Family Values

WHO AM I?

Have been pondering the nature of blogging… In my view it’s unadulterated narcissism.

Definition:‘Excessive self-admiration and self-centredness… and an excessive need for admiration’.

Pretty negative? And yet something a whole generation of people raised with ‘digital diaries’ have absolutely zero problem with…

A Wikipedia search for defining characteristics of Gen Y speaks of “lack of privacy; expectation of speaking to an audience even in personal communication; and a familiarity with harsh, anonymous criticism”.1

Maybe they’re onto something? I’ve always struggled with wanting to be liked… wanting to fit… and defining myself according to whom I’m with.

The self-synopsis on the ‘Family Values’ splash page is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write… and I could only pull it off by imagining myself as a ‘character’.

And yet something weird happens when you hit ‘submit’, and send your personal musings out into the ether for public consumption… you start to own yourself… and stop worrying what other people might think… It’s pretty damn obvious that you can’t control that anyway…

So maybe it’s helping me grow into the space inside my skin… it would be kind of cool if I could learn to be myself (whomever that may be? do I care?) before I conceive…

Quest update: I seem to have completely missed a period and yet I’m not pregnant. I have an appointment with a well-regarded GP (has helped other lez friends fall pregnant!) and I’m trying not to stress… and I’m wondering whether I may end up finding my way through one of the ‘loop-holes’ that sometimes allow single queer women to access reproductive services in SA.

More importantly: We start the first of the digital storytelling workshops this weekend with a fantastic group of participants and team of facilitators. Soon we’ll have some 2 minute long digital prototypes for the rainbow family tree!

I’m polishing up that spiel about delving into self-analysis being empowering for the soul! Reclaiming narcissism as we speak!

1. New York Magazine. “Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll” 12 February 2007

Transcribing an interview with Dad last night… When I first told him I’d like to have another child he said he was ‘underwhelmed’. It’s that word that I’ve held onto rather than the advice he gave later… ‘You can’t spend your whole life worrying about what other people might think’.

I realised that’s exactly what I do… and a lot of this ‘I don’t fit/they don’t accept me’ angst is stuff that I hold onto and perpetuate…

Sure, they make judgements according to what they know, but if I close them out for fear of what they might think… I’m not really allowing them the opportunity to revise their attitudes towards me... or sexuality or conception…

And if my worst fear is that they won’t see things the same way I do then, so what? Is that really any worse than carrying around all this baggage and nursing all my resentments?

I need to say ‘Look, this is who I am… I’d like to have another child and this is how I’m going to do it. Like it or lump it… I’m going to be honest with Rosie so that I can help her deal head on with any issues that arise at school or with friends. You can choose to come with us on the journey or you can invent some complicated fictions for yourselves and Rosie’s cousins… either way both Rosie and I will continue to be open and truthful to ourselves…‘

Mum, Dad, Jean… I owe you an apology… all this time I’ve been operating on the assumption that you wouldn’t be up for it… Are you?

It strikes me that I've been so busy submitting funding applications that I haven't actually spelt out the nature of 'the project'...

This blog is 'Stage One'. Then there's digital storytelling workshops. And a documentary. And hopefully, finally, a fully-fledged interactive website, complete with complementary game.

In a few weeks I'll be running a 3 day workshop in Adelaide helping parents and kids from the 'Pink Parents' community here shape their family stories into little 1 - 2 minute digi-docs. Eventually they'll feature on a 'Family Values' website - as clickable leaves on a rainbow family tree. If you can't get to a workshop, the site will host all the software and resources to make your own little digi-doc. Upload some stills, record a voice-over narration, drag and drop some music, sound effects and visual motifs into a time-line... et voila!

The digi-docs serve 2 purposes - viewing a diversity of other stories can help us and our kids break down the sense of 'poor fit' that we've all experienced from time to time... and sharing these stories with the wider community (maybe ambivalent members of your extended family, maybe homo-hostile or homo-ignorant members of parliament or the press) can erode conservative social assumptions and moral judgements.

Meanwhile, the linear documentary will follow me (at my self-absorbed and narcissistic best) as I facilitate these workshops and the 'seeding' of the on-line community... Hopefully, somewhere on that time-line, my tummy is also growing fatter and I'm mending bridges with my biological family in anticipation of having a baby...

Does it sound like something you might be interested in watching? Or talking about at the 'water-cooler'?

Stop right there - too passive! Does it sound like something you might like to actually get involved in? Maybe help your kid/donor/grandparent tell the story of how they came to part of a ‘rainbow family’? Maybe share your strategies for overcoming the many obstacles to conception and ‘rainbow family life’?

Well… get active! Subscribe! Post a comment here… then send the blog link to anyone you think might be interested… or anyone who needs a reality check when they talk about ‘family values’…

By the way, I found a great stat - less than 25% of Americans live in a ‘conventional nuclear family’ (consisting of a married heterosexual couple living under the same roof with their biological children).

Williams, Brian; Stacey C. Sawyer, Carl M. Wahlstrom (2005). Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships. Boston, MA: Pearson. 0-205-36674-0.

So who says we can’t have the family of our heart’s desire?

stills from ‘Rainbow Kids Disco’ @ FEAST 2006

I’ve been keeping records of my cycles for about 9 months now… but sometimes that’s just an asterix against a date in my diary because I can vaguely remember getting my (inconvenient!) period in a nightclub toilet. And so, it seems my cycles are both short (23-26 days) and erratic.

This month - our second ‘go’ - looked like it was going to need to be sometime over Easter. Logistically complicated because of Easter Egg hunts, social commitments… and the fact that D’s new boyfriend was leaving town, so I was kind of conscious of making sure they had some last minute ‘intimate’ time together without needing to stress about ‘bottling it’!

Plus, I was kind of busy getting a funding application together for the cross platform doco (working title ‘Family Values’) so it didn’t occur to me to start doing the wee tests until the day I was expecting to ovulate. Now it seems that I *$##$!! missed it! I kept waiting for the tell-tale cramps and started doing tests three times a day… and then I remembered that suspiciously hormonal pimple that I’d had in the middle of last week… Aagh! That must have been it….

I feel like a wally and a goose.

I’ve made an appointment with a friend’s GP (supportive, dyke-friendly, ex-gyno) for next month… stepping it up to daily blood tests rather than urine, as apparently hormone levels can be guaged far more precisely this way. Course it still doesn’t get round the sheer unpredictability of it… and needing to re-orientate social and childcare plans for 2 or 3 people at the last minute…