Who's your momma?

In the past few weeks, Shawn Joaquin has become very interested in other people's lives and what they might be doing at any given moment. "What Lucas doing? What BlueJay doing? Why they do that? Where they live?" These questions are part of our everyday existence, every hour, and I have learned to answer all of them by rote — everyone is always home, they live in Oakland, and they are always, amazingly enough, doing JUST WHAT WE'RE DOING.

Today, Shawn Joaquin wanted to know the name of Dani's mommy. Then he asked me "what her other mommy's name?" Since I am jet-lagged and easily confused, I answered "Jeff." A moment passed before he asked about yet another classmate...and another...and another. And each time he first asked his or her mommy's name, and then what's his or her OTHER mommy's name, even those whom I knew had daddies. And I realized that one of the very wonderful parts of living in the Bay Area is the flexibility of family definitions, and that perhaps we may need a few more straight friends.

Yet I appreciate that Shawn Joaquin will probably never angst about why his friend has two mommies, why he is dark and I am light, why his cousin is being raised by his grandparents, why our neighbors Tom and Tom live together, or why he was present at Mama and Daddy's wedding. He will not question recycling, higher education, the value of a nice hike on a sunny day, the love of a good dog, the need to say "I love you" to someone every day, family hugs, the practice of catch-and-release, and why one should never be a Raiders fan. It's these values that I hope to pass on to him and that keep us in the Bay Area.

Some in my family have asked why it's important to me that my son be in school with children of gay or lesbian parents, why he needs to see children of all colors around him, that he learn Spanish and keep that tie to his birth family. Why do I, a straight, married and very Caucasian woman care? Can't someone else be worried about that? Can't someone else walk for AIDS, be saddened and angered by the treatment of immigrants or the lack of opportunity for so many children of color? It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't live here, who wasn't drawn here by meeting neighbors and fellow school parents thinking "ah, it's you!” I am easily dismissed by my family as a radical liberal, though many Berkeley-centrists would see me as far too conservative and establishment.

Perhaps the easiest explanation is this: my son will never be the "white person" that I am, with all the automatic privileges that silently come with that. Assumptions will be made about him every time he walks out the front door and into any other environment. I hope that by teaching him — by surrounding him at home and at school by those who might be considered "different" in Nebraska — that everyone has value and that their value is not derived from their skin color, their sexual orientation, their affluence or their family. And in doing so, I have taught him to value himself. What better gift — other than a fully-loaded Hybrid at 16 — can I give him?