Former Daddy Square guest, therapist Michael McAtee penned an article on GaysWithKids.com inspired by our podcast conversation.
For many gay men, a “gay lifestyle” equates to spending hours at the gym, bar-hopping with friends, weekend getaways, ascending the ladder in one’s career, maintaining an immaculate home, and listening to “pride” anthem music. As a result, there are those who feel that gay life and raising kids go together like oil and water. Despite these implicit differences, it turns out a growing number of gay men are choosing to enter into parenthood by merging multiple identities.
Gay parenting is becoming more common, and it’s changing parenting forever. The dynamic of juggling being parents and allowing ourselves to be ourselves—gay men—is an important part of every gay parent’s journey. A lot of gay fathers are breaking their silence and beginning to speak openly and plainly about the challenges of being a same-sex couple raising children. I recently appeared as a guest speaker on daddysqr.com, a podcast for and about gay dads. In particular, we talked about specific issues that may arise for gay couples having children and about what can happen when a gay couple brings kids into the picture.
Many gay dads describe going through a difficult transition period after becoming parents due to the many necessary sacrifices (e.g., unpaid leave from work, time off from the gym, lack of sleep, less nights out with friends, and financial sacrifices). While living the illustrious life may not be as easy with children, there are certainly ways of maintaining some semblance of normalcy without sacrificing your identity. Gay dad, author, and creator of the podcast daddysqr.com, Yanir Dekel has written a column for the Huffington Post offering practical advice for first-time parents on how to navigate some of the unexpected difficulties of parenthood. Yanir told the Huffington Post “My husband and I met, got married, and then had children…But that’s pretty much where we wanted ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ to stop and ‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race’ to kick in.”