“We’re not any different than any other family,” said Jackie Zdziarski-West about her relationship with her lesbian partner Paula and their three daughters. “We have the same issues. We get up in the morning. Paula goes to work, and the kids go to school. I try to be active with their classrooms. We come home and have dinner and then do homework. We try to spend time together on the weekends and have game nights a couple times a month. We like to watch family movies and eat popcorn together. To me we’re not any different than any other family.”
“Normal” is an adjective Paula and Jackie Zdziarski-West, who live in Oak Park, would apply to their family. “Normal” is also the message that Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) want to communicate through the upcoming photo exhibit they are sponsoring, “Love Makes A Family,” which will open at Unity Temple on Sept. 29.
“PFLAG’s goal with this exhibit is to educate people about how gay/lesbian/bi-sexual/transgender families function and to acquaint the community with the fact of their existence,” said Sylvia Menninga, a member of the Oak Park chapter of PFLAG, who estimates that at least 100 gay families reside in Oak Park alone. “We have many such families in our communities who need our support in raising their families. They want to fit in like all families do, and they make fine contributions to our communities.”
Tim Gordon and Earl Hawley, a gay couple who live in Forest Park and are co-parents of a three- and two-year-old, say the same thing. Hawley likes to tell stories about their first days of parenting. Having a sister who had three sets of twins made Hawley want to adopt twins and get the infant stage of child-raising over all at once.
“A few months after we adopted June, I thought, ‘Oh, thank goodness we didn’t get twins!'” he said with a laugh.
As it turned out, they were able to adopt Charlie, June’s brother, a little over a year later, so Hawley’s wish to have twins became a virtual reality. They named their daughter after Gordon’s grandmother and Hawley’s mother and they named Charlie after their two fathers. The grandparents dote on the kids, and a neighbor crocheted baby blankets for the two children.
What makes them different, as far as they are concerned, is both of them have PhDs and are raising two African-American kids. Their gender preference has little to do with how their family functions.
In fact, when they get comments from people on the street, it’s because people have noticed the racial difference. While some reactions seem to be negative, most are positive. Hawley remembered one negative comment from a man at Navy Pier but added that the man’s wife then approached them and apologized, explaining that her husband was drunk. Hawley laughed again and noted that another reason negative comments may be minimized is that his six-foot-three, 200-pound body might intimidate some people.
Most comments the couple have heard in the area have been positive. He told the story of a man who followed the bi-racial family out of Petersen’s ice cream shop and told them that they would make “all the difference in the world” to these two children. The man then broke down and explained that he had been adopted as a little boy and given a good home.
Losing a fantasy, gaining a daughter-in-law
Meta Kroker, who lives in Oak Park with her wife, Joy, came out to her parents, Kate and Phil, nine years ago. Meta’s parents talked about how normal their relationship with their daughter-in-law has felt.
“Since I have two daughters, I never thought I would have a daughter-in-law,” said Kate Kroker, who is also PFLAG’s president. “Joy has been a huge plus in my life.”
Phil Kroker remembered when his daughter came out to them, he more or less gave up the fantasy of walking his daughter down the aisle.
“I was wrong,” he said with a smile, “about many things. One in particular was that we walked Meta down the aisle two years ago this June in front of over 200 dear friends and relatives. What I thought eight or nine years ago was turned topsy-turvy and now I’ve got a daughter-in-law.”
Holidays have turned out to be fairly similar to what the family imagined if Meta had married a man. Emily Kroker, Meta’s sister, said nothing has changed about their family any more than if she had a new brother-in-law. She noted that what has changed is that Meta is with them less during holidays because she has to divide her time between her family and Joy’s.
Emily Kroker noted how supportive her parents have been since Meta came out to them. The first year her parents marched in the Gay Pride Parade. Emily knew they were going to do it, but Meta did not. As she and her sister stood watching the parade and her parents came into view, Emily recalled, “It was very emotional and very powerful. All of us were very touched.”
Joy, too, talks in terms of “normal.”
“For the most part I feel like I’m mainstream. Meta and I don’t hang out with a lot of gay couples. We’re not trying to not socialize with gays and lesbians, but most of our friends and family are straight.”
The Zdziarski-Wests, who are both veterinarians and have been partners for 18 years, likewise said most of their friends are straight. What the couple looks for in their friends is not their sexual orientation but their values.
Paula Zdziarski-West said, “I don’t think our family is 100 percent like everyone else, but I think what makes our family different doesn’t originate with the fact that we’re a lesbian couple. I see it more as we are a family that tries to stay rooted in what is important. We’re a pretty strongly religious family. We don’t have a lot of the standard material things that a lot of families have.
“We’re trying to focus on each other and the people around us. We try to make choices that originate from God, family and community more than a lot of the material things that this culture tries to throw at us. I don’t think we’re the only family out there like that, but if I would have to say that we’re a little bit off the average or off the norm, it would be because of that.”
Coming to terms with coming out
One thing that everyone shared was how difficult it was to come out, especially to their parents.
“No matter how well you know someone,” she said, “there’s always a fear of rejection. There’s always a chance that they will shut you out of their lives … but things didn’t turn out that way.”
It hasn’t been as easy for the Zdziarski-Wests. When the couple takes their children to Paula’s home in the South, she says her parents don’t quite know what to do with Jackie. They haven’t yet reconciled the reality of their daughter’s relationship with her partner with their conservative religious values.
Paula said, “Sometimes when we go to my house for Christmas, my mom is very quick to introduce me and the girls. Of course she’s very proud of her grandchildren. She doesn’t quite know how to introduce Jackie.”
“She usually doesn’t say anything,” Jackie added. “I just stand there with Paula and the kids.”
Meta Kroker wanted to send a message to parents whose children come out to them.
“It’s not a choice,” she declared. “It can’t be said enough. No one in their right mind would choose this lifestyle because the discrimination is so difficult to deal with-having friends disown you, having family disown you, having people hate you who don’t even know you. If parents don’t accept and try to understand who their sons and daughters are, they’re going to drive a wedge between them and their children. And a lot of the time it’s not repairable.”
All things considered, all three families are happy they live in the Tri-Village area. Hawley and Gordon moved here because of the diversity in this area and the tolerance of difference they believe is characteristic of larger cities. The same is true for the Zdziarski-Wests and Joy and Meta.
For all of the normal challenges that go along with parenting plus the special hurdles that face gay families, all three families interviewed seem be settled in and living a fairly normal life.
Paula Zdziarski-West summed it up saying, “We have a lot of people come up to us and say, ‘Wow we think what you are doing is great,’ but most of the time we’ll turn and say, ‘We’re the ones who are blessed because we get the privilege of living with and raising these three beautiful kids.'”
