Chooks, a long-haired guinea pig, a timid poodle, two curious little people and a pair of excellent mums played host to my girlfriend and me last Sunday.
We were chuffed to be invited to the suburbs to brunch with a real-life rainbow family and, in doing so, get a taste of what our future could be like, should we choose to head down that colourful road of Napisan, nits and nosy neighbours.
These mums were total pros — one scrambled eggs with her left hand while wiping a constant flow of snot from her kid’s face with her right. The other poured me a glass of sparkling water while simultaneously rescuing a munchkin who was two seconds away from tumbling face first down a staircase — without spilling a drop.
And they could do all this while maintaining a conversation.
Impressive. I can’t even talk and make a cup of tea at the same time. Maybe I’m not cut out for motherhood.
Of course, we asked how the babies were made. In this instance, donor sperm travelled all the way from America. Men are paid to “offload” in the States so there are more candidates to choose from than in Australia.
Some of the other rainbow mums they knew had gotten a local supply. Apparently some generous guy had put an ad in LOTL offering his sperm to a lesbian couple wanting to conceive. What the ad didn’t say was that this enthusiastic wanker was spreading his seed all over town.
The truth came out when a bunch of these new mums got talking at a rainbow babies get-together and realised they’d responded to the same ad — which explained why all their kids had distinctively dark, curly hair.
These kinds of super donors end up causing problems in the local gene pool — especially for lesbians who tend to congregate in the same areas, because their kids are likely to grow up side by side. That means there’s a possibility they’ll end up pashing at the school disco. Ruh-roh.
The story was a reminder of how many challenges gay parents have to overcome. When they build a family, it’s because they’re 100 percent committed.
My gf and I thoroughly enjoyed our brunch and left just in time to miss the nappy change. I really admire lesbian mums but think I might be more suited to a rainbow dog.
I think it’s great you admire ‘rainbow’ families; I just have a bit of an issue with your statement that ‘of course’ you asked how the babies were made. As a child of same sex parents, I always had to answer this question. It was only as an adult that I realised what an incursion on my privacy this was. No one asks kids with straight parents if they were conceived missionary or doggy style. My analogy is crude, but the expectation that queer families always have to explain and justify their donor choice – as if this is the most important thing that makes a family – is problematic at best. There are far greater challenges facing queer families than whether or not kids with the same donor father might pash. In a week when QLD is facing such hideous rollbacks of rights, this article seems a bit glaringly frivolous in its approach.