This Kid Is Alright
Words and illustration by Rivka Cocker
I have two mums. My nephew has five grandmas. The most ‘nuclear’ thing going on in my family is probably an outing to a CND march to protest nuclear weapons. Growing up as the child of lesbian parents, one of the weirdest things I’ve come across is ‘new’ research findings reporting that children from same-sex families achieve just as well as children from heterosexual families. To me this comes as absolutely no surprise. Does the non-heteronormative gender and sexuality of my parents really make me that different? I was pleasantly surprised after a quick Google search to find a study stating that I, as a
child of same-sex parents, am likely to be more socially aware and have higher self-esteem than heterosexual-parented peers. I’m amused by the idea of academics researching children who grow up with two mums or two dads finding that, SHOCK HORROR, they aren’t all that different. Put crudely, the presence of a middle-age penis (or any age penis for that matter) in my household doesn’t affect my academic ability. I think my parents would appreciate me saying here that they aren’t separatists, in fact some of their best friends are men!
