Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

Phillips, Danielle T.

English

Who Wants to Be an "English" Mother? Irish and Southern African American Domestic Workers in New York, 1865-1935

Hutner, Heidi

The Birth of an Eco-Mom: Cancer, Feminism and the Envionrment

Scheib, Holly

"It's a Strange Truth": Experiences of Transnational Motherhood in Newly Arrived Migrants in Post-Karina New Orleans

O'Neil, January Gill

280             volume 2,  number 2
Never Let Them See You Cry
january gill o’neil
Bury	your	tears	in	the	yard	with	everything	else
you	hope	might	grow.	Let	the	green	stalks	rise
to	meet	the	sharp	edge	of	your	pruning	shears.
Peace	is	what	you	seek	right	now.	Pay	no	attention	
to	the	back-and-forth	of	the	grackles	in	their	noisy
he	said/she	said	conversation.	What	do	they	know	
about	the	stone	in	your	heart?	What	do	they	know	about	
the	open	throats	of	tulips	choked	by	rot	underneath?
Inside,	dinner	is	on	the	table	as	the	afternoon	
drifts	into	dusk.	Your	family	awaits	your	return.
Let	them	wait.	Let	your	soft	animal	self	breathe.
Now,	take	the	shears	and	clip	forsythia	branches	
for	the	dining	room	table.	Make	the	room	
dumb	with	beauty—let	no	one	be	the	wiser.


Never Let Them See You Cry

Tarasoff, Lesley

book reviews
 journal of the motherhood initiative             299 
Who’s Your Daddy?
And Other Writings on Queer Parenting
Rachel Epstein, ed.
Toronto: Sumach Press, 2009
Reviewed by Lesley Tarasoff
Who’s Your Daddy? is a collection of articles, stories, and interviews that inves-
tigate the history, reality, and possibilities of queer families in North America. 
The editor of this insightful anthology is Rachel Epstein, a renowned Ca-
nadian lgbtqparenting activist, educator, researcher, and mother. In Who’s 
Your Daddy? Epstein includes the personal and legal history of her own queer 
family: “Together with three other lesbian couples and their kids, we were 
part of a historic joint Charter challenge, Rutherford v. the Register General 
of Ontario, seeking the right for birth mothers to be able to name another 
woman as a second parent at birth” (Lois Fine 198). This charter challenge 
was successful. 
Epstein’s story is one of many in Who’s Your Daddy? that demonstrates that 
queer parents have done a lot with a little: “In the short period from the mid-
1990s to the early 2000s, queer parenting activists in Canada, at times with 
only modest resources, made enormous gains” (David Rayside 208). Despite 
these gains, which are outlined in the third section of the book, the lgbtq 
community still faces many challenges. Lesbians may have achieved major 
gains, but other members of the queer community, particularly trans people, 
continue to confront barriers to become parents and create families. 
Who’s Your Daddy? includes the stories of diverse queer families from all 
walks of life: lesbian mothers, gay dads, queer foster parents, bisexual parents, 
queer women who experience infertility, trans parents, single parents, queer 
teen parents, polyamorous parents, butch mothers, queer mothers over 40, 
trans-racial families, queer spawn with one, two, or more parents, and families 
created through assisted human reproduction (ahr) and adoption. In many 
ways, these queer families challenge and recreate “the conventional model of 
the heteronormative nuclear family and traditional notions of family, biology, 
blood and kinship” (22). The stories shared in Who’s Your Daddy? ask us to 
“interrogate what ‘family’ is all about and how and by whom it gets defined” 
(16). They also probe the meaning of “queer.” Is queer an identity, an adjec-
tive, or an adverb? Must one be erotically queer to be a culturally queer parent 
or to parent queerly? 
Who’s Your Daddy? calls on queers and non-queers alike to stop policing 
book reviews
300             volume 2,  number 2
each other—there is no right way to parent, to be a family, to be queer. A 
sperm donor/donor dad interviewed by Epstein says it best: “As we become 
more familiar with all the varieties of queer families, hierarchies will devel-
op—this is a better model, this is a lesser model. But I think we should be 
smart enough not to do this to ourselves” (114). Likewise, Radford stresses 
that “it is important to valorize and celebrate unconventional families, in their 
myriad forms, but there is no need to disparage those who hold dear our ‘tra-
ditional’ families … let us be kinder to each other, loving to each other, as we 
theorize about families, the most important loving relation in our lives” (344). 
The books elicits support among queers for and across the diverse range of 
queer families.
Epstein goes further. She also asks readers to celebrate the uniqueness of 
queer families, the strengths that queer parents offer their children and that 
queer families offer the world. Queer parents are resilient and creative, and 
they raise children who are also creative, resilient, and socially conscious: “Gay 
families are good for the world, whether it’s because we teach children to 
think for themselves and to respect the dignity and humanity of every other 
person they share this planet with, or because we love well and are committed 
in our desire to see our children grow to be the best they can be” (christina 
starr 314). Moreover, queer people arguably spend more time thinking and 
strategizing about parenting and family than their heterosexual counterparts 
because they often rely on outside resources, like ahr services and adoption, 
to become parents. 
In response to those who are concerned about the impact of queer parents 
on the development of a child, the stories in Who’s Your Daddy? show that 
parental gender and heteronormative family configurations do not matter: 
“Gay parents, trans parents, whatever. Doesn’t matter. Your kids will be kids, 
and they will in turn be obnoxious, self-righteous, naively adventurous, and, 
sometimes, outright arrogant pricks. They’ll sneak out of the house once or 
thrice, probably smoke pot and think they got away with it because they’re so 
clever, and eventually they’ll start making plans—horrible, incompetent, ill-
executed, and often hopeless plans—to kiss and/or bang a classmate or two. 
They may also be gay, or not. But who gives a damn about that?” ( Jonathan 
Feakins 366). 
Who’s Your Daddy? is an excellent resource to combat voices that demonize 
queer parents and deny queer people the right to create families. While there 
is still much to be done in terms of queer family recognition and rights in 
North America, reading Who’s Your Daddy? left me feeling invigorated and 
excited about the prospect of becoming a queer parent myself. I recommend 
this book to anyone interested in the subject of parenting and families. Who’s 
Your Daddy? has a great deal to offer queer and non-queer families alike. 


Who's Your Daddy? And Other Writings on Queer Parenting

Edmonds, Regina

Transforming Trauma: Understanding and Addressing the Unique Challenges of Traumatized Migrating Mothers

Juffer, Jane

Mothers Against Mothering: Mothers Against Illegal Amnesty Movement and the Politics of Vulnerability

Giles, Melinda Vandenbeld

Living in Isolation: Motel Families in Ontario and the Neoliberal Social/Built/Physical Environment

Ahmad-Ghosh, Huma

Juggling Afghan Mothering in the Diaspora: A Case Study of Two Mothers in Southern California

Dwyer, Sonya Corbin

Gidluck, Lynn

Supporting Families Created Through Transnational/Transracial Adoption: Bai Jia Bei