Jeffrey, Jesse, and Christopher
The site of two guys pushing a stroller through the shopping mall or a shopping cart down the aisles of a supermarket may turn some heads, but to us it is our normal, everyday life and a part of our typical routine. Our family, Christopher, Jeffrey, and 3-year-old Jesse, are a family in every way, and despite the unique nature of our family composition—families headed by two dads are not exactly commonplace in our society—we do not think of ourselves as any different than anyone else. When asked to answer the question: "Why are you a family?" the response seems simple and obvious. We are a family because we love one another, because we are committed to one another. We are a family because we do everything together, because we worry about each other, because we laugh and cry together. We are a family because, in our case, the court said it was so. We are both listed as Jesse's legal, adoptive parents on his birth certificate. From the first day we held him we were his "daddies" and we have loved him and cared for him and been the only family he has ever known.
Despite the public's limited exposure to two dads raising a child, without—heaven forbid—a mother to help out, our lives are really no different than anyone else's. We deal with the struggles and challenges of work, daycare, housekeeping, mortgage payments, family responsibilities and more, just like anyone else. Of course we are aware of the attitudes of some in our society regarding same-sex couples raising children, but our world is not defined by nor directed by the attitudes of others in the world. To be honest, we are too busy living life and taking care of Jesse to take much notice. We are a family precisely because of our sharing of a home, a commitment, and because of love. The slogan "Loves Makes a Family" seems so simplistic and like a catch phrase in some way, but it is concise and clear and totally captures the spirit of who we are, and why we are who we are. We do not feel we offer or owe any explanations as to why we are a family—how do you answer such a question when the response seems so obvious?
People, we know, are uncomfortable with what is unfamiliar to them, and we are happy to discuss others' questions about our family with candor and honesty. Yet more than words can express, when people meet us and spend time with us as a family, they see that in every way we are a family, that we are no different, that love does make a family.