Related topics: •  Fatherhood

The Velveteen Father: An Unexpected Journey to Parenthood
By Jesse Green
Villard
242 pp $23.95

Jesse Green's internal movie of his own life did not include diapers, strollers, or having his tasteful wallpaper redesigned with spatterings of strained carrots. His story did include the pursuit of perfection, the lyrical turn of phrase, travel perhaps -- although certainly not to the land of "Dreft and Kwell," as he calls parenthood.

But life takes unexpected turns, as he writes in his lovely and graceful memoir -- one digit off as you're dialing, and you're calling the adoption agency instead of ordering dim sum. Green has written his story at a time when much is being made about the "gayby boom," the phenomenon of gays and lesbians having children. But few writers have explored the emotional terrain of gay parenthood, and even fewer have revealed the inner life of gay fathers.

When a child loves you, Green writes, you become real, just like the rabbit in the beloved children's story. Somewhere in his heart, he already knew this before he became a father. But he knew it the way one knows there's a river up ahead because it's on the map. As a gay man, he thought himself unlikely to be made real in that particular way.

Green, author of the novel O Beautiful and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post and Out magazine, has written a touching and eloquent book about a subject that resists easy description. His observations about fatherhood will ring true for any man -- or woman -- who's been a parent.

"Letting a child into your life is like letting a monkey into your kitchen," Green writes. "He will gibber and grab, defecate anywhere, break every dish that isn't well hidden -- and even some that are. The fine souffle you constructed from scratch with so much care: Burst! Separated! The monkey is cute, though; when he someday leaves, you will look at your ruined life and not know how to build it again."

By becoming involved with a man who has a son -- and then helping him adopt another -- Green takes a leap that is life-changing. This is true for everyone who becomes a parent, but it carries a special set of complications for gay men.

Fatherhood, he writes, can take away some of the stigma and invisibility of being gay. Morning after morning, the man at the bakery barely grunts at him -- until he brings in his niece strapped to his chest in a Snugli. On that day, the bakery man breaks into a smile for both man and baby. Total strangers grin and stroke the infant's hair. It's an ersatz sort of fatherhood, but Green likes how it feels.

Early in his relationship with Andy, whom he meets after Andy has already adopted Erez, the three go for a stroll. Erez, then a toddler, charges down the street ahead of the couple.

"Why did everyone beam at us? It was not my experience that gay men elicited warm fuzzy feelings from strangers, even in Metropolis. Was Brooklyn that friendly? Were our clothes so appealing? But no, it was Erez. We were two lucky guys at the periphery of a cute baby's halo; it disguised who we were, or shielded us. In any case, we were no longer gay -- and this was only our second date."

Green is not a self-hating gay man; neither does he believe that all gay men must have children to become whole. For him, the experience of parenthood is transcendent, but he is also courageous enough to admit how validating being a parent can be in this culture. And it's hard to blame him for wanting to cash in on the same form of emotional citizenship offered to other adults.

The book's honesty and humor are beguiling, but Green makes us forge through too much family history -- more than a third of the book -- before we get to the meat of his subject. It's as if he thinks he has to establish a certain amount of journalistic distance before we'll believe his observations. He needn't have worried.

Before Andy came along, Green was his parents' always available son, the one with no family to pull his attentions away from them. He had a Greenwich Village apartment all to himself and was able to indulge his penchant for perfectionism with ease. He baby-sat his niece with gusto and tenderness, and when she left with her parents, order was restored. He observes that, in the absence of forming families, gay men often develop "substitution manias," which in the end don't suffice.

"They gardened: comprehensive assemblages of every legitimate iris, tomatoes shameless on their stakes, and months of sauces from them. Or they collected: Roseville ceramics from the drought month of July 1947, when the celadon glace acquired a valuable golden aura. But it is in the nature of substitution manias that the substitutions never suffice. The distractions just grow more importunate. The garden can always be quainter, the body leaner, the lover even lovelier in a madras shirt from Barneys. Any job can be done even better: can be, and must. Which is why, at least for this particular stratum of bon ton gay men, process is all. Without children, they can afford to be perfectionists. Or do I mean: Perfectionists, they cannot afford to have children."

Of course, it's not easy for two men together to straddle both worlds. Green found to his dismay that being fathers meant many of his gay brothers no longer consider him or Andy to be real gay men. But Green is firm on this point: To their sons, their authenticity is never in question.

-- Elaine Herscher, a former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, is a senior editor at Consumer Health Interactive.

First published October 20, 2000
Last updated July 23, 2007
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive

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