Colin, Alistair and Toby
(*names have been changed)
Alistair and I have been together for about a year and a half. My son Toby, 6, is with me every second weekend, and we share school holidays. Toby lives with his mum and her new husband most of the time, and they’ve just had a baby.
Alistair and Toby are like really good mates. He is kind of a parental figure, but I do all the "Dad" stuff, and we make sure Toby and I always have quality time by ourselves. The three of us have family meals together, and we often involve our own families to spend time with Toby. Our time together is spent like any other family with young kids: Toby's sports on a Saturday morning, playing at the park, museums, the movies, or friends and family. Toby's favourite thing is to hang out at home, play at the park or beach with us or with friends; he loves reading, lego and superheroes.
Mum and Dad are supportive, and my brother and sister who we see regularly. Mum has weekly grandmother time with Toby after school, away from me. It gives him a more cohesive sense of family. Alistair’s grandmother and parents visit, Toby sees them as grandparent-type figures too and they've enjoyed getting to know him and appreciate his 6 year old energy!
Toby thinks of himself as having a really big family. He likes that. I’ve never come out to him, but he understands that our relationship is like that of his mother and her new husband. He works things out, without having to have it explained to him . He probably wouldn’t be able to really verbalise it at this stage, but he has a sense of who his family is. For Father’s Day last year he decided to give a present each to me, his step-father and Alistair... it surprised us all!
Toby’s mum and I separated when he was two. It’s been four years now, so he doesn’t have a lot of questions about that. Like any kid whose parents are separated, he’d love us all to live together, but I don’t think we’re different to any straight divorced couple that way. I truly believe there will be many advantages for Toby having different male role models. There will be a point when he thinks his Dad is the daggiest person around, but then he’ll have Alistair, who’s very creative, my brother Toby's uncle, who's very sporty, as well as his grandfather and stepfather.
Alistair has dealt with prejudice his whole life, since coming out at 15. Ideally, I wish I could shelter Toby from that, as any parent would. I’ve spoken with his teachers. I knew they were talking about ideas of family in religious education. I didn’t want him to put forward his idea and be told it was wrong. I’d like to think the school would be able to talk about different sorts of family, as part of the curriculum. There’s kids with a single mum, in foster families, or Nanna and Pa; it would be great to know that was just part of what they learnt.
I’d like for gay couples to have more options to become parents, whether through adoption or surrogacy, and to not feel like its not such an exception. To me, the focus is the kids, a loving environment. It’s not about my rights, it’s about the kids’ rights. Any child has the right to exist and lead a healthy, happy life, no matter how they came into the world or who their parents are. People who care about children, family and the community and believe they have something to give to bringing up a child, should have the same opportunities to have a family as anyone else, and to have that recognised. It’s a cliché, but I want equality. It’s about Toby finding his place in the world as he grows up. I lived in Canada for a while. Legal gay marriage filters through to the whole community, and creates a sense of normality that everyone can see, from the bus driver through to the media.
A government that supports tolerance and equality can make a huge impact on the psyche of the whole community. I believe that tolerance and acceptance of our "rainbow" community carries across other social issues faced by all types of groups, including religious and cultural divisions. One of the most important things that we have in common with a new family of immigrants from the Phillipines, or with a family struggling with drought in rural Australia, is that we are all familes.
