Now Ye're Talking - To A Man With 2 Mothers

amdublin

Listening to you now Sonik! Great job!

Fyi, Panti Bliss had link on his fb page on Sunday eve to this thread

alaimacerc

Just listened on RTE player, and I seem to have something in my eye, completely coincidentally, like...

Outstanding job, Sonics2k you spoke very well, and very movingly. As another Cork "blow-in" myself, I can totally believe that you got a lot more grief over your accent than over your Strange and Unnatural domestic arrangements! I didn't listen to the segment immediately before, so I might be missing some key details of the other contributor's "backstory", but you dealt with her scattergun of whatabouts very well, I thought.

My only small niggle would be in the style of Pointless's Richard Osman. No saying you're not good at public speaking, and then publicly speaking so well!

Benny_Cake

I'm a little late to this, so all my questions have been answered and answered well! Just wanted to say thanks for doing this Sonics, I'll be listening to the interview when I get a chance. Wife mentioned this AMA to me the other day and she never goes near Boards so you've definitely got a lot of attention - kudos!

Stinjy

Sonics, that was a really good interview, and you stayed so calm even though the Dr Rose lady was being an eejit! I tried to put myself in her shoes, but as an adopted child who has no contact and little knowledge of biological parents I disagree with her.. I think she's just worked up because of her own circumstance and projects it onto others... any child brought up in a loving home is infinitely more lucky than hundreds of thousands of children weather their parents are gay, straight, single, married, black, white, green or blue... Love is love.. anywhooos Good job man!!

Question if I may, do your parents know you've done this Boards piece? and the radio interview?

LynnGrace

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I've no questions to ask here, just wanted to say congratulations Sonics on a fantastic thread and the way you conducted yourself on the radio just now. You're an absolute credit to your parents and a fine example to your children and everyone else who has been following this AMA and listened to your interview.

+1.

Sonics, this has been a great thread, and a credit to you.

I'm going to listen to the interview now, but just want to say I'm not surprised that people are saying how well you came across in the interview, your posts here have been excellent.

Well done!

hagoonabear

Does it annoy you how stories appear in the media about how gay couples can't adopt yet there are forever cases of children being adopted/fostered by abusive straight couples (not all I might add just some)
also so cute that you have two mammies.

alaimacerc

Stinjy wrote: »

Sonics, that was a really good interview, and you stayed so calm even though the Dr Rose lady was being an eejit! I tried to put myself in her shoes, but as an adopted child who has no contact and little knowledge of biological parents I disagree with her.. I think she's just worked up because of her own circumstance and projects it onto others... any child brought up in a loving home is infinitely more lucky than hundreds of thousands of children weather their parents are gay, straight, single, married, black, white, green or blue... Love is love.. anywhooos Good job man!!

I don't disagree with her on donor anonymity (which seems to have been the nub of her own case), but she then seems to extrapolate that into a whole range of "down with this type of things" positions beyond that.

Incidentally, I see her doctorate is a PhD of some kind. Is she a working academic, or is her degree relevant to the topic at hand? Because if not, insisting on being referred to constantly as "Dr" outside of academia and one's own domain of expertise is rather pompous. Obviously medics (in these parts typically people without actual doctorates...) do this all the time, but a certain amount of pomposity is baked into that profession!

AngryHippie

alaimacerc wrote: »

Because if not, insisting on being referred to constantly as "Dr" outside of academia and one's own domain of expertise is rather pompous.

She didn't spend 7 years in the university of "not exactly stupid" to be called Mrs "not exactly stupid" did she:pac:

alaimacerc

AngryHippie wrote: »

She didn't spend 7 years in the university of "not exactly stupid" to be called Mrs "not exactly stupid" did she:pac:

Valid point. "Dr Exactly Stupid" it is, then.

Little Acorn

This is a great thread and you are doing a wonderful job on answering all these questions.

My question is do you know anybody who was raised by 2 gay men and if so did they or their parents ever get a harder time than you growing up, like with bullying or by how other adults treated them?
The majority of people in your life seemed to have no problem with you having two mothers and most seem to have been very accepting of your family setup. (which is great btw)

However I've sadly sometimes heard more negative comments about gay men rather than gay women especially when it comes to taking care of children.
Some weirdos have very strange ideas about gay men around children, I don't know the reason for this really but I will speculate that it may be because so many people see women as being naturally maternal, caring, loving nurturing towards kids etc, that it doesn't seem as odd to them for a child to have two mothers, than it does for them to have two fathers. They think there's "something funny" about 2 men wanting a child together.
So in a way these people are sexist as well as homophobic.

So if you do know anybody with two fathers, did they or their parents get more of a tough time than you did?

[Just to be clear where I stand, I am a female who is not maternal at all and doesn't want kids, and I know plenty of men who are very loving and doting parents. I also think all gay people male or female should be allowed marry.]

amdublin

What do your mam and mam think of the reaction to this thread and your radio interview?

Sonics2k

Hi all,

On my phone again so I'll post a nice big answer session when I'm on lunch!

Thank you all again!

Starokan

Outstanding thread Sonics, you have provided insights that any casual observer would never have gleaned from the standard coverage / debates in the media. Your ability to tell your story will I feel help many people to dispel the irrational fears they hold about SSM.

Sonics2k

alaimacerc wrote: »

Just listened on RTE player, and I seem to have something in my eye, completely coincidentally, like...

Outstanding job, Sonics2k you spoke very well, and very movingly. As another Cork "blow-in" myself, I can totally believe that you got a lot more grief over your accent than over your Strange and Unnatural domestic arrangements! I didn't listen to the segment immediately before, so I might be missing some key details of the other contributor's "backstory", but you dealt with her scattergun of whatabouts very well, I thought.

My only small niggle would be in the style of Pointless's Richard Osman. No saying you're not good at public speaking, and then publicly speaking so well!

My only time doing any kind of public speaking was in a High School debate team in Australia and once at a small conference in Dublin many years ago. My face went bright red on each occasion and stuttered a good bit.

Stinjy wrote: »

Sonics, that was a really good interview, and you stayed so calm even though the Dr Rose lady was being an eejit! I tried to put myself in her shoes, but as an adopted child who has no contact and little knowledge of biological parents I disagree with her.. I think she's just worked up because of her own circumstance and projects it onto others... any child brought up in a loving home is infinitely more lucky than hundreds of thousands of children weather their parents are gay, straight, single, married, black, white, green or blue... Love is love.. anywhooos Good job man!!

Question if I may, do your parents know you've done this Boards piece? and the radio interview?

Thank you very much, I really enjoyed the conversation we had, even if I didn't actually agree with her assertion on the issue. Frankly she seemed to be very confused about the SSM referendum and the Childrens Bill, but I can still see part of her viewpoint. I did completely disagree with her notion that either will impact the other at all.

Answering your question. Yes, both my parents know of this thread and have read it. One of them is even a boards.ie commenter!

floggg

volchitsa wrote: »

This Dr Rose woman, her problem is with IVF and adoption rather than with same sex marriage. If a woman had a child in a heterosexual relationship, was widowed or abandoned and then formed a new SS relationship, her objection would be completely irrelevant, because it's not so much about the situation in which children are brought up as about preventing infertile couples from having children at all.

She really was just irrelevant to the topic in Ireland. Not surprising I guess - she's English, and O think she only had the vaguest of ideas of what the issue here is. She seemed to have been having her own argument rather than what everyone else was discussing : hers was sperm donation is bad.

I wish O Rourke had asked her what she thinks about IVF using donor sperm, and sometimes donor eggs too. Seeing as she was completely off topic anyway.

Given the dismissal of Colin Farrell's opinions for not living in Ireland anymore at the start of the Claire Byrne debate, I am puzzled why Iona and co are wheeling out an English woman to argue their corner.

(I've no issue with non-Irish people contributing to our debate in an informed and transparent manner, just the hypocritical stance).

Dav

I'm going to wrap things up there folks, we let this one run a little longer for obvious enough reasons.

I want to say a massive thank you to Sonics for his time, diligence in answering and for doing himself and the rest of us Boardsies proud in the media.