The Son With Two Moms

I was taken in at the age of three by Mary Hynes and Janet Simons, after being separated by my schizophrenic mother shortly after birth. I was shuffled in and out of aunts’ and uncles’ homes before being placed in an orphanage, where I remained for two years. After a tumultuous court battle, I went home with the only two women brave enough to raise me. However, neither I nor my guardians could have imagined the trials awaiting our family after the proceedings ended.This story is about a young boy adopted by two lesbians of a different race than mine. However, it is much more than that. The harrowing custody battle that shaped an otherwise beautiful childhood, and my mother’s battle with cancer, forced me to look at the world in shades of grey at a far younger age than I would have liked. Those experiences, many of them dealing with issues of race and sexuality, helped me stand out when I wanted to fit in. I yearned to be an average child, but people kept asking me about the two women who came to pick me up from school everyday. “Why are they white? And do they sleep in the same bed?” Children kept asking, waiting for an answer. My responses to their queries began to dovetail into deeper stories, explaining not only my life, but my viewpoints as well.One day a college professor discovered one of these viewpoints in one of my papers and suggested I keep writing. Although sharing my story with my closest friends was hard, the prospect of opening up my life to multitudes of people I didn’t know was harder. However, in spite of myself, I began to write. From my mother’s last hospital stay to my grandmother’s questioning of my sexuality, to the first time I was ever told my moms were going to hell: every moment was important, and every event became a chance to become a better person by standing up for what I believed in, my family.