Here at the AWOP GLBTQ page, we’ve had articles on coming out, first loves, politics, and just about ever other facet of everyday life. One of the unfortunate by-products of a divorce – gay or straight – is the sometimes very poor way some adults handle themselves in front of the children of their broken union.    We all struggle through our lives dealing with all sorts of tumult.  This essay, by Nina, brings to the fore that even while the story is not a new one in the annals of acrimonious divorce, the added element of being a gay parent can bring us even bigger challenges, especially in those states were gay relationships have no equal standing in the law. ~ GLBTQ Editor

Take it in for a moment.  Did it hurt your feelings?   Did it make you mad?  Think about it for a moment.  No, think long and hard about it.   If you are part of the GLBT community and did not actually gestate that child you are raising, YOU MEAN NOTHING.  And even if you gave birth don’t think that you children will not be taken from you.  You are gay, period.

This was the actual conversation that took place by an adult who watches over my children during my husband’s visitation days.  My partner was late picking them up from school.  I called the school ahead of time so that they would be aware of this fact and I asked what the protocol was for such happenings.  They said that the charge Duties would gather any child who doesn’t have their ride there, once the buses go home, will be brought into the office to wait for their ride.  Everything was set.

My partner arrived about 7 minutes after this phone call to find my ex husband’s wife standing outside the school with the girls.  It seems that she refused to let the girls go inside as per the school policy and waited for my partner to get there.  Once my partner got there, she mentioned to the new wife that she didn’t have to stay there with the girls because the school already knew we were coming and we were late.  This is where the woman’s glorious homophobia broke through.

“I am their stepmother and I will stay with them whenever and wherever I choose.  You are nothing to them, do you hear me?  Nothing!  All you are is their mother’s roommate”

My partner standing there looking at this woman, in shock that she would say something so hateful with both her girls and my girls standing right there said, “You are nothing more to them than their father’s wife.”   The woman then said, “I have papers that say I am married to their father, I have rights!  Do you have papers like that?  You show them to me, go ahead show me!  You don’t do you?   You are nothing.”

My partner not knowing what else to do, did what our pastor has taught us to do.  Dig deep for compassion and a calm tongue.  She motioned for the girls to come with her to the car and turned to tell this woman that we pray for her and will continue to do so.  Truth be told we actually pray for the strength to pray for her.  However, I think that’s okay.

As you can imagine, my girls were traumatized.  Not soon after both of them showed up at my home.  I walked outside pat my ex-husband and told the screaming mimi in the truck that she was never to speak to my partner in front of my girls like that again.  She felt the need, like a petulant child, to prove to me she could do as she pleased.  This also reinforced what my children have told me has been said to them while at their father’s.

The story turns into a novella which really isn’t the point of this cautionary tale.  So I won’t continue my tale of adults behaving badly.   The point to this is this:  You mean nothing.   How does that make you feel?