Handsome,

I appreciate where you are in life. I am thrilled for you that your home is happy and filled with laughter , fun...and I'm sure lots of love. I can tell you love life and are completely comfortable in your "skin", if you will.

I have a son in NYC and it's a wonderfully diverse city. I visit him there several times a year and I am always so amazed by the diverseness of the city. However, not everyone lives in NYC or upstate NY. I, personally, live in a fairly accepting city. I did say "fairly", considering we live in the Bible Belt, there are alot of "churchy" people who are living in deep "southern" church traditions, which consider homosexuality a sin and would never associate with a known homosexual

My Point: Acceptance of different life styles, races, religion can be and often are regional. Fortunately for you, you live in a very accepting community. However, many of our members have struggled with the communities in which they live. I have heard stories of members' homes being vandalised, members struggling with prejudice not only in their community, but even their family and friends. I, personally, was excommunicated from the church I attended and several people who I called "friends", were really not. Recently, a member shared that he had been physically attacked in the community in which he lived. Apparently, you have not had the struggle of "coming out". However, many of our members, like myself, struggled with "who we are" for many, many years before becoming brave enough to be honest with ourselves, our families and our friends. Even now....we have members and guests who have not built up the courage to be who they are intended.

You commented, "Generate love within your family. Try it." I'm sorry, have I miscommunicated in any way there is not love within my family? Or am I misunderstanding your comment? My children are the absolutely, hands down, the biggest priority of my life. I cannot even begin to describe the depth of love I have for my 3 kids. Our home, like yours, is filled with love, laughter, and fun, most of the time. However, we do live in a world that is not perfect...and no matter how happy we are...there are times of sadness and disappointment.

I assume, when you comment, "Sometimes you may encounter negative attitudes but you need to move away from it, accept it for who they are. And how they see it. No sense fighting it"; you are addressing the current situation in my family that I described above (where my daughter's best friends' family will not let her visit our home except on a very, very rare occasion, because I am gay). I'm needing a little more clarity from you. My daughter and her friend, both, are deeply hurt by this young lady's parents' prejudice against me, just because I'm gay. I can't understand how your comment is relevant. I am not willing to sugar coat the situation and pretend it doesn't exist. However, I do take every opportunity to try to engage her family when I see them in the community; attempting to be friendly. If I am misunderstanding...please elaborate. I do want to understand your thoughts.

Take care.

PS...

I laugh at how this post has digressed from the original "I'm bringing sexy back" !!

I'm not so sure that this thread has digressed so much as it has evolved.

Handsome, I appreciate your positive outlook and I am sure that we both agree that labels belong on cans rather than on people. I remember getting to a point in my life where I thought, why can't we all just BE? And I am there now.

In the past, with at least one other member it was usually me who has gotten flack for appearing unrealistically optimistic. But you seem to be ignoring a lot, dismissing as trivial, a lot of issues that our members have struggled to overcome. Reading your words sometimes, positive as I believe you intend them to be, feels a bit like being hit in the head for actually struggling to overcome where we've been and get to that good place.

I do agree with everything that Jeff says here. It's a very good thing, something to celebrate, that you and your son are doing so splendidly. I mean that. It's the sort of place that we want to be in for all of us fathers, world wide, but most of us do not live there yet, and we are not in control of all of the variables within our children's lives.

The way I see it, I would be doing my children a disservice had I not told them that some people would look at my being gay as a sin, and that they might hear things from their grandparents or other family members that were not so nice about their father. I needed to let them know this ahead of time, all the while assuring them that while some people looked at my sexuality as a wrong "choice" I simply saw it as a part of my personality, a part of my make up. Much like my eyes being green or being naturally right handed. I think my telling them this prepared them for what they would come up against, and actually put them at ease.

Should I tell my sons there is no evil, or misunderstanding, if you will, in the world? Should I not have warned them when they were very young that cars could kill if they strayed off the side walk at the wrong time and place?

Our fellow brother Vincent, a manager here on GF, has had recent attacks on his house in Belfast; windows have been broken by vandals in the middle of the night. Local police have been slow to act. All of this, the vandals have made clear in various ways, is because he and his husband David are gay. In this attitude of moving away from negativity, how would you recommend Vince tell his son (if he were younger-- he's nearly grown now) about it? Should he just shrug it off or show it for the uneducated evil that it is?

I don't mean to be argumentative or condescending at all. I just don't entirely understand where you are coming from. I do in part, because as I said, the world you live in in upstate New York sounds like the ideal that we are all looking for. But most of us here don't live there yet, and I personally believe it unwise and untruthful to pretend otherwise and not to educate my children properly about it.

We all do love our children very much, that and our unique situations and challenges is why GayFatherhood.com exists. If there were no labels, no distinction between straight, gay, bi ... well, there would be no need for this site, or do I too misunderstand you? I want to live in your world; it's a goal to strive for. But you'll need to be patient with the rest of us, I think.

Thanks for listening.

Son of Walt,
Why am I under attack? I am just sharing my point of view and expressing the way my son and I live in this world. I have a positive attitude. I am not saying that any of the members are less than me at all. Where the heck did you get this? I can tell every father here loves their children. And they express it. You show your love for your children in many ways here on this site. And I should be allowed to express my life with my son. But don't get on my case because I have not experienced the same things you have. In fact, I AM the baby you read about that was left at a door step when I was born. I am very proud of myself. I have a different take. And if you can't accept that, then that is who you are. So, don't just hand me what everyone else is going through. I am 54 years old, gay and raising my 7 year old son all on my own. Yes, damn it I'm proud. And I'll say it LOUD. I am only showing to all your readers that there is also another take. Someone here has another TAKE. Is there something wrong with that here on Gay Fatherhood? Define Gay Fatherhood.

Whoa... rein it back in there, my friend. Please. I am sincerely sorry that I've made you feel under attack. That was not my intention. I think I just said repeatedly in my posts last night that I am happy that you are where you are in life. I meant that. It wasn't sarcasm.

I never said that I could not accept that you were different. I was merely pointing out that you seemed to be not accepting the sensitive spots that some of the men here have been in. For example, I have to say that it bothered me a bit when you told one of our members in this thread, "Generate love within your family. Try it."

To me, that sounded as if you were implying that he wasn't already doing that. As I said, I may be misreading you, but when you make an implication that someone is not generating love in their family, that's kind of something worth responding to, isn't it?

Handsome, one thing you'll have to understand is that we are not always going to disagree. And if we don't agree, I don't need you to accept that it's who I am so much as to accept that we see things differently and that in many cases, that's perfectly okay.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with having another take. I am glad you do, and please keep sharing that. It's actually a ray of hope in an otherwise dark world. I'm just saying please be patient with those of us who have been through other things. I don't know what it was, maybe just something in your tone (aside from the generate love comment) that made me feel like I was maybe just a tad less good at this dad thing. Follow me?

I wasn't trying to attack you, but have an intelligent discourse about my different take. As I said, I got greatly hassled in the past by another member because he thought I was too pie in the sky optimistic. I was accused of being overly proud.

I don't recall saying that you were too proud, Handsome. If I did I apologize. You have good reason to be proud.

I also don't recall saying there was anything wrong with expressing the great life you live with your son. I did say that my way of looking at it was that I had to prepare them for the bad things in the world as well as the good.

I wonder if you are not being a bit overly sensitive about all this. Because as much as you have the right to share your take, I think I have the right to share my own, and I would think that two people who talk as friends, as I thought we were doing, can only benefit from so openly sharing their differences of opinion within the realm of the site's mission, which is to be great fathers.

You are one, btw. And I admire you for it. I am sorry that you mistook my discussion as an attack. I will be more careful with my own words.

Son of Walt,
Your right. I am a very sensitive person. But, a very strong person. And yes, I may not have the answers to some of the fathers on this site. I just don't have those experiences. I can only offer advice the way I see it. And I certainly did not mean any disrespect regarding my comment about generating love. I dunno, sometimes issues appear foreign to me. I thought about coming onto this site for a very long time. When I finally did I thought the best I could do is to present strength and encouragement, but in a manner from my own experiences. I have a very loud voice. And, it bothers me that we are not further along. Some 30 years ago The Advocate magazine did a feature story on me, my work, and my partner of 10 years. I always felt this need to break down barriers to be present in the here and now. As my life has progressed I have never stopped expressing who I am, in fact in alot of articles done on my work, my personal life is upfront. It's the best I can do to educate those that still don't get it. It's okay to be gay and now with my own son it is WONDERFUL to be gay and a father. I won custody of my son in the courts. I know this is rare. I want to express hope and strength to everyone on this site and that everything is going to be alright. And I understand that for some dads it is more difficult. And I feel their pain. But understand I am doing my part as best I can to make it a little easier for all the other gay dads to come. I don't know what more to say, or now, if I've even said it right. Come over here and let me give you a hug. Aah shucks......

I'll keep this short. I've read thorugh these various posts and have taken this from them. The best we can do as fathers is to provide a family of loving, laughing and consistant people in our children's lives. This will give them the security and the strength and the hope to remain who they are in a world that has a range of reactions out there, opportunities and challenges and dangers.

We don't have any control over other people, we do have control over how we manage situations. There have been some good questions asked which I hope we can all consider.

My partner and I have reconciled by the way!

Okay, good. Everything back on track. Excellent. Group hug. And how about a beer. It's five o'clock somewhere, but unfortunately here it is five am.

Off to work in a few. It looks like the technical problems are fixed for the moment. I'll go back and change the colors the right way instead of the short cuts I took... apparently that's what screwed things up, but I still have a hard time believing that.

And, JustJeff has reminded me that I really haven't said much about my three wonderful sons lately and I really need to make some posts about them, since that's why this site is here!

Handsome,
I currently live with a man who had been in a 16 year monogamous gay relationship (WOW! A real rare experience as I hear tell.)
I have a 12 year old son who stays with us half the time. My partner always wanted to be a father, and likes my son very much, BUT there is a real difference between someone WHO WANTED to be a father and someone WHO IS a father.
From time to time, it's like I'm the parent of 2 children. From my experience so far, there is a real maturity difference between men who had been in a straight marriage and had children, as opposed to the gay men who didn't. I've heard some gay men suffer from the "Peter Pan Syndrome", because they never had anything to ever really be responsible for but themselves. I know how critical that sounds, but it seems to be true for some.
I won't get into the nuts and bolts of the problems dealing with a man who had never been a father, but it was unexpected. Even though I'd consider my partner responsible and patient, I wouldn't want to go through it again.
IF there is a next time, I'll seek out another gay father. Although I'm sure there would be unique problems in that type of relationship, I think I'd rather take my chances.
But then again, I've been longing for what I had in my straight relationship, only with a man this time around.
Is it possible I wonder?
Chuck

Chuck - I agree with you 100%. I had a 7 year relationship with a gay man who has been out all his life. He has no children. I came out about 8 years ago and have children. My kids loved him but our realtionship just recently turned sour and he left for "different pastures" I guess and I am having a hard time understanding what really happened. Also not sure if it is good or bad. And I am not sure how much of it is because I have kids or how much of it is that I have not been out for 40 years as he has....hmmmmm. I think I would rather be in a relationship with another gay father. But there are even less of us. Alex

AB,
I think there's a whole bunch of us out there, but we're off the radar. It's not the type of thing you usually advertise... DARN IT!
Sorry about your relationship. It was probably for the best, even though it's scary and lonely. I wish you all the best.
If you find out where all the gay fathers hang out, spread the word!
Chuck

As gay men who are parents by what ever route, we are a minority within a minority....somethng like 8% of the gay male community, and I think that can present some challenges, and different ones to that experienced by gay guys who don't have kids in their lives.

I have said it before and will say it again.....gay men make the most fantastic parents, are often the most positive and involved role models, and work so very hard at getting it right, being there when it counts and going that extra mile. We know how to love and can show it, we are often high achievers and strong characters, sensitive and artistic at times, intuitive and energetic.. all this we have to offer as we nurture our kids. I love my son, and I am lucky to have a partner who loves him too and gets on really well with him. Sure, I agree there are unique experiences and challenges within a relationship when you are a father and your partner isn't, but no less for st8 step dads too.

I think as gay men we sometimes want to have our cake and eat it, there may well be a more selfish streak at times, but when you think what it takes to be gay and out, to just live our lives fairly and openly at times, well I can understand that.

I know my son realizes the reality of how society, individuals can treat others differently becaue of the colour of their skin, their gender, sexual orientation, the way they dress etc....I wish this wasn't the case, but life is like that. I am just glad that he knows and will always choose to be a better man than that.

Cheerio for now...Vincent...xx