Daddy Squared: The Gay Dads Podcast

Looking to meet other gay dads in your home town and beyond? in this Season Finale of Daddy Squared podcast we hope to leave you with ideas and inspiration on how to connect with other gay dads. We explore advocacy and social media as ways to form communities with three inspiring guests who have managed to do just that.

In addition to juggling work and parenting, gay dads need other gay dad friends. Not only to show our kids families like ours, but also for ourselves and as a connection to our own gay identity, and frankly there are issues that we can't discuss with straight people.

"Certainly there's the aspect [of connecting with other gay dads] for the kids' sake, but then there's the aspect, the real need for comradery is also for us," says Ron Poole-Dayan, Executive Director and co-founder of Men Having Babies. "Given that a lot of our gay friends disappeared after the kids were born, whereas the parents of our kids at school have different circumstances than us as well. It's not that we're completely different than anybody else - but you know, when you go to Mommy and Me, or Music Together with the kids and all these other things, you're in a mom-centric world. And it's not only that you need to show your kids, YOU need to let your hair down and be more comfortable and create friendships with people."

Finding other gay dads can be around advocacy or a cause like Men Having Babies or Raise A Child, which add an extra layer of mutual interest in addition to geographical proximity. But social media is becoming the number one tool for gay dads to find others like them in the area.

"That happens all the time," says Brian Copeland, founder and admin of the Gay Fathers Facebook group that currently holds over 10,000 members. "Someone says 'oh, I'm in Olathe, Kansas, any gay fathers nearby here?' and people start commenting and they get together. We'll see a lot of fathers who say 'hey, we're going on a cruise at this time, is there anyone else going to be on the cruise,' or 'we're going to Disney this week, is there anyone else going,' and they start meeting up. We encourage those things."

When we talk about being social, we also talk social responsibility and roles of gay dads within the LGBT+ community.

"I think that as older gay men with kids or older gay men period, it's very important that we show up proudly at the gay pride parades with our kids," Rich Valenza, CEO of Raise A Child, says. Show not only the world who we are and what we are and what our values are but also to allow younger people to see this and envision for themselves of what's possible."

Our Guests: Rich Valenza, Ron Poole-Dayan, Brian Copeland

Rich Valenza is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of RaiseAChild. A father of two children adopted through Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, Rich has more than 20 years of success in marketing and development for broadcast media and nonprofit organizations. He has used his expertise in working with leading national and international corporations to form strategic partnerships with community service agencies, national and regional LGBT organizations. In addition to his personal experience, he brings the knowledge gained from serving five years as a board member and three years as the president of The Pop Luck Club, which promotes the well-being of gay prospective parents, gay parents, and their children.

Ron Poole-Dayan is the executive director and founder of Men Having Babies. He has over 20 years of experience in marketing and business strategy development both in the USA and internationally. Ron earned his Masters degree in political economy and comparative politics from Columbia University, and his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He met his husband Greg in 1994, and are among the first same-sex couples in the nation to father children through gestational surrogacy. The twins,

What’s it like raising kids in a throuple? In this episode we dive into the dynamic of a polyamorous relationship with Ian, Alan, and Jeremy, the throuple who made the news after they managed to change the way California law defines family, listing all three of them as fathers on their daughter’s birth certificate.

In recent years we are seeing more and more throuples in the gay community, and on our podcast Dr. Ian Jenkins, author of the book Three Dads and a Baby, explained to us how it came about for him.

“In collage I took a bunch of anthropology classes,” Jenkins explains, “and I was thinking to myself, it’s pretty unusual that someone is EVERYTHING to somebody else, and there may be different aspects of your personality that somebody else nurtures or feels, needs and stuff, so, that was something that I brought to my dating with Alan and he had needed to do some thinking about it and make sure that was okay, we went ahead and started to date a couple of people, we kissed a number of frogs before we met Jeremy, with Jeremy it was totally different, we had a great connection right away.”

Ian had been with Alan for 19 years, and they’ve been with Jeremy, for ten. And they have two biological children — Piper, who is 5, and Parker, who is 3.

“If you asked me about being in a throuple, before [my experience] I’d say that’s too complicated and crazy,” Alan says on Daddy Squared, “why would anyone want that it’s hard enough to be with one person.”

“And after I’d say, oh, now that I’m approaching 45 I realize it’s so pragmatic in a lot of ways. I’m not trying to sell somebody on that and say you should definitely do this, it works for us, it worked out it evolved this way organically, and if we are talking to friends that are of our age, they have kids, they have been in a relationship for a long time, almost universally the reaction is oh I see the appeal.”

On our interview with the three we heard about what it’s like raising kids as a throuple, why it was important to them to make it legal, and we also hear about some of the stereotypes and the misconceptions they face, including ‘coming out’ to their parents about the throuple.

“Being in a throuple is coming out again, for sure,” Alan admits. “I’ve been with Ian for a long time and [my parents] knew Ian. My mom was more like, ‘okay, it’s different, I understand,’ she was supportive, and my dad was like, ‘I just struggle to see how is that conforms with fidelity in all these kind of traditional values.’ But he quickly came around. But we were also in a position, kind of later in life, where I’m not financially dependent on my parents, I’ve got my own life going on, I gotta live my life. I’ve been with Ian for a long time and I felt strongly that our life is better with Jeremy, this needs to work, I wanted to work and this is important to me. ”

“I make a point,” Jeremy adds, “if I meet new people, like if we have a new worker, pretty early on I’d say, like, ‘hey just so you know I have two partners, so if we’re talking about our home lives I don’t want you to sit there and say hey what’s going on.’ I [come out] constantly at all times.”

Our Guests: Ian, Alan and Jeremy

Dr. Ian Jenkins is the author of “Three Dads and a Baby: Adventures in Modern Parenting“, a debut memoir about his experiences trying to have a baby as part of a polyamorous gay “Throuple.” The three men wanted to have a child, but the road to having a baby took them through embryo adoption, IVF and surrogacy, dealing with lawyers and doctors, enormous medical bills, questions about polyamorous parenting, and legal battles to get all 3 dads listed on the birth certificate (they were the first to do so).

Ian is joined by his partners Alan, a clinical psychologist, and Jeremy, a zookeeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Men Having Babies Corner

Men Having Babies is a nonprofit organization that helps gay men who are interested in becoming fathers through surrogacy navigate the s...

Latest research shows that more than 25% of children experience bullying, based on them being or seeming different. Some bullied kids end up with serious emotional damage. In this episode we discuss bullying with Ross Ellis from Stomp Out Bullying, and also Yan shares what he learned, unfortunately from his own personal experience. This is part 2 of a double-episode special, celebrating 100 episodes of Daddy Squared: The Gay Dads Podcast.

According to stopbullying.gov, bullying is defined as unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.

“Kids don’t want to come to and tell you, ‘dad, this is something that’s happening to me,’” says Ross Ellis, a parenting expert and founder of Stomp Out Bullying. “They try to fix it themselves or pray it will go away. But it doesn’t go away. You really have to take steps.”

This is part 2 in a special double-episode, celebrating 100 episodes of Daddy Squared: The Gay Dads Podcast, discussing bullying. In part 1, also dropped today, we discussed stereotypes and judgement of gay dads. In both episodes we saw how the two subjects are weaved into each other.

“If a kid is being verbally bullied, we tell them to use what we call ‘comebacks’ - don’t have a conversation,” Ellis advises. “You’ve just taken away the bully’s power. Never use the word ‘ignore’ because you just cannot ignore bullying, but you can say things and do things that will make the bully think, ‘what just happened?! And if you experience cyber bullying – never ever respond. I don’t care what they say, just click ‘delete’ and block.”

“That is the bully’s worst nightmare, when someone responds not the way they want them to. You’re taken away their power,” she adds.

Ellis also advises parents to resist the urge of going to the bully’s parents, and try to solve it in indirect way in order to avoid escalation with the parents.

“If you find out that a kid is a bully, you don’t want to go to the parents, because the parents will probably have the attitude of ‘not my kid,’” she says. “And the it creates a problem in the neighborhood with the kids and the whole thing. Hopefully your kids can get to this kid by being nice and being kind. If it gets really bad you may want to talk to the principal and see how they handle it, and by the way, there are anti-bullying legislate in every state.”

Based on the conversation with Ross Ellis, and on his own experience of being harshly bullied as a kid, Daddy Squared's Yan talked about the result of that growing up, and also comes up with top three suggestion of what could have helped him, and what can help a child who is harshly bullied in the same way.

Yan's Advise for Parents Whose Kids Are Being Bullied

1: Pay extra attention to your kid's social experienceSome kids may not admit they were bullied – but the parents can tell. If you suspect that your kid is being bullied, first validate it by seeing it around: pay extra attention when you are in public with your kid, see what type of kids he brings home, etc. If you find these validation, try to get the kid to talk to you about what are people do or say to him. Consult with a specialist, and do not ignore, because you ignoring leaves the kid alone in this horrible situation. Support your kid by constantly telling him how much you love them the way they are.

2: Learn reaction options during an attackThe feedback to the bully is key. The more the answer to the bully is that you think it’s no big deal – the faster you can ‘disarm’ them.

3: Try to get at least one kid to tell them they want to be friends with them.“I never answered to the bullies – but I was miserable,” Yan says. “It would have been amazing if there was a friend who acknowledged what I was going through and say that they don’t care wha...

Gay dads often face stereotypes, including homophobic ones, but also somewhat uncomfortable stereotypes from moms, and even from childless gay men in our very own community. In this episode of Daddy Squared, we brought Neal Broverman, editor of The Advocate and OUT magazines, to try and break down the stereotypes, and see if there’s something we can do to avoid them. This is part 1 of a double-episode special, celebrating 100 episodes of Daddy Squared.

“Society is more used to women being with children, and when you have men with children there’s just judgement and some of it is not good,” Neal Broverman says on Daddy Squared. “So yeah, I do think there’s pressure on us to be stand out people and kind of represent the best all the time.”

This is part 1 in a special double-episode, celebrating 100 episodes of our podcast discusses stereotypes and judgement of gay dads. In part 2, also dropped today, we discuss bullying. In both episodes we saw how the two subject are weaved into each other.

“If you’ve had a negative situation as a gay male parent, I think almost all of us have had at least one, it kind of colors your experience and you’re on edge,” Broverman says. “You can kind of make situations that aren’t inherently negative negative. As I’ve grown older as a parent, I’ve done my best to filter out other people’s looks, expectations, reactions to my kids.”

Broverman himself made the news last year, after he and his family faced a harsh homophobic harassment in an Amtrak train in San Jose that ended only after police intervention.

“This lie [that drives hate towards gay men] has been going around for decades,” Broverman says, “and now it’s been magnified by people like Margory Taylor Green and all the people that want to refer to us as ‘groomers.’ It’s a cynical tactic.”

“I can be father of the year – and I’ll still be an abomination in the eyes [of the person on the train]. There’s nothing I can do. There’s so much judgement with gay people, and it’s just a war you’re not going to win and I care what my kids think of me, I don’t care what strangers think of me.”

In the podcast, we also discuss the contribution of social media to the judgment and stereotypes.

“I follow gay dads on Instagram and I follow opposite sex couple,” Neal tells us. “There’s definitely a representation being put out there of all our kids are dressed perfectly all the time and their hair is blown out, and, you know, we’re tanned and we have abs and we’re in Maui every other weekend.” 

“I mean – everyone who’s a parent knows that’s not the case, we usually running around trying to get our kids to school and hold our jobs and feed the dog and afford to put over a roof and feed them so I take it with a grain of salt. Every parent I know is struggling, and it’s not that they don’t love the idea of being parent, it’s just hard. When I’m on Instagram I understand that this is marketing for people, they present themselves in a very specific way… I know that Instagram is not reality.”

Our Guest: Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today.

Neal lives in the Los Angels with his husband, Robbie, their children, and their chiweenie.

Men Having Babies Corner

Men Having Babies is a nonprofit organization that helps gay men who are interested in becoming fathers through surrogacy navigate the sea of information and overcome the financial barrier. In this episode, Executive Director Ron Poole-Dayan discusses misconception and stereotype of surrogacy - often revolve around the surrogates' motives.

Episode Credits

Co-Hosts: Yan Dekel, Alex MaghenGuest: Neal BrovermanOpening Theme: Hercules & Love A...

Working gay dads have so much around them that requires attention; we have to divide ourselves between our jobs, our kids, our gay childless friends, our straight parent friends and still remember who we are. In this episode of Daddy Squared we gathered four working dads, each with a different kind of job, to discuss life.

When both parents have jobs, raising kids can be even more challenging: how does parenting effect work? How are the couples' roles divided? And who stays at home when kids are sick? We gathered a committee(?) of four working dads. All are married and with different kinds of jobs, to discuss gay life and more from their perspective and experience.

Meet The Dads

Joshua Ayou

Joshua is a registered nurse with more than eight years of practice in emergency room care, triage, and intensive care unit/critical care units. He received his Master’s of Science in Nursing from West Coast University in Los Angeles, California and is affiliated with Community Hospital Long Beach. Joshua lives in Santa Ana with his husband Omar and their two children Allie and Blair.

TJ Hill

TJ is the Executive Director of DCRC - Disability Community Resource Center Staff in Venice, California. He served as the Mental Health Policy Director for almost 10 years representing non-profit provider agencies in the LA County mental health system. He serves on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and as a Commissioner on the City of Santa Monica Disabilities Commission. TJ lives in Santa Monica with his husband Jay, an Art Director on TV shows, and their daughter Chloe.

Josh Levine

Josh Levine is a queer writer with the heart of a golden retriever and an obsession with unapologetic, funny women. Josh most recently served as Executive Story Editor on Steve Levitan's new Hulu comedy Reboot. His other writing credits include Ms. Marvel for Marvel Studios, Peter Tolan's series for FX entitled Belated, and the Emmy-nominated Season 2 of Hulu's critically acclaimed comedy, PEN15. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband Ryan, an actor, and their daughters Helena and Olivia.

Lance Radford

Lance is a mathematics teacher at Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. He's a self-directed, enthusiastic educator and basketball coach with over twenty years of experience and who won High School Teacher of the Year (2006, 2012) and Girls Basketball Coach of the Year (2008, 2013). Originally from Oklahoma, Lance now resides in Santa Monica with his husband Trevan, a surgeon, and their daughter, Ava.

Men Having Babies Corner

Men Having Babies is a nonprofit organization that helps gay men who are interested in becoming fathers through surrogacy navigate the sea of information and overcome the financial barrier. In this episode, Lisa from Men Having Babies talks about the relationship between the intended dads and their surrogate.

Episode Credits

Co-Hosts: Yan Dekel, Alex MaghenGuests: Joshua Ayou, TJ Hill, Josh Levine and Lance RadfordOpening Theme: Hercules & Love Affair, “Leonora” buy hereArticles Related to this episode:

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Many parents feel shame about giving their kids cake or candy and the idea of giving processed sugar became taboo among parents. In this episode of Daddy Squared we went on a journey to find the balance of nutrition for kids and found the “no-shame no-shade” method that will reassure you that your kids eat healthy, but at the same time not depriving them of sugar. We spoke to a nutritionist and a pediatric gastroenterologist, and came up with our own nutrition mix-and-match healthy meal cheat sheet.

Admitting we give our kids “Cake for Breakfast” on the TV Show The Parent Test sparked a conversation around sugar and kids’ nutrition. While we’ve been struggling with this for a while (and even tried to solve it before on our podcast), we were reluctant to deprive our kids of sugar, but instead wanted to find a “magic formula” of a diet that is healthy – but also has cake in it. We think we found it!

“We all deal with the same problems, I come across that on a daily basis,” told us celebrity nutritionist Kevin Libby. “First and foremost, when you’re approaching adolescent nutrition, whether it be toddlers or pre-teens, the number one thing you don’t want to do is assign any punishment or rewards to foods. Otherwise you start creating a life-long negative behaviors around food. You want them to have a good relationship with food, it’s there to nourish them, it’s there to give them energy.”

To further deepen our research, we also found Dr. Matthew Riley, a pediatric gastroenterologist (and a gay dad!) who first of all stripped off the shame around sugar and then told us that there’s no one right food to eat or right way to formulate your diet – so we can start with what our kids eat now, and just add what’s missing and play with the balance of the type of food.

“You really have to go back to what are the building blocks of nutrition,” Dr. Riley explained on Daddy Squared podcast. “And sugar - it’s just sugar, it’s carbohydrate, nearly everything that we eat has sugar in it. So it’s sugar, fats, proteins, those are the three marco nutrions that humans need to survive – whether you want to call it sugar or carbohydrates it’s all the same thing.”

“I think when people say ‘I don’t give my kid sugar’ they are talking about processed sugar or foods with added sugar or food with primary macro nutrions, when you read the label is most or only sugar based. If you look at a muffin or bread, those are full of complex carbohydrates which are all technically sugars as well. So it’s a really bigger issue that gets really over simplified for a lot of people and that leads to an overlay of shaming [in parents].”

Dr. Riley advised us that while the amount of sugar may be a consideration, the better question is what you’re having it with.

“How do you mixing and combining foods together so they are presented in a balanced way,” he said. “Dietitians will talk to you about every meal or snack really, ideally, will be some kind of a carbohydrate-based (grain) item, a protein source and a fruit or vegetable option. And there’s place for candy too! Candy is delicious, that’s why we have it, right? Should that be done in eccess? Probably not, should that be the sole source of your carbohydrates? Probably not, but I don’t think that there’s one right way. You’re looking for the right balance and making sure that that’s part of your diat but not the sole source.”

FREE DOWNLOAD: Daddy Squared's Meal Plan - Inspired by our conversation with Dr. Matthew Riley

“When you are saving [candy] only to special occasions, jou are just amping up the natural rewards system that exists for us human anyway. What we striving for with kids, is getting not only that balanced nutrition that we’re talking about but also developing the healthy attitude towards food: it’s there to nourish my body and keep me healthy – and sometimes it’s for fun! Sometimes it’s just delicious and we’re having it to celebrate to be with people and mark occasions.

Dealing with the “Stranger Danger” concept is so sensitive and should be done carefully: We want to raise kids who make connections in the world, who are friendly, helpful and kind to others. While raising them to be careful of their surroundings is a must, teaching them fear of strangers is not the answer – it divides people and plants seeds of fear, distrust and separation from the world. Besides, statistics show that 99% of abductions in America are NOT by strangers. We turned to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to learn how to carefully tackle this issue,  what to teach and say to our kids and how to empower them to learn to see the difference between harmful and helpful people.

ABC and Disney chose to scare parents on the TV show The Parent Test, showing children opening the door to strangers in the “Stranger Danger” challenge. But calling out “Stranger Danger” is not only deceiving and incorrect, it separates people, and results in kids full of fear, who grow up with the sense that “everyone is out to get you” and everyone you don’t know may harm you. The reality is different. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), almost 99% precent of abductions of children in America are actually done by people who the children know! So the big question of “Stranger Danger” – is how to balance out being careful of people who can harm you (not necessarily strangers) and raising kids who are kind and friendly and make connections with people and are unafraid!

“The good news is that abductions as we traditionally think about them are very rare,” says Susan Kennedy, who leads the NCMEC’s prevention, outreach, training. “These cases, even though they make the news, even though they haunt our nightmares, they are very rare.”

“One problem with Stranger Danger is that it’s confusing to kids because they are a lot of situations when we want them to see strangers as helpful,” Susan adds. “If you are lost we actually want kids to seek out help from those people. We also want them to be open to trusting adults and understanding some nuance there in terms of roles, in terms of who might be helpful. Additionally, the problem with Stranger Danger is that it puts an emphasis on strangers as those who harm children when unfortunately the reality across this kind of victimization type is that they most likely be harmed by the people that they know and people that they trust. And for parents when we focus on strangers we’re missing the other part, which is to talk to our children about behaviors that are not ok and not to feel guilty if they think someone in their circle of trust is harming them.”

As much as us parents have moved on about stranger danger in real life, Susan says, online is a different matter. “And we tend to have a very black and white conversations with our kids about their friends in real life and then there’s the online friends,” she explains. 

“We don’t trust your online friends, we don’t want you to make them, we don’t want you to talk to them – and that’s not realistic guidance for this day in age, especially as your kids get older, I mean people interact with strangers online all the time. And there are many kids that form really meaningful friendship with people they know online. And especially kids who are marginalized, or maybe some part of their identity is not accepted by their family, those online friendships can be even more important. But really check in with your kids constantly about their online life, monitor that as you need to, and more importantly, have a non-judgmental conversation with your kid, like ‘who are your online friends,’ ‘how do you know who to trust,’ ‘what kind of conversations are you having,’ it’s also the kind of skills your kids need as they leave the house so you need to be building those over time.”

One of the key tools that Kennedy gives to parents on the Daddy Squared podcast,

Competition and comparison between siblings is an absolute nightmare for parents. We all want our kids to grow up to be this unit that will support, protect, love, and be each other’s best friends. How can we use the short time with them to pass this message along? We brought Parenting Expert Einat Nathan to discuss sibling rivalry, when it is healthy, and what we parents need to do in order to not pour gasoline onto the flame.

At the beginning of the episode, we came to Einat with the notion of the competition between brothers, but Einat first tought us the important distinction between competition and rivalry.

“Competition is not natural, the rivalry is natural,” Einat said. “When I’m talking about Rivalry I’m talking about a field of practice in the sibling zone which we are not 100% aware of.  We’re all looking for this place of belonging, significance, attention, encouragement, all the good stuff that the parents have to offer is now a commodity, and the race for the commodity.”

Competition between brothers, Einat suggests, is an unhealthy development of the rivalry. “In competition there’s a winner, and only one winner,” she says. “That’s the difference.”

Einat says that the first thing parents should notice when they intervene in siblings’ fights is that we parents never know the full, big picture. “We see dots on a long range of time [which is the siblings’ relationship]. We become this judge because we are very edgy when it comes to every behavior that is not harmonious.”

“If we understand or accept that we know nothing. If we step in in the name of justice – we’re not doing justice. We’re only reacting to a specific scene that we’ve seen.”

“We don’t want to give our children this ideal of something that doesn’t exist, that relationship has to be quite, perfect. Relationships are messy, and they are all about communicating different needs, negotiating, explaining, getting hurt, making amends.”

“If we are curious enough, we can be this ambulance outside the field, we’re getting the hurt ones, we can be there for them. When I hear, ‘mommmy!’ I’m saying ‘I’m in the kitchen guys whoever needs me is welcome to come.”

Einat says that dissolving competition between siblings takes time, and the key for it is for us parents not to give equally to every child.

“We parents have this amazing super power,” She explains. “We know at every minute what each pone of you needs. Not wants, we don’t promise the want, but what each of you need. And we’re going to prove it but it’s not going to be equal. When they have a birthday they are able to celebrate their siblings birthday with an open heart because they know it’s going to be their turn.”

Also on competition, we talked about parents judging other parents. “We are basically wired to judge who’s in our club and who’s not,” Einat told us. “And we women are so good at that, you know. If she’s breastfeeding I’m thinking something, if she has a career and I’m a stay-at-home I’m thinking something, If she has this Instagram… and it all lands on our basic insecurity and/or on our innate need for a group, for empathy. We’re all yearning for that, against judgement and judging ourselves. And I think the minute we can accept that it’s all happening, you know, between our ears, and the subjectivity of us interpreting who’s for us and who’s against us, other people are commenting or judging or giving advise – it helps them feel superior. It’s the way that humans self-talk themselves, self-soothe themselves and find this group they want to belong to.”

Our Guest: Einat Nathan

Einat Nathan is a parenting expert, public speaker and bestselling author, certified by the Adler Institute and the Ministry of Education for Parental Instruction and Group Instruction. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Tel Aviv University.Her debut book “Haimsheli”, was the national bestseller of the year across all categories (2018) and is still a steady-seller.

For gay men looking to build their family through adoption, adopting a children of a different race can add a layer in parenting. We brought on adoption expert Jennifer Bliss alongside Lane Mashal, a gay dad who adopted transracially and a former adoption social worker who lead transracial adoption workshops, to help us go in depth into the meaning of adopting a child of a different race.

“For people looking to explain their family through adoption, there are three ways to do that,” Jennifer Bliss, LCSW, PsyD, Director of Adoptions & Foster Care, Vista Del Mar Child & Family Services, explained on Daddy Squared podcast, “one would be through international adoption, one is through foster care- adoption which is usually referred to foster-adopt, and then the third is through private adoption which is when people go through an agency or an attorney to adopt domestic, private adoptions.”

“Adopting in itself adds an extra layer in parenting,” Jennifer said, “because you’re raising an adoptee. That comes with its on challenges and psycho-education and toolkit that the parents sould have to help navigate different encases over the years with their child. Choosing to adopt transracially adds another layer to that parenting experience because while it’s tempted to say ‘I will love you no matter what color your skin is, it’s beautiful,’ we have to be careful that we don’t minimize the difference or act like it doesn’t matter because it will matter to your child. And minimizing that basically will invalidate their experience.”

Lane said, from his years of experience working with parents who adopted transracially, the biggest misconception of parents is that if they will be “color blind” and “show they love their kid no matter what,” maybe not even talk about the race difference between them and their kids, the kids will be fine.

“It doesn’t matter if you say you’re color blind or not,” Lane told us, “because the world does not see your child in a colorblind way. And the child has to grow up knowing that the world doesn’t see them the way you are seeing them. My children throughout their childhood were always seen differently, judged differently, people talked to me about their racist thoughts upfront, because I was white, even though my children were not.”

Our Guests: Dr. Jennifer Bliss and Lane Mashal

For over 20 years, Dr, Jennifer Bliss has dedicated her career to the field of child welfare and adoption. After completing her MSW at UCLA, she became a family reunification social worker with Los Angeles County while earning her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. A few years later she transitioned into the non-profit sector as an Adoptions Counselor. In this role, she counseled expectant parents and prospective adoptive parents through the match and placement process.  She has been quoted in American Baby Magazine, Psychology Today, and has spoken on the importance of best practices in adoption at statewide conferences. She has also appeared as the adoption expert on Huffington Post Live and the Hallmark Channel. Additionally, Dr. Bliss was the primary adoption consultant on WEtv's 4-part documentary series, "Adoption Diaries” and co-authored the book Another ​Choice: A Compassionate Guide to Placing a Child for Adoption. In 2018, she joined Vista Del Mar as the Director of Adoptions and Foster Care.

Guest Host: Daniel Vandenbark

Daniel is a single dad, co-parenting with his former partner to raise their son, Torbett, who came to them through open-adoption. Daniel founded his design firm over twenty years ago, designing custom interiors and waterwise landscapes for clients in SoCal and through the US. Daniel is an outdoor enthusiast and enjoys sharing time backpacking, snowboarding and dadventuring with Torbett.

Men Having Babies

Men Having Babies is a community, nonprofit organization that helps gay men become fathers via surrogacy with education and financial assistance.

Whether you decide to adopt or have babies through assistant reproduction, you'll want a judgement to approve your guardianship on your baby. In this episode of Daddy Squared podcast, we explore different types of legal guardianship with the help of Family Formation attorney Amira Hasenbush, JD, MPH.

For gay men who want to become fathers, it doesn’t matter if you choose to do it through assisted reproduction or adoption, you’re going to need a lawyer to protect your parentage. Some states now have administrative procedures where you don’t have to go to court, but Family Formation lawyer Amira Hasenbush warned against that.

“There’s something in the United States constitution called The Full Faith and Credit Clause,” and what that says is that judgement from one state has to be legally recognized in every other state in the country,” Amira explained on Daddy Squared podcast. “An administrative document is not a judgement. You want a judgement that protects your parenthood.”

In our interview with Amira we explored the various ways in which attorneys are involved in protecting parentage for gay men, from adoption, to nomination of legal guardianship, to surrogacy, which include, besides the contracts with the surrogate and egg donor, a judge’s order that your babies are yours.

“In some states you can get a pre-birth order,” Amira said, “that you get before the baby’s born. That’s what we do in California. The birth clerk uses that to put both of you on the Birth Certificate, from birth. And it will vary by state, even by county, as to what the judge is going to want to see. In California, if you do gestational surrogacy, meaning you have an egg donor, there’s a very clear statutory frame work of ‘these are the boxes you need to check’ and in most cases in California if you check all those boxes and the lawyer has put together all of the paperwork to say ‘yes we checked all those boxes’ you don’t even have to go in for a hearing.” 

“So some states will do pre-birth, some will do post-birth and there are states that from time to time will require some sort of adoption proceeding. So it’s really important that when choosing your surrogate, talk to lawyers where the surrogate lives and the baby’s going to be born.”

Talking to a family formation lawyer before you begin your journey to fatherhood can be helpful – no matter what route to fatherhood you choose. There are some family formation lawyers who only do assisted reproduction, some will only do adoption and there are many who do both. Amira advises to choose your lawyer from either AAAA, or The Family Law Institute, which is more specific for LGBT people.

In our discussion on adoption, Hasenbush explained the difference between step-parent adoption and second-parent adoption.

“Step parent histrorically was switching out the parents,” Amira explained, “it was usually, let’s talk historically, a different-sex couple, so you got mom and dad, they got divorced, let’s say kid goes with mom and mom gets remarried to step dad, so step dad wants to raise the child so they basically take out bio dad and replace, because you could only have two parents.”

“Then we had all these same-sex couples who couldn’t get married, and they said, well, we’re two parents, and we’d like to both be the parents of this child,” and that’s how second-parent adoption started, which is basically an adoption outside of marriage.

Amira also said that in California, starting in 2016, it was determined that we can actually file for more than two parents, and there are different ways to do it depending upon how things started – but that’s a whole other episode!

Godfather

In this episode we also talked about godparents, and how it's related to guardianship. We heard on the show Godfather stories from three gay men, Kyle from Texas, Armani from California and Jonathan from Wisconsin. Below are the full interviews with the guys.

https://youtu.be/GfW68FrrPUU