But here’s what just happened to make me feel this way. At his school this morning, Anakin’s substitute teacher, a bright eyed woman with short white hair, pulled me aside to let me know she’d been meaning to recommend a book to me. This book, she said, was full of research, which could get a bit much, but was still a good read.
(Uh oh, my heart was sinking, where’s this going? It’s gonna be Real Boys or one of these cult of understanding boys books).
“It’s Raising Boys without Men.”
Surprisingly, I did not cringe; her tone was relaxed, accessible, plus I have liked this woman for a long time now.
She went on to explain, quickly and without embarrassment, that, you see, she herself had adopted two children and single-parented them, including a son. (“I figured I had my whole life to find a mate, but I didn’t have my whole life to be a parent.”) She said she had enjoyed this book which, she wanted me to know, affirmed the fine and sensitive men often brought up by women alone.
She noted, too, that Anakin was on his way to being such a young man. And she was bursting with pride that her own son was now at an Ivy League college and doing well, so well that his birth mother had attended his high school graduation, a woman who’d stayed in touch through the years with letters, and was now heartened to see that her decision to give her child up had been the right one.
We were standing in the back of the classroom. The kids were taking off their boots by the cubbies. I was patting my eyes with my filthy late-winter mittens. This teacher continued to smile, gratified that I was so affected. She let me in further.
She had tried to have her own children, she had tried donor insemination, but she wasn’t able to get pregnant. So she’d adopted.
This stunned me. I saw now how this lovely older woman--who looked every bit the school marm--regarded me as part of her tribe. She wanted me to know how much we have in common. She was letting me know she is there for me, if I have questions about parenting a son without a father, because she’s been there. It put me in touch with the courage it must have taken to make the decisions she had made 20-30 years ago. She was ready to be pregnant and alone and a school teacher all at the same time. So, no, I have to say, in 2010 in Vermont, I do not feel much like a pioneer. I am an out lesbian parent in a small, rural, public school.
Big deal.
©2010 Eliza J. Anderson
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