Some L.G.B.T. Parents Reject the Names ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’

"She’s queer-identified, and her partner goes by pronouns they/their/them and uses the gender-neutral title Mx."

Not one of ours, sorry OP. Move on.

I am confused.

...so are they, apparently.

I suppose cuntface and dickhead are too gender specific

Heterosexuals have a sick and boring life.

I can just hear the parents now

"You know RIchard, I thought that when they had the baby they'd give up on all that 'genderqueer' and "Mix" mishegoss."

"Give it time Debbie. At least she's married to a man and she grew her hair out so people don't call her 'mister' all the time."

"Still, I worry about the poor boy--they had to go and talk to the New York Times about it, now whenever he Googles himself that's what he'll see."

"And they gave him a cat name. Who names a child 'Felix'?"

"At least it's a boy's name. I was so worried they were going to call him Rainbow or something."

"That's because we spoiled her! We should have been tougher."

"What? Jason and Rachel turned out fine and we spoiled them!"

So, basically, this parenthood lark is all about them and the baby plays a supporting, accessorising role to their utter specialness.

A woman and a man, procreating in a heterosexual marriage, grasping for coolness.

And "passing" as heterosexual, whatever that might mean to them. This kid's going to have quite a time with Mama and Abba.

A wonderful smackdown about this insufferable couple from the comments section in the article:

[quote]A ridiculous article about a ridiculous self-absorbed straight couple who think they are both special and wonderful as long as they say that they are "queer-identified" and then force their child to call them things like "Mop" or "Dommy."

I recently met with a group of straights in their twenties and thirties who all insisted that they were "queer" or "queer-identified." When I asked several of them why, they insisted that this was who they were. It wasn’t who they were; they viewed "queer-identified" to be nothing but a commodity, a trendy designer label which they could appropriate. Having worked for years as a criminal and civil rights attorney, and having represented many Gays, Lesbians, and their families, it is outrageous. The couple featured here come off as nothing but a pair of narcissistic straights who have endured nothing, suffered nothing, yet think they instantly and miraculously became special once they appropriated, distorted, and totally trivialized, the struggles of Gays and Lesbians.

As if that was not enough, they shirk their responsibility as parents in using their child as propaganda tool to advertise their specialness. This article does nothing but generate more heat than light. What's next, an expose about a wealthy lily white couple who never faced discrimination, yet insist that society, and their own children, identify them using language meant to create the illusion that they directly experience the racism which African Americans endure?

Whoops, the second and third paragraphs should also be in quotes. That's not my writing, but the person in the comments section.

For those of you who are not Jewish, what's even funnier is that people in NYC will just assume they are religious and/or Israeli when they hear the kid call the father "abba"-- not that they are "gender queer"

As in I've known plenty of completely gender-conforming people who have called the father "Abba" because they wanted to show off how Jewy they were, or because one of the parents was actually born in Israel.

Is this article about trans parents or gay parents too?

That child has a rough, chaotic and confusing road ahead full of feelings that solely define their reality.

^^or LA, where there is an equally large Israeli expat/immigrant community and the Mx & Mrs. live

This is an old story and it was already discussed here when it came out.

...and now we're discussing it again. Okay with you, r16?

People like this used to be called "art students."

r16 the search engine doesn't work worth shit on this site.

No, I think they were always called assclowns.

She is in a fury over the NYT repeatedly referring to her as "she".

[quote]People like this used to be called "art students."

No, they were marginalized to the fringes of society because they couldn't conform to societal norms.

People like this used to be called "narcissists."

[quote] “I was racking my brain for a mama-alternate,

How about idiot, dumbass, or self-absorbed?

Excausting.

I don't understand. "Mama" is a totally normal thing for children to call their mothers. How is calling her "Mama" at all transgressive?

I like how this person settled on mama as if mam and mommy are somehow different.

Mama^

How can a straight couple who produced a baby possibly be part of the gay community?

[quote]because they wanted to show off how Jewy they were,

R12 has certain shown what a bigoted cunt she is.

Despite R12's bigoted language they have a point: "Abba," like "Mama," is just as gender-specific as the more usual terms—so what are these two crazies and the NYT going on about?

So where in the article are the LGBT couple?

WOKE!!!

Yes, I’m confused. This is a het couple. What the fuck does this have to do with the LBGT community?

^^^LGBT

Just Pat.

Geez, I assumed this article was going to be about an actual thing. Like how you don't want your kid to call both of his two dads "dad." Not this narcissistic nonsense.

r37, are you posting from 2003?

I see this kid turning into Brick Heck.

Maybe both parents could perish in a mysterious grease fire and the boy could be sent to a boarding school to learn magic.

Cute baby pic.

These motherfuckers need to get over themselves.

Now I'm suspecting that this mildly "queer" couple giving themselves slightly offbeat but still gender-specific names is really just an excuse for the NYT to write about more pretentious and unthreatening upper-middle class people.

I didn’t know what “Abba” meant. Might the authorix have erroneously thought it was an original nonsenseword, and not already defined? Just wondering.

These two are too fucked up to be parents. Take the kid away and let some wolves raise it properly and give this charming couple a pet. I'm thinking a pit bull will do the trick.

Didn't realize the story was from April.

I wonder how they are all doing now?

I've not been doing well.

[quote]She eventually settled on Mama. “I was racking my brain for a mama-alternate, but it feels right for the moment,” she said, adding that in her universe, “identity wiggles around,” and she’s open to other possibilities.

This shit is child abuse. You can't randomly keep changing what your child calls you because you think your identity wriggles around. What a baby calls their parents is very ingrained in early childhood development and bonding. You can progress from Mama to Mom when they're older, but you can't just up and change in the early years because you feel like it.

I can just imagine her toddler crying for "Mama!" and her scolding it for using the wrong name. People who can't figure out their own shit shouldn't be parents.

I feel that "Mommie Dearest" works best and my twins turned out perfectly.

I totally get the anger for this wanna be couple, but must someone suffer anything to be considered LGBT? I'm 100% gay and never once suffered any sort of homophobia, ever. I was never called names, nothing.

Wow. The NYT found a couple that can unify both sides of the political spectrum in their scorn. This heterosexual couple has put themselves (and the NYT readership) on an emotional roller coaster and twisted the English language into knots in order to land on traditional, gendered terms. Fuck Mx. Fuckstix and his queer appropriation.

[quote]just an excuse for the NYT to write about more pretentious and unthreatening upper-middle class people.

Is there ANYONE else the NYT features in their profile pieces?

I pity this child when he misgenders his mom for the first time. My baby attacked me with literal violence!

First of all you don’t “be considered” LGBT you either are or are not. It isn’t an award you are considered for.

So you’ve never felt anything for any other gay person that’s been victimized ever R50?

Still confused: "Naming is particularly important to the pair as a means of signaling their queerness, since they 'pass' as a straight couple. 'We don't look visibly queer," Ms. Davidson said, 'so.....our choice of names helps us affirm our identities."

Sorry, but wtf?

Meaning the feel they have no substance or actual personality so they have to create one and constantly “affirm” it

It actually is sad

I suppose, but mostly it's absurd. The Times reporter must have been rolling his/her/their eyes.

What was baby's first word? Xir

I feel sorry for everyone who's been victimized, that wasn't my point, which I think was clear enough so I'll leave it at that. R54

I'm under the impression the father may be a trans man.

LOL at the "queer" husband. I'd like to come over to their house, stark naked, with my raging 8" hard-on and tell the husband to fucking suck it and sit on it. I'm sure he would no longer be "queer"in about .005 of a second, as is usually the case with these pretentious attention whores.

They should spell it ABBA and maybe the mother could choose another '70s era band name, like INXS or KISS so both parents have names that are upper case. Should make them even more special.

If the husband was trans wouldn’t they be screaming it insupport of their “queer identities”?

I admit his pictures make it hard for me to tell but their whole deal is that they DON’T want to “pass” as a heterosexual couple.

INXS is an 80s band.

The husband is a bio male and the wife is a bio female. They are a heterosexual couple. A very tedious and tiresome one.

That's my take too, r64.

And how did this get to be about you and your spectacular 8" dick, r60?

r65 just to illustrate the point that the husband is most likely "Queer" in name only, and has never done anything with a man in his life.

They should start saving money for the kid's therapy

r63 INXS formed in 1977. I saw them in Sydney in 1979 on my first trip to Australia and I remember that Michael Hutchence was a very interesting performer. They just got famous in the 80s.

Straight couple have baby call mother traditional maternal word and father traditional paternal word. Are somehow special for it, news at 9

Straight women (and I this case, a straight make cuck) ruin everything

Are you shitting me with this?

Does anyone have the email of “Mommy and Daddy” so we can rip into these rat fucks?

So what I want to know is, can I be straight? without actually having to be heterosexual and do the gross weird things that they do?

Can I just decide and then confirm that I am a straight man who is homosexual.

How very dorky. If one does not wish to be called "mommy" or "papa" have the kid call you by your fucking names, AMANDA and ISAAC.

Also, "mama" and "dada" name variations evolved because these are some of the first language sounds almost all babies make, world-wide, despite differences in languages.

What weed did she smoke?

[quote] Can I just decide and then confirm that I am a straight man who is homosexual.

Sort of.

[quote]”Naming is particularly important to the pair as a means of signaling their queerness, since they 'pass' as a straight couple. 'We don't look visibly queer," Ms. Davidson said, 'so.....our choice of names helps us affirm our identities."

I hope this confirms to the nattering naysayers that the perjorarive “virtue signaling” is an actual thing, and not just an accusation from alt-right trolls.

Their wanting their child to call them by perfectly unambiguous terms for "mother" and "father" signals that their queer. Sure. How are they not just a clueless, selfish straight couple appropriating queer identity without paying for it?

This whole thing is beyond absurd--both this ridiculous couple and The Times' decision to report their nonsense.

I know anti-trans trolls have infiltrated much of Datalounge, but I have to say: if I were a legit trans person, ie, had struggled with feeling I was born the wrong sex all my life, had had surgery, etc, I would feel very similarly about the current trans, "genderqueer, xir/xim, 3785 different genders" shit that we feel toward this.

Same thing. Vacuous people with nothing special or different about them, riding on the coattails of those who've actually struggled and been persecuted as a result of their differentness.

Yeah, pretty much, r81.

And I still fault The Times for giving this nonsense any space.

If the NYT really wanted to write about the challenges faced by queer couples raising children, they would have gone to some podunk fundy town or red-state city (or maybe just upstate NY!) and talked to a real same-sex couple and their kids. Instead, all they want to do is indulge upper-class straight couples who want to be different. The whole thing is so straight-affirming and heteronormative under the guise of being open and liberal that I could retch.

The most insulting thing is that they expect their readership to buy into it, as if their readership were just vacuous rich straight people. That's basically their blinkered vision after all these years. Nothing's changed; the NYT is just as homophobic and snobbish as ever.

You don't suppose it's a spoof.....?

The spoof hypothesis often arises with NYT lifestyle pieces. I remember in the late 70s (or early 80s?) they ran one on some pompous proto-yuppie couple who were boasting of their home sound system and, most memorably, of their stuffed animal collection. The money line was, "We only buy Steiff. Steiff is the best." All the letters were like, "You almost had me believing this pompous couple exists!"

But no, the NYT just has a supply of these idiots.

From the comments:

[quote]This exercise in narcissism and self-absorption does not contain one word about the welfare and well-being of the children involved. A baby is not a blob of meat or a pet or a subject of a social science experiment. He is a human being. Please consider him.

Oh wow, I found the article! (Poorly transcribed.) I found it just by googling "Steiff is the best." This should be a DL classic!

The NY Times lifestyle pieces have always been good for a hate-read. And yes, sometimes they read like a parody of upper-class striving twits but in fact the people are real.

I wonder whatever happened to that insufferable guy from r87's article. He'd be in his early 70s if he's still alive.

Here is a transcription of r87's article:

TOO seldom does reality, for most of us, measure up to the esthetic ideal. Not so, however, in the case of Martin J. Davidson. Indeed, he makes no bones about it: “I want nothing but the best,” he says. “And I have it.” Mr. Davidson, 34 years old, is slim and fashionably bearded. A Brooklyn High School graduate who attended art school at night and by the age of 27 owned his own graphics design business, he has been moving as fast and as emphatically as a 20‐hour work day and a handful of successful tax shelters will permit.

“I want to be rich, famous and have the best of everything,” he says. “My goal is to be a millionaire before I'm 37.”

Unabashedly immodest (“I am the original arrogant Aries”), Mr. Davidson maintains that between his business and his venture capital deals, he will realize his aim. “I live the American dream,” he declares. The dream, as interpreted by Mr. Davidson, has specific contours that include being known “as one of Barney's top three customers,” being able to dine at restaurants where he is known to the headwaiter, owning a new Cadillac limousine (burgundy with gray upholstery) outfitted with all the extras and, finally, owning the exactly right apartment. And what else but a loft would be right for a graphics designer who wants to be in the forefront of design?

The completion of his apartment is all but done. After spending $150,000 – instead of an estimated $35,000 because of his aversion to anything “less than the best” – Mr. Davidson lacks only a dining room table and chairs, which will be delivered shortly.

“The total concept was mine,” said the designer;surveying the results of a 17‐month process during which he fired his architect (“my ex‐friend and architect, whose name shall remain anonymous”) and hired a contractor, who completed the 4,100square‐foot job in three months. “He is John LaBarca and he delivers, which is rare,” Mr. Davidson said.

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Everything in the apartment but the original maple floor is white. Not merely white, but flawlessly bump‐free and crack. free white. This is to show off Mr. Davidson's art collection, which includes 14 Viarhols, one Man Ray and one Claes Olden. berg. Along the ceiling runs a cocky red air‐conditioning duct that brings to mind the decorative bravado of Paris's Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, popularly known as Beaubourg.

There are almost no interior walls. The exception is a spanking white laundry room and two jet‐black tile bathrooms. One, 18 by 18 feet, is the size of a small studio, containing a sauna, shower stall, Jacnzzi, bidet, double sinks and a walk‐in medicine cabinet.

Besides a mirrored exercise space with an elaborate weight‐lifting apparatus, a kitchen that looks like a grouping of Brancusi sculptures, 120 feet of vertical blinds and seemingly unlimited closets (“There is so much closet space, friends want to know if they can rent some”), there are two free‐standing laminated monoliths that contain beds, closets, storage space and serve as bedrooms.

One is for Mr. Davidson's two children, Derek, 11 years old, and Erica, 8, who come to visit every other weekend. The other is for himself and Dawn F. Bennett, a singer whom Mr. Davidson met one weekend two years and eight months ago, sent roses to the following Monday and has been living with ever since.

“Marty is the original self‐made man,” said Miss Bennett. Born and raised in Hawaii, the diminutive, 28year‐old singer noted that Mr. Davidson had taken her 5‐foot‐2‐inch size into consideration when deciding on counter and shelf heights. Her contribution to the apartment, she said, besides “moral support and batting things back and forth” was a vocal interest in how things ought to be in the kitchen.

“I love to cook,” she said. “The kitchen is designed for my needs. That's why there are all those pull‐out shelves,” she said, referring to the shelves mounted on ball bearings for easy access. “There is no way I'm going to scrounge around in the dark with my backside sticking out.”

Miss Bennett said that she is every bit as enthusiastic as Mr. Davidson about “the systems” that were included in this apartment. There is an electrical system that keeps them independent of the building and can heat the building‐supplied hot water up to a brisk 170 degrees. There is a heating and air‐conditioning system that both humidifies the air and replaces it with fresh air six times a day. Such a boon to cleanliness is no accident, for Mr. Davidson and Miss Bennett are fastidious when it comes to dust, grease and fingerprints.

Another system is the $11,000 sound setup. Mr. Davidson said that he engaged “the top disco d.j. in the country “to install four 200‐pound speakers that are taller than Miss Bennett, a reel‐to‐reel tape deck, a pre‐amplifier and amplifiers, a noise reduction system, a sound expander, a tuner, a frequency equalizer and a turntable.

“It's the best sound system in anyone's house in New York City,” Mr. Davidson contends. “We could damage the foundation of the building if we put it on full power.”

With a kitcl en equipped with a restuarant‐size, stainless steel, doubledoor refrigerator, a microwave oven, a warming oven and a regular self‐cleaning oven, as well as their sound system, Mr. Davidson and Miss Bennett acknowledged that they are well set up for entertaining. They even own a pinball machine. Yet, they said, they don't entertain very often.

For one thing, they are waiting for the chrome, glass and white leather dining table and chairs. Then, Mr. Davidson works long and hard.

“I work 20 hours a day. I don't ask anything to be given to me. Nothing was ever handed to me,” he said. He remarked that his deceased father, a truck driver, taught him respect for property. “I like everything to be comfortable for me because I earn it,” he said.

So Mr. Davidson and Miss Bennett allow themselves the indulgence of an occasional hockey game, or dinner at a restaurant where they are known, or the pleasure of a few friends over for dinner.

But they don't mind being quietly at home. Mr. Davidson actually enjoys cleaning the fingerprints off the apartment's‐many mirrored surfaces and prefers doing it himself, he said. And they subscribe to a lot of magazines.

”We're magazine people,” Mr. Davidson said, explaining the absence of books in the rows of new shelves above his bed. Instead, they are filled with stuffed animals. ,“They are all Stieff. Every one. Stieff is the best,” he said.

Still and all, they did throw a humdinger of a party last New Year's to celebrate moving into the apartment. Not surprisingly, Mr. Davidson was at pains to see it was done right.

“It was like a super, super party. They don't dolt that way any more,” he said. “This was with style – the party of the year with 15 in to help. I started with two armed guards downstairs because I knew word would get out and I didn't want a lot of crashers. There were six waiters, a coat‐checking concession and our caterer was the caterer who did Queen Elizabeth for the Bicentennial. We had two menus – finger foods from 9 to 12:15. Then after 12:15 more substantial things.” Mr. Davidson glowed at the memory. “The thank. you letters really summed it up,” he said. “Truly the best party we've ever attended, they all said . . . ”

omg r90, moar, moar, moar! The best disco dj designed your stereo, you say? A humdinger of a NYE party. This is gold, Jerry, gold! Can we find these people's pics?

Wow. This is awesome r90.

....

Thank you, R89 etc.! That article does seem, in 1979, to predict the 80s in all of their Trumpoid, Gordon Gecko-ish repulsiveness. I was barely 14 when I read it, but it obviously made an impression; I remember thinking back in the 80s on those two as prototypes of the crass characters we were then indundated with. A historian should explore this.

As R88 said, I wonder where they are now. I googled but there were too many people with those names. Maybe someone else will have better luck. Hope they've hung onto their Steiff teddy bears.

And thank you, R93, for recovering the letters. The one that stuck in my mind was John R. McCarthy's: "Thank you for the clever spoof by Jane Geniesse. She writes with such sure touch that I was almost convinced that two people as crass as Martin Davidson and Dawn Bennett could exist."

The after identifies as non binary but is a biological male. The author of the article wrote a follow up on new now next claiming that the overwhelmingly negative reaction was because of bi and queer erasure. The same navel gazing shit

I heard Steiff makes "Busy Bee!" It's the best.

They bought the queer on discount at Burlington Coat Factory. With a small gift basket of micro aggressions.

I believe I’ve been able to find Martin. Still kicking around in NYC.

Here’s a interesting book excerpt about the reaction to the NYT story:

Uh oh Marty!

(And yes, this seems to be the same guy as there is quite a bit of artwork owned and the donated to various museums by one Martin J Davidson of Claverrack NY)

So was Marty the guy beaten on the street, or just the guy stalking someone--maybe the sadder-but-wiser girlfriend Dawn.

He just couldn't understand why she didn't want to join his collection.

Marty was the stalker. He’s no longer with Dawn. Hasn’t been for decades.

ha r99, I love how our Marty actually doubles down on his ridiculousness! He dropped even more prices and gave even more stats. What a fucking guy! And I was worried he may have died of Bone-itis....

Bump

Everyone is losing their minds.

It's a good thing R105 bumped this, because it looks like we've just lost today's thread on the outrageous Atlantic article "It’s Time to Drop the ‘LGBT’ From ‘LGBTQ.’"

What the fuck is with the advocate and their constant troonery now? Oh and yes, you are a woman.

Whimpering genderspecials

"So I hadn’t really had time to switch the mental gears to the possibility of kids before “Surprise! You’re pregnant!”, and I was panicking. I’d already moved to Jacksonville, N.C., which is not a queer friendly town by any stretch, and I’d closeted myself as much as I could. Pansexual and agender? Noooope, not me. Definitely cis and straight. Straighty-straight straight."

um, you are straight. You're a woman married to a man and are pregnant. You might have short hair but you're about as basic as they come.

^Amazing the support and praise she gets for her flagrant mental illness. Read those comments. SMH.

Where are the “appropriation” screamers?

These people are literally appropriating centuries, no, millennia of oppression and subjugation in order to make themselves feel like they’re more interesting.

Call me by your name?

"I left the doctor’s office, completely stunned... But there I was, wiping away tears of absolute shock."

Yeah, material reality sucks, doesn't it? Hey, but don't feel bad, 'cause if you don't feel like being a woman anymore, Patriarchy has another box for you:

Butch heterosexual woman shocked to discover she’s pregnant despite her special feelings-ness.

I wonder if her coworker roll their eyes about how she tries to be "stealth straight" even though she fucking is straight. Jesus.

Is there some magic about putting a penis in a vagina that would not result in pregnancy because of artificial labels? What am I missing here?

yes r117, you don't understand, she identifies as "queer/butch/trans masculine" and as such should be exempt from getting pregnant even though she clearly wasn't using birth control. And I guarantee she will call her feeding "chest feeding" just to let you know she doesn't consider it a woman's work but rather above labels. We've come a long way, baby!

R108 26 years old, already divorced and remarried. Identifies as agender, nonbinary and trans masculine. Now accidentally having a kid they didn't want, and resenting their pregnancy for feminizing them.

Poor kid is going to be so fucked up.

It's not really an accident though, r119, if you don't take any precautions. Talk about magical thinking! And yeah, they are going to tell their kid as soon as she's old enough that she may look like your mommy but is not and hates being one. Nice.

I hope they give that kid to someone who wants it.

Also, she says in the article that just a few weeks before she got the news she was pregnant, she almost died of an infection and was given powerful antibiotics to fight it. Is anyone the least bit concerned about what effect that could have had on her developing fetus? Nope, that's not important. All this creep cares about how getting pregnant is fucking with her fantasy of being a man.

The antibiotics might be why the birth control didn't work (If she was even on any bc). Some meds and even vitamins can interfere with bc and thus lots of 'oops' babies result - or intentional baby traps with some women using that excuse. Clearly not intentional in her case;that kid deserves a parent that won't resent it or try to fuck up its mind.

She acts like she's okay with it now 'excited now' but you can tell she's still bitter