A big question for straight spouses is “how will having a gay parent affect our children?” For answers to this question, we suggest you take a look at what the experts say. The best experts are the adult children of gay parents.

You can find their perspectives in several places on the web. Abigail Garner’s website Families Like Mine is usually a good place to start. She has written a book,  Families Like Mine which describes growing up with a heterosexual mother and a gay father. She’s also written an excellent piece for Newsweek on her experiences.

Abigail hosts Oversampled, a collection of blogs written by adult children of gay parents.  Their perspectives are diverse, and their lives take many different directions.

A very comprehensive resource for different perspectives of adult children of gay, lesbian, and mixed orientation marriages can be found at Queerspawn.org. The name Queerspawn is a tongue in cheek term used by some adult children of gays and lesbians to define their unique experiences with the homophobia and misunderstanding that children of gay and lesbian parents encounter.

A common thread for many of the perspectives of adult children in “families like ours” is that family itself becomes redefined or expanded to include non traditional structures. Family can include mom and dad, siblings, step siblings,  parents’ current and former lovers and their children, or close friends. Another common experience is fear of letting their peers know more about their families because of the threat of being harrassed, misunderstood, or targeted for bullying.

For children of mixed orientation marriages, the primary concern growing up is the continuation of family after divorce. Issues related to their parents sexuality are secondary for many. As they get older, having a gay parent affects their world because they sometimes find themselves not being accepted by straight friends. Some live in the shadow of assumptions made about them based on their parent being gay.

As straight spouses, we know that there are children who do not enjoy a close relationship with their gay parent, for many of the same reasons that some children don’t connect with one parent in a heterosexual divorce – the parent’s behavior is not family friendly, or they cannot be depended upon to routinely honor visitation agreements or support orders. Sometimes there is conflict with the gay step parent, and a child will decide as a teen to not go to the gay parent’s house for that reason. The voices of adult children of lesbians and gays currently available reflect the perspective of people who were raised to have close relationships with both the gay and straight members of their respective families.

Our families encounter step parenting issues that generally are not addressed by many counselors, or by gay friendly organizations. It is possible for our children to love both their parents, and not their gay and straight step parents. It is possible for our children to experience the same difficulties that all children of divorce experience, but feel as though they cannot share these issues with counselors or friends due to a parent being gay.

Some of the young adults blogging on oversampled or featured in the Queerspawn diaries refer to themselves as being “culturally queer” even if they are themselves heterosexual. Having a gay parent, they become part of the family that the gay parent builds, which can include partners and friends. Family may not always be the people our children are related to, but the people who relate to them in the same way a family raises and supports children.

Our children of mixed orientation marriages will develop their own perspective as time goes on – and for children of mixed orientation marriages atany age, the primary focus is on what happens to their family and their relationship with their parents.