Card games, school drop-off, and long conversations about venus fly traps have become this Dad’s domain. When he wakes up in the middle of the night with a bad dream or a wet bed, he wants his Dada. Practically speaking, it is useful for Luke to have different kinship names for each of his fathers. Naming ourselves for our kids is a restorative and creative act.
I feel myself finally healing from my junior high school tormentor Keith tripping me down the Up Only staircase while shouting “fag” and “homo.” At 12 years old, I was especially afraid because I didn’t know what those taunts meant, or maybe because I did. For most of our lives we LGBTQ+ people have been called three and four letter words that we cannot control. Naming ourselves for our kids is a restorative and creative act.Ĭhoosing a name for someone else to call us is a powerful initiation for queer parents. A two-dad family I found on Facebook said their son started calling them Big Daddy and Tiny Daddy. Others, I imagine them to be the most relaxed of the bunch, want to wait and see what name the kids start using organically. Some gay dads say they will encourage their kids to use their first names. Linguists say papa or baba are some simplest sounds for babbling babies to form. The names sound different from each other and are classically used names that most people will already recognize. Papa and Dad is probably the most common set of names for a duo of dads.
I say wrap all of us up in World’s Best Dad barbecue aprons and line up all the #1 Dad coffee mugs from the school store! We did it and the name is within our grasp. We gay dads have pulled through struggles and self-reckonings to plant ourselves in parenting and should have the kinship names we want. Some men say they will both be called “Dad.” My heart loves this solution even as I wonder how practical it is. When our son was an infant, I worried that some people would think that I won something by getting the title, or even that the name implies that I’m genetically related to our son. I also associate "Dad" with being distant, and even more, dangerous. For me, the name feels like bringing home the bacon and bring me my slippers, the gold-standard, the pater familias, the World’s #1 Dad coffee mug on Father’s Day. Truth is: I feel both honored and a bit guilty to be called Dad. My take quickly gets too complicated, too tender for social media. I explain that my son Luke calls me Dad and my husband is Dada. I try to peck out quick answers to these new dads on my phone. When our kids were first born, we both wanted to be called ‘Daddy.’ Neither of us like the other options.” The posts all start off like this one from Jake (not his real name) in Georgia: “My husband and I are at a standstill about what names our kids should call us. Gay Dad Private Facebook fills anxiously with the same question asked over and over and over: What do your kids call you?