Mirrors for Queer Would-Be Parents: Spawning Season and Good Morning Moon

Joseph Osmundson and Brad Gooch write memoirs about choosing fatherhood, or not

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The first serious step my husband Rich and I took toward becoming parents was attending Pathways to Parenthood classes at The LGBTQ+ Center here in New York City. The classes explored each of the most common ways LGBTQ+ people can become parents. We met with adoption and surrogacy professionals, heard from parents of adoptees and foster-to-adopt children. Rich and I felt instantly drawn to adoption. Still, I was glad to learn about the other pathways, and meeting gay men who were dads felt so novel then. I was glad just to share a room with them.

I remember becoming so overwhelmed by part of the Pathways class, though I can no longer tell you which part. Perhaps I gave myself a break after hearing about the foster system in New York City or the costs of surrogacy or the discrimination birth mothers can face when choosing to place their child for adoption. I gave myself a break from class and ook a walk around The Center. I ended up in the Keith Haring Bathroom, painted by Haring to mark the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. I brought those big thoughts into this bathroom turned gallery covered with Haring’s black and white mural. The toilets, urinals, and sinks have been removed, but the mirror is still hanging there. I took a few pictures of Haring’s explicit queer wonderland, but wish now I’d snapped a selfie too. Me at the beginning of our parenting journey. I was so stressed out by finding adoption lawyers and planning advertising to meet prospective birth moms that I never allowed myself the wonder that was there with us too, a wonder more like what straight couples able to create children on their own must feel on their way to becoming mom and dad.

The start of our search to become dads is on my mind because I’ve just finished two very different parenting memoirs both by queer men here in New York City. Spawning Season: An Experiment In Queer Parenthood shares Joseph Osmundson’s journey to almost becoming a parent. Brad Gooch’s brief memoir Good Morning Moon tells the story of how he and his husband became fathers – twice – through surrogacy.

Osmundson creates a broad collage: pulling queer theory into his thoughts on parenting, compares human childbirth to the lifecycle of salmon, and builds beautiful scenes around the healing power of cooking at home. He sits with the environmental implications of creating more children. I admit environmental issues weren’t a consideration in my mind, no matter which pathway to parenthood we were considering.

Good Morning Moon has a unique structure where the first movement of the book briefly lays down the timeline of Gooch’s parenting journey. Then he colors in the details beginning with stories of Howard, his first long-term partner, who died of AIDS. In choosing to begin here with details drawn from his journals, Gooch shows how much our community has lived through in a few decades - from plague to parenthood. He also shows how past partners and other ghosts have a role in our parenting histories. Gooch brings a poet’s ear to quoting his kids as they move through elementary school. I appreciate how Gooch goes into detail about nannies and public schools.

Both of these generous memoirs allow us to peer into other men’s parenting stories. I’m grateful that these are literary works, experimenting at times with form and theme, rather than dry and distancing how-tos. Reading them is like standing in front of the mirror in the Keith Haring Bathroom. They’re there to help us see more of ourselves and our shared queer history.

Photo: The Center