Article by Abigail Garner

It’s a common question: How do kids of gay and lesbian parents “cope” when they do not have a parent of their own gender to guide them through puberty?

This question puts our families up for comparison not with real straight families, but with the fantasy of how straight families communicate. For example, an adolescent daughter with gay dads and no mom is supposedly missing out on walking along the beach with an all-knowing female parent who can commiserate with her whenever she has that “not-so-fresh” feeling.

Reality check: Teenagers in all kinds of families avoid talking about puberty, sex, and sexuality with their own parents. Why? Because they are their parents! Instead, many teens seek out older siblings, trusted family friends, or too often, ill-informed peers. I’m excused from addressing the clichéd motherless-puberty question for myself, because I’ve always had a mother in my life. Still, I didn’t want to seek her out for the walk-and-talk on the beach. Mom repeatedly assured me that I could ask her anything about sexuality. While I appreciated her openness, the intense anticipation my mother had for how closely we could bond through her “been-there” wisdom just added to my anxiety.

Getting my period was not some beautiful rite of passage that bonded me to other women. It was just a big mess that I couldn’t run away from. After a few traumatizing months of wildly unpredictable periods which I was concealing from my mother, I turned to my father. He had no firsthand knowledge by which he could compare or judge — he could only try to demystify womanhood for both of us.

He started to do his own research among female friends and co-workers. He must have come off as incredibly genuine in his quest, because they were willing to share their menstrual histories with him. “You know Joan, in my department?” he’d tell me, “She used to be a runner and she says back then she only had a few periods a year. But when she did, she bled buckets. Buckets!” This horrific visual was oddly comforting. Sure, I felt out of control, but someone else had had it worse and lived to tell about it.

One of my dad’s stereotypical male traits is to avoid asking for directions at all costs. It disrupts the illusion of never being vulnerable. But when it came to raising a daughter, he could not even bluff his way through; he had to reach out to others. I believe that this worked to my advantage during my menstrual monsoon season. Mom, on the other hand, was so confident about her own coming-of-age memories (which I was pretty sure came complete with a Disney soundtrack) that it seemed like she had already determined how it was “supposed” to go for me. For her to seek outside guidance in my time of turmoil would have been the female equivalent of admitting to the clerk at the gas station that you can’t find your way back to the Interstate.

Self-appointed critics of our families fixate on the “problems” we face when our parents are the “wrong” gender for raising a boy or a girl. But the problems arise only when families try to uphold the myth that parents should be our sole source for advice and support. Any of you who are grateful for that cool aunt or hip family friend you turn to instead of your parents know what I mean. Sooner or later, everybody needs to stop and ask directions.

Originally published in Just For Us.

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