that are growing up, that have very different experiences. I think that being a child now in a gay family, because our parents were sort of the trendsetters and now we have had the gayby boom, and I just think it's a really different time. - Well, I'll tell you from my generation, which is yet again, one removed, it was a real loss to us that we never thought if we weren't married and we thought we might be gay or would be gay from a young age, we never thought kids could be part of it. Even the technology, if it existed, it was so expensive you couldn't even think about it. And to keep the secret and to wonder, should we do that to a kid? So there are a lot of my cohort who if they were not married and had kids while they were married, never had kids. And you get to a place where you live with your life and you think, okay, that's the way it is, lots of other people's kids in my life, but it was a sacrifice in a way. You're talking about your mom sort of making this choice and a lot of other people being critical. But I think a lot of just regular people who were not incredibly political were just scared and couldn't figure out, how could you have a family? So you get to the point in your fifties and sixties and think, hell, I could have been a grandmother by now, but now that was not in the cards. Sort of the "in the cards" piece of it I think is the interesting thing here. - Right. Well, I think also for both of us, certainly back then, to be a woman, to be a lesbian who decided to have kids or had kids and decided to really bring those kids into the lesbian community, that was a political act then. And of course, there've always been lesbians, there's always been and gay men and they've always raised kids. The issue is that to do it openly in the 70s and early 80s, I think was a political act. And I think now to some extent, that's still true, but a lot more people don't have to be activists. You don't have to be a radical left wing activist and be a lesbian with kids. You can be a Republican woman and you and your Republican wife can go have kids and raise them in places not like San Francisco or the west side of Los Angeles. And I think that's changing a lot to the extent that people do hear my story and don't necessarily see their reality in it. I'm very cognizant of that there's plenty of people who just live in a typical suburban house and go to the neighborhood big public high school and that's their reality. I think more of the people who did it early had to do it in a very intentional and political way. - Well, there's also the coming out process. I mean, a lot of times when as gay or lesbian people talk about coming out, it's like about them and you choose the person and then the next person that you're gonna tell, et cetera. But it never occurs to us that our parents have to come out when we come out, our kids have to come out if we're open or if we're suddenly being open. I mean, you too, you were saying, well, then I went to high school not that you're saying, oh, it's horrible, but it was a process for you. - Yeah. I mean, and plus I was around new people. I mean, I had been with a lot of the kids in my school, there were nine kids in my graduating class and I know them since kindergarten. So it was a whole new world, I guess, as it were. I mean, and now I'm really open with them because I'm a sophomore and I don't care who knows anything, but freshman, I was new and new teachers, new environment. And plus there are a lot of kids in my school, in my grade, who are out and like wanna know more about my family because they think they can adopt kids and stuff too. So I think that kind of helps. - So it's sort of like a role model? - I guess, kind of. - Well, I mean, I think we serve these unexpected purposes sometimes in our lives. You don't set out to be a role model, but your life kind of is an example. Do they have parent stuff at your school? - Like parent-teacher meetings? - [Sheila] Yeah, like- - Yeah. - No. I mean, well, parent-teacher meetings, yeah. I mean, but in addition, do parents participate in stuff? So many schools now have to have fundraisers in order to exist. - Yeah, we do theater festivals and stuff and then my dad drives kids and brings snacks and stuff. So yeah. And my friends love my dad. - What's not to love with Michael Kearns? That's what I'd say, but- - Yeah. - But I do think picking up on that, there's a point where all of a sudden it seems to switch in sort of high school and certainly in college. You go to a small liberal arts college on the east coast like I did and all of a sudden, your parents, you get sort of whipsawed because all of a sudden you're cool because your parents are lesbians. - [Tia] Oh, I know. Yeah, definitely- - And that feels in some ways as weird as when you were kind of keeping it a secret because you don't wanna be identified. I think this is for all kids, you don't really wanna be cool or not cool because of your parents. - Just under the radar. - You know that your parents are not cool for you so you kind of don't want them to be the people that are kind of deciding. And so I think there is this point where you sort of realize that that's sort of a universal thing and that you just have this added thing, but sure. I mean, I tell you, every time in college when people found out, people wanted to sit and have a long, interesting conversation with me about it. Just at a point you're just, okay, here are the bullet points call me when you finish reading them. - And then the flip side for me is when I had with my lesbian friends, they thought it was the coolest thing to have a lesbian mother. And they thought, oh, you're so lucky, and how wonderful and how great. And yes, it was all those things. But then there was not the same recognition that there were challenges to having lesbian moms as well. So there were sort of all different aspects of it happening. - So is there anything that you would identify that's really a pretty serious downside to having gay or lesbian parents? I mean, we were very careful to point out always that there's nothing wrong with the parents. Two people love each other, they wanna have a kid, but that the problem is with society, but like anything else, kids suffer in society for who their parents are or whatever. And I think really there was an underlying feeling that there's a big question about whether this community or at least there was, should have kids, could raise them regular enough that they would be all right. What do you think? I mean, seriously, think about it. What do you think? Hard things about this? - Well, I think there's the pressure on the kid and then there's actually the pressure on the family. And I think definitely as was kind of shown in some ways in the movie, in the recent movie, I think there were times where certain of my mothers felt somewhat insecure in their role in the family because of their legal rights were not there because there were four mothers. I mean, there's just a lot of competition for the title of mother. And I think that that had pressure on relationships all around. Again, it gets back to a problem with society and I think that that is getting clearer, legal rights are getting more clearly spelled out but I think certainly when I was young, there was a real focus. I mean, people were not doing much of the knowing the donor because they were intensely worried that this man would come back and sort of rip their family apart. And I think when I saw the movie, I thought on the one hand, that's a very real issue that has been around, at least was around earlier. But on the other hand, I kind of felt it was... while it created a dramatic energy in the movie, I felt like it was sort of unfortunate because I wasn't very aware of that being a real issue. - And Carl, is some of it language? I mean, you had two parents and a donor. Donor sounds like you got a pint of blood or something probably a little less, actually. - Well, I pretty much did. - But your curiosity was never piqued about it? - For me, it wasn't. I was so intensely wanted that the idea of going, finding this person that really played not much, not really any role in my life other than genetics was not something that I spent much time thinking about. And I think there's always been a lot of other people wanting me to want to go find this person. For me, really, it goes as far as being curious about some ethnic background that I may have that I don't know about, or perhaps, a curiosity about some sort of medical thing I need to look at, but those are very tangential to who I am as a person. - It's interesting because in our decision to have a child, we were very intentional about wanting our child to have the opportunity to know who their father was. - [Sheila] His biological father. - Yeah. And we felt like we did not want our child to grow up wondering and which you're sort of saying you didn't anyway. So it's interesting. We thought that we were really doing this as something for our child that we wanted to give him the opportunity to know everything about his biology. And then not only his biological connection, but the fact that he's now part of our family. So, we just keep creating a bigger and larger family- - But that must be interesting too, because we're so used to there being, well, a single parent, okay, we can live with that. Two parents is like the regular thing. Three parents? No. We're not in a science fiction book here where we're on another planet with this. So how do you handle, I don't know. We had this talk, Emily, and there are some- - And every day we're figuring it out. I mean, that's the thing, because there's no model out there, we're just left to just figure it out on a daily basis. And I think even in terms of, I'm very cognizant of it, mostly when reading books to Lucas, that's what's interesting, because even now there are many books of children in gay families, but those children either have two moms, two dads or single gay mom or dad. So I think we now have to actually write a new book that is a child that has two moms and a dad, because I think it's actually happening now more, it's becoming more common that people are choosing to have known donors and have them involved to many different degrees. I think some people are choosing to have a known donor but someone who lives in another state or another town, whereas Lucas' father lives a mile away. So we see him quite a bit. - But he doesn't have any legal rights, right? - Correct. He has zero legal rights. - We'll have Drew on the show someday and ask him, how do you feel about that? But he has a very independent relationship with Lucas. - Right, he has his own relationship that has nothing to do with myself or with Stacy and it's a real lesson in letting go of control for us because he is going to have a completely separate and already does. I mean, right from the start, he had his own very unique relationship with him that has nothing to do with us. And it's a very interesting way to parent in a way because here's this third parent who is part of the family but not part of the family, is his father but has no legal rights to him. And so it feels like we're really sort of entering very new territory and as Lucas gets older, it'll be interesting to see how things will continue to progress. - In a way, it's funny how we use books to explain things. You were saying that Michael gave you books to read and it was not only about a gay parent, but also about adoption. - Adoption. But going back to birth family. I mean, I asked my dad if I had any birth siblings or who my birth mom was, and my dad was very honest with me. And he said, you have birth siblings and you have a mom and I met her and I met my birth siblings, and I think that once was enough for me and I kind of don't need to see them again, but I feel like now they kind of want to be part of my life. I feel like that's the hard thing for me, being connected or disconnected from the birth family. - But it's interesting, he left it up to you in a way, I think. - [Tia] Yeah. - And that I think is what it really comes down to for all of us, because you make choices for your children until there's a point where they're making some for themselves. - Yeah. - And I mean, still when you're in your thirties, you're still making choices about what you wanna tell who and how you wanna characterize your own history. So are you worried about kids growing up in gay families at all? - No. - Do you think we're better? - No. I just feel like me growing up, for myself, I'm just more aware of the world and more open and I feel that if I probably didn't have a gay dad, I wouldn't be as open to the idea of gay families, I probably would, but I mean, it'd be different. I mean, it wouldn't be as aware of- - So when you say aware and open, do you mean... Let me expand it a little bit. Do you mean kind of only on these issues or do you think it gives you more of a sensitivity about other people and their families? - Yeah, everything. I truly feel because I see where other people are coming from and how different families are and it's just not... Me having a single gay dad isn't as bizarre as my neighbors or something. I feel we're all different and we should embrace our uniqueness in our families. - How about you Carl, what do you think? - I don't think that on its own that gays or lesbians are better parents. I think wanted children have a better upbringing. - [Tia] Yeah. - And that touches on a lot of different issues. And I think it's something that we're getting better at as a society, of moving towards children really being wanted and celebrated and I think that can only be good, but- - And not only wanted, but very intentional. - Yes. - And oftentimes having to work very hard at creating this family, whether it's figuring out how you're gonna use donor sperm or known sperm and it can be very costly. - We don't have very many accidental pregnancies. - [Carl] Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. - And I think that also along with one's sexuality, there's so many other factors involved of parenting, including it seems, I think this is less so now because younger gay people are now thinking about having children, but it seems that not too long ago it was women who were older than the traditional parents at the time. And so there is something I think, to be said, for women who are a little more mature and are further along in their careers and are financially stable and I think that that really goes a long way to having skills and resources to be able to parent because it's as I'm learning an incredibly challenging and wonderful job, but it's a lot of work. And a single person? I mean, I can't even... I need a whole village to assist me in this process. So I think there is a lot to be said about intention to parenting and really wanting that child, I think. - Well, it sounds like there's a kind of a balance or a tension because what I picked up from not only from you, Emily, but I think especially, and the fact that your secretiveness of it which is isolating in a way, maybe in your generation or just in your life Tia, but the fact of not being able to talk about your parents or not feeling like you can, sort of balanced with the notion that they really wanted me, they really like me. It's a lot of weight in a way on a kid to think about this. It's not just looking like the TV series, although it's looking more and more like Modern Family, there's no question. But I guess the point of this in a way is not just to say, well, we're all right because we could have said at the beginning in a minute, but really is a message to anybody in society watching the show, what advice, first of all, would you give to kids growing up now with gay parents? - Now, I feel like they should be giving me advice. - [Emily] Yeah, it's so different. Such a different environment that kids are growing up in. - Well, maybe in LA, but maybe not so much in horses' breath California or Kansas. - [Emily] We definitely live in a bubble here- - To some extent. - In Los Angeles, in that regard. - I do think it's simpler than it feels like it is, at some times. There's prejudice everywhere and sometimes there's more prejudice on the playgrounds of San Francisco than maybe in horse's breath, California. But I do feel that on the one hand, the piece that goes back to some early pioneers and sort of gay liberation and everything else is coming out, it feels really scary before you do it and then you do it and it's not nearly as big a deal as you think it is. That's almost always in my experience the case. So having courage is still probably something that most often is the advice I would have but I also think that there's a piece where depending on your parents, I think you have a right to also have a certain say in the way that you wanna present yourself in the world and that that right changes at stages over your life and you should feel comfortable having a certain amount of say in that as a kid. And that doesn't mean your parents have to pretend to be a straight couple, but it does mean you get to have some say. And I think having that conversation with your parents from a very early age is probably a pretty healthy thing. And it's something that I don't think I really got around to exactly having literally with my parents until much later than probably would've been helpful. - And sometimes it's just hard to talk to your parents regardless of what the issue is. - Right. - It's always hard to talk to your parents regardless of what the issue is. - Yeah. - Yeah. As much as we now as a parent, really, my hope is to have a different relationship with our son and that he will wanna talk to us, but probably all parents wish that as well and- - Yeah, wait till he's 14. - [Carl] Right. - Yeah, exactly. Then I'll probably not even wanna speak to him either, but for us, we are very intentional about wanting to expose him to so much in life in terms of different families and different cultures and we want to travel and see different things in the world. And our hope is that for him to really see all and appreciate kind of like what Tia was talking about, just to really have an appreciation for diversity and for difference. And Lucas, he has gay people in his family and he has straight people in his family and young people where we live, we have four generations. So we have 94 years old all the way down to two. So I think we just are very intentional about wanting to broaden his exposure and his horizons to the greatest extent, and then just cross our fingers and hope for the best, that is all that one can do, right? - Well, it's interesting when you said you're an actor and that is your focus in school and I assume beyond school. From what I remember of being an actor, it's a very, very important thing to understand other people's lives because you're going to be being them. So has that played any sort of role in kind of helping you to be able to be someone else when you work? - Yeah. And plus I'm just a really understanding person, kind of too much for my own good, I guess. But yeah, it has because being exposed to what I've been exposed to, all these different cultures and people and ways of living has really helped me with what I love to do. And I act, and I can apply different things to what I've seen and felt and be these characters. - And you could probably play a white gay man very, very perfectly. - I'm working on that. - Well, if Michael could play an African-American woman, I think it's something you'd do. I mean, why not? - Yeah. - Well, it is interesting when kids are exposed to, I won't say just lack of intolerance or being tolerant, but really such a variety of lives. My own experience in high school in Los Angeles, our class was... it was one of those neighborhoods that I guess people would say was "changing," the way they'd refer to it, but it was one third black, one third white, and one third Asian in my high school. And we actually had our 50th high school reunion not too long ago. And we had all bunch of us there and we were talking about how impactful that was on our lives in ways that we had no idea because we weren't having tension in the school. It wasn't necessarily always all mixed up at lunchtime, but simply the fact of knowing other people's families, other people's lives, other people's food, I mean it was quite extraordinary to know. And in that sense, I think we also become an object lesson for other kids in a funny way, as the children of gay or lesbian parents. In a way that we don't really know that they're learning from us. Have you had anyone... I don't know, I haven't asked you this question, so you might not be able to think of it, but anyone ever say to you, "I was so glad to know you because I would've never met parents like yours or people," and it kind of made me think, or I don't know, anything like that? I see you nodding, but no? - Not really. I mean, they like my family because we're different. I mean, I'm black and my dad's white. I think that's the thing that shocks most people, I think, that he's a single dad and he's white and I'm black and a girl too. I think that's different because I mean, people don't really care about the gay thing, I guess. - [Sheila] Interesting. - Yeah. - Well, race is the big discussion in America, there's really no question. And that's also, I think may be an experience that they will look back later and go, whoa, that was really a learning experience for me. - [Tia] Yeah. - I think it's been more for me. And this is actually, I think, when somebody's lessoning where somebody has a lesbian couple friend that's thinking about having a kid and they like wanna find us at a party and put us next to each other so I can tell them how to do it or something, you know? And I think that's lessoning just because they're starting to know so many people that I'm not the first person they meet anymore that has gone through that. I don't know. I mean, is that... - [Emily] Right. - Flip side, I think the other part is that, being gay or not, figuring out a family that works for you, where people are supported, where economically it works, where you can raise the kids the way you want to is something that all families have to figure out. But I think more and more, I see straight couples or straight single people who are trying to figure out that they can sort of do it in a way that works for them. And that if a woman wants to have a kid and she's getting on into her thirties, she doesn't have to just give up on that dream. And I think I'm starting to see that and I think that's probably the best lesson of all that, again, getting back to this theme of it's most important that children are wanted and sort of that's what's gonna happen and make great children. I think that's sort of moving out into the broader society. - Well, thank you all very much. Thank you all three for telling your stories and being here and sharing. And thank you for being with us too. So just remember the kids are all right, so get used to it. (soft rock music)