Full Transcript
So David, I know that you’d love to talk about yourself. We realized we weren’t being uh prompted to talk about ourselves enough. Um do you recall a few months ago, you said I wrote a press release to get some pressed. And you were like, I’m not sure that’s the way to do it. But hey, I wrote a press release with a really catchy subject line, something like we 69 and nobody cares. And guess what? Somebody did care.
SPEAKER_06:
It’s a lot of nerf. And they run the Lambda Weekly Radio Show in Texas that they invited us to be on their show.
SPEAKER_07:
So they care that we did 69 episodes. So it was so fun actually to talk to a couple of guys who have been running a very long-term. I mean, after you make a radio show, we thought we would share this radio episode with you where we were the interviewees, not the interviewers.
SPEAKER_06:
The one thing I want to say is that we because of delayed the format. They were in their studio on their beautiful night. We had to call in on our iPhones. So we still like a bunch of fucking assholes driving a buiclip saber.
SPEAKER_07:
I was sitting in a beautiful saber in a parking lot during a soccer game because I might add, we had to record this on a Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. And I mean, I I was thrilled to be there, but I was in a car the whole time.
SPEAKER_06:
Anyway, so without further uh ado, aka Gabin’s endless stories. Um let’s uh play it. We’ll play it for you. It’s the whole hour. Um that’s gonna be our little special episode this week. We want to thank uh David Taffitt and Lauron Landis for inviting us on the show.
SPEAKER_04:
And thanks guys! Here it is.
SPEAKER_08:
Um, and good afternoon, and welcome to Lambda Weekly. I’m Dave Taffitt here in the studio with Laurent Landis. Patty has the weekend off, she’s celebrating my birthday.
SPEAKER_09:
And it is David’s birthday, indeed. So happy birthday.
SPEAKER_08:
Well, thank you. Um I was at my aunt’s house in Florida this week, and she got me a cake that said happy 49th birthday, David. That’s so sweet of her. Uh-huh. Our guests today are uh David F. M. Vaughn and Gavin Lodge. They are gay besties who are the podcasters of a um a podcast called The Gatriarchs. Uh they sent a uh press release that I had gotten earlier this summer, and uh it said uh the podcast, the Gatriarchs podcast records its 69th episode, and nobody really cares. Well, we do. So welcome.
SPEAKER_07:
So glad that you cared about our demeaning sense of humor there to just get anybody’s attention with a press release. But it works.
SPEAKER_08:
It does work. It does work. Um what I liked about your style was uh you describe yourselves as irreverent, inspirational, and accidentally informative. And I said, Oh, they’d fit in our show perfectly. You really would.
SPEAKER_06:
We make it a point to try every episode not to be helpful whatsoever. Sometimes we fail at that, but in general, we aim to be totally forgettable.
SPEAKER_09:
So, how how did you all come up with the name Gatriarchs? It’s not matriarchs or patriarchs, it’s gatriarchs.
SPEAKER_06:
Exactly. Yeah, my what my husband actually came up with. Um this is you know, radio though who’s talking.
SPEAKER_02:
Right.
SPEAKER_06:
Um, yeah, my it initially when I came up with the idea, um, I had many very, very terrible ideas, and my very smart uh marketing husband was like, well, what about gatriarchs? And it was like, oh yeah, that’s for sure.
SPEAKER_07:
Yeah, that was a very quick discussion. I mean, David and I agree on nothing, but we definitely thought that gatriarchs was a name that we could settle on peacefully. So uh that and thank God David married up to a much more creative, funny uh husband. And um, so yeah, um, hope you’re listening here, Brian, by the way. Shout out.
SPEAKER_08:
Well, if he isn’t, he can listen to our podcast, which uh is on KNON.org. Uh your podcasts are uh in the same place that you find podcasts for Barack Obama, I’m impressed.
SPEAKER_07:
That’s exactly right. I mean, we have the lowest common denominator of humor, but the highest common denominator of uh podcast posts, yes. And may I just add that um uh David is really the the mind behind all of this. He called me one time and was just like, hey, I think we should just like do a podcast and make it funny and complain about our kids. What do you think? And I was like, I’m down as long as I don’t have to do any work. So I’ll let David tell some more of our origin story right there, too.
SPEAKER_09:
Okay, David.
SPEAKER_06:
Yeah. Um obviously uh uh you’re an excellent at me up for things that you can hear. Um no, but I you know when I became a gay dad, uh listen when I became a dad, I was gay, so you know, tied uh tied penning ten.
SPEAKER_08:
So you weren’t a straight guy who’s decided to become a gay dad.
SPEAKER_06:
You what?
SPEAKER_08:
You were not a straight guy who decided to become a gay dad.
SPEAKER_06:
Well, I yeah, I’m still flirting with the idea of straightness, but it hasn’t happened yet. And the rest of my identity just totally disappear. And I looked at like gay dads online, and they were all rich, they all had Tic Tac ads, and they all could afford these super high-end photo shoots every couple of months on the shores of Mal. And I was like, wait a minute, that’s that’s not the experience I’m having. Let me try to find some funny gay dad content, either in media or a podcast or whatever. Um, and it just flat out did not exist. Um, there was a couple gay dads in the podcasting world that was all very serious. It was about, you know, surrogacy and IVDF and all that stuff. And I was like, can we just laugh at each other? Can we first? Can we talk about tech? Can we talk about our live streams and also talk about how parenting is cool or not cool? And so I was like, you know what? Let’s make a trade like that. Let’s make a show that is comedy first. Say this to Gavin every time we’re working on every episode. It’s like, what is the funny angle on this? We don’t need to change lives. We hope to never change anyone’s lives. We just hope we laugh for about 45 minutes a week.
SPEAKER_07:
Well, I Yeah, that is if I may jump in there, it’s completely true that David does do a really good job of saying to me, now wait, Gavin, do you have anything funny to bring to the show? And I have to say, but David, I’m tall.
SPEAKER_06:
So we always say like I’m funny and Gavin is tall. So there you go.
SPEAKER_07:
Then on on that, um, on that line though, of what uh of the genesis behind all of this was is we’re all just we it it’s it’s tough for everybody’s mental health, frankly, to see the fabulosity that is so often gay dads out there, or just parenting in general, where everybody’s like, oh, uh life parenting life should be a pottery barn catalog photo shoot, and everybody should look amazing, and let’s pretend that um parenting is just glamorous all the time, and um and it’s demoralizing to see that all the time. So we’d love to be able to come together and complain uh about our kids, frankly. And listen, let me make the disclaimer, should anybody take this out of context. I love my kids more than oxygen, and I think David loves at least one of his kids more than oxygen. The other is questionable. But I uh but it feels really good to know that you’re not alone in sometimes really being bored out of your epic gord as a parent and being frustrated and fighting with your kids and just thinking, oh my god, why did I do this? Except, of course, we all nobody has any regrets about parenting, but boy, it feels good to just because that’s you complain about them.
SPEAKER_08:
So you each have two kids?
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. Sorry, David. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we both have two.
SPEAKER_07:
Yeah, and that and that’s enough, and that’s it. That’s it from us. There you go. We both have uh I have um, I um I’m the senior member of the Gatriarchy team, as David never let anybody forget, although I’m just a mere couple of years older. But anyway, I have a uh oh my god, how old are they? Um, eleven. Okay, they’re 11 and 12. Oh, geez. I mean, there’s parenting right there, right? Like I can’t even remember what their ages are anymore, but 11 and soon to be 13-year-olds. So I’ve been flirting with the the tweenhood for a very long time already, and knowing that my daughter is going to be officially a teenager, and I’m like, oh my god, when are these years gonna be over? And also I happen to be sitting at my son’s soccer game watching him play instead of defense like he usually does. So, you know, there’s parenting in a nutshell there.
SPEAKER_06:
And my kids are five and two, so I’m on the other side of the spectrum. So we we kind of cover a nice uh range of ages.
SPEAKER_09:
So did you all become friends before you all had kids or afterwards?
SPEAKER_06:
Well, it’s funny, we Gavin and I joke all the time, we don’t really know each other at all. We not both you know, we both come from the uh the performing world, specifically, you know, Broadway School Theater, and we had known of each other through other friends, we’ve kind of seen each other at audition through the years. We had never done a show together, and we had, I think Gavin and I have said we’ve met twice in person, once for like a lunch just to hang out, and another time he had auditioned for a show I was directing. And so I told him, I think he was a little surprised, and I was like, Yeah, you want to do this? And we had gotten to know each other really well over the podcast. But those first 10, 20 episodes, we didn’t I I barely knew his kid’s name, let alone his name.
SPEAKER_09:
Oh wow.
SPEAKER_06:
Yeah, agreed, agreed entirely.
SPEAKER_07:
And we have mutual friends who brought us together. And it’s the the Broadway community um is actually pretty small, but um, but yeah, we uh became friends through podcasting, really.
SPEAKER_09:
Well, you know, it’s interesting because um I I’m a gay dad, and I totally related what you just said earlier that you know not all gay dads have six spec abs and can afford a high-end uh photo shoot every other month. That’s completely mean. Leron used to used to, but you know, having a baby when he was pregnant, it it ruins your figure. And so um but you know, I the interesting thing about you all having a podcast about this is I don’t know if you found this, but being a dad, being a gay dad, it’s somewhat isolating because most of your friends, your other gay friends, do not have uh children. And trying to fit into other circles or spaces of parents, it’s not always um I don’t want to say welcoming, sometimes it’s not welcoming, but it’s just not the same. But at least you have each other to balance your issues off of. I mean, has that been the case?
SPEAKER_07:
Yeah, that’s absolutely true. I mean, I I personally I didn’t necessarily find that gay friends um uh didn’t want to hang out, but I would say that you’re in a different circle of friendship, that’s for sure, because you’re suddenly finding yourself in friendships with people on the playground, whatever their identities may be. But it is true that you gotta say no to being able to hit the club. Not that I ever really hit the club, but it isn’t just you’re in a completely different lifestyle, and so friends without kids, be they gay or straight, are living a different life. And you that cliche becomes true that um you can’t sorry, I can’t go out tonight because I have to be up early with the kid.
SPEAKER_06:
Right. I actually had I actually had a gay, a very close gay friend. Like we’re talking like if I had my friend serve top by, top by uh gay friend, uh, and he, you know, I was excited to tell him that we were pregnant for the first time. And as soon as I told him the first words out of his mouth were was, Oh no. I said, What what? And he goes, We’re never gonna hang out anymore.
SPEAKER_02:
And he wasn’t being funny.
SPEAKER_06:
He he was anticipating me being busy, and I think also the cultural change that you were just talking about of gay culture is very much not, you know, child culture um kind of uh separating us. And uh I I have very much uh experienced that. And I and I’m gonna some of it is on us, right, as parents. We are too busy, we get too tired to reach out to people. But I think some of it is on the people who are childless, not thinking that we can still go out or hang out. We just maybe need more than five seconds heads up before we take lunch and absolutely like we need a little bit of time to spend all up with a sitter. But I am so thankful and gener uh uh to friends who reach out and say, hey, do you want to hang out this week? And I’m like, yes, yes, yes. Let me just get a sitter and I’m there.
SPEAKER_09:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. You know, you just give us a little time to prepare, and we can usually do it. If that me means getting a babysitter or uh one partner staying home and the other one going out to have some free time, that’s what it means. But we can usually do things.
SPEAKER_08:
Now you’re both married.
unknown:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:
I know.
SPEAKER_07:
It’s yeah.
SPEAKER_09:
I was gonna say, isn’t it? Yes or no?
SPEAKER_07:
I’ve actually, well, funny enough, what he’s referring to is I’ve been with my partner for 20 years. And admittedly, when we were on our baby moon when my first child was um in utero, we uh we went through surrogacy. Um, I did actually pop the question to my uh my partner to say, hey, let’s uh let’s steal the deal. And then honestly, we got distracted. And for 10 years now, I suppose we kind of tap danced around the topic. This is absolutely sharing way too much dirty laundry. But we um sometimes, well, I mean, we’re kind of watching some of our friends get divorced, and occasionally, I mean, also I live in New England, and uh in New England, you just don’t discuss tough topics, you just kind of sweep it under the rug and you keep living your life. And I have to say, you know, it works for us. We have put all of the financial um uh uh necessities in place to make sure that both kids are completely covered. We are um civil, uh, what’s it called? Uh civil civil civil united. Thank you, whatever it is, from the great state of New York on some certificate. But we’ve just never gone about having a big ass party inviting all of our friends, which I kind of do. We hope I hope we get to do that at some point, so it’s just not my funeral that something like that happens. But anyway, you know, to each his own, and I happen not to be married, but David actually is.
SPEAKER_08:
And one reason I ask is that when LaRon was talking about having a kid, um Patty and I, who we don’t have the parenting genes at all. Uh, but one thing that we knew was that Danny and Lauron needed to get married. Now, this was before marriage equality. Gabriella’s 15.
SPEAKER_09:
And we got married two years before she was born.
SPEAKER_08:
So they had to go to Canada to get married, but we were absolutely adamant that he was not going to have a little bastard.
SPEAKER_07:
And well, I mean, it seems like you kind of dodged that, but let me tell you, I definitely have a little bastard.
SPEAKER_09:
Um literally or figurally.
SPEAKER_07:
Well, oh I mean, that’s it. Listen, uh sister, you want to complain about your kids and call them names? You just come on our podcast and uh pull up a seat with us for sure. Oh I mean, uh uh yeah, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes everybody’s a little bastard, aren’t they?
SPEAKER_08:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Not Gabrielle, she’s perfect. No, no, no. Um you both went through surrogacy.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:
Why did you choose that method? Rather than adoption or um Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:
Yeah, I I I think this is like a huge for every gay parent, it is huge, the first of many giant monumental decisions you have to make very quickly. And we didn’t know anything about how to become dad. So we like a lot of dads went to one of those men having babies conferences where you can kind of spend the weekend, you know, uh taking classes and meeting with other gay dads. And they always have people from tech donation agencies and adoption agencies there. And the thing we learned very quickly from that weekend was, oh, surrogacy is very expensive. And we thought, oh, I don’t know, a couple bucks. And they were like, oh, you know, average between 150 and$200,000 for a kid. And we were just like, oh yeah, no, that’s that’s for sure not in our plan. And we had always considered adoption anyway. This was around about the time we were getting married, and my sister-in-law, my husband’s sister, came into town um and we were talking about it with her, and she was like, Well, I’ll carry your baby. And we were like, haha, you know, like every straight woman in my life says that, right? They all say, if you’re not married, that’s fine, you know, I’ll have your baby or whatever. And so we kind of laughed it off, and then we had the wedding, and then afterwards, before we had decided to kind of move to adoption, I said to my husband, I was like, Should we check and see if she was serious about that? Because like that can’t be serious. And she’s like, I don’t know, that’s that. And so we asked her and she said, Yeah. And we were like, Okay, well, what if do we have to have a conversation? Like, she’s like, No, let’s do it. Let me talk to my husband, and her husband was super interested in it and very happy to do it. And so my sister-in-law carried for our first pregnancy and gave birth to my now five-year-old son. Um, and she helped make it possible because she had just she had surrogate-friendly insurance, and uh, you know, we didn’t pay her, and we had to do a whole bunch of different other things. So we got out of the first one in a way where we could afford it, and then for our second, we kind of went the traditional route with uh a surrogate we didn’t know, but we had saved enough from the first one to do the second one. So we were very, very fortunate because of the cost. But that was that was the deciding factor with my sister-in-law saying, I’ll do it.
SPEAKER_07:
Nice, nice I love that story of you being able to keep it in the family. Uh, mine is a little different situation where uh my mom was a um a much more financially responsible person than I have, as I was living the high life of pretending that I was a rich artist in New York and with anything but that. And unfortunately she passed away. Um, but luckily, um, she, like I said, she was financially uh much staffier than I was. And so I got a bit of an inheritance that I wasn’t expecting. And that was able to uh um uh grant my partner and I um surrogate the money for surrogacy. And so I had no problem spending that money because it’s kind of a uh, you know, it it’s a full circle moment. And I have to say, as an only child of a single mother, of course, that was a profound loss for me. But I feel like my kids are a representation of her, and so the gift keeps on giving. And um the funny part is also I suppose that you think, well, once you get through that cost, everything’s easy, but then you’re like, no, no, no, it’s an exponential cost of your life. And um now we just live hands and up with rice and beans constantly with my two um uh fancy designer children, you know.
SPEAKER_09:
Hey, I say it’s money well spent.
unknown:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:
Can’t put a price on that, so that’s awesome. I can.
SPEAKER_06:
Well, somebody’s gotta hand their credit card over. So Is actually super beautiful, and I agree that that his children are a direct link to his mother. But we just putting it out there for those of you who are going to listen after this interview, we try never to be kind or earnest or sweet or helpful ever on the cell. So this is it.
SPEAKER_07:
Yeah, this is this is a constant dilemma between the two of us because I have no uh wallet and and um and David has absolutely no heart. So he is quick to make fun of of my age and my my poorness and everything. But it’s true. I mean, that said, we both happen to be surrogacy guys, but um or happen to have been, whatever. I don’t think that’s a label we can really put on ourselves. But anyway, but we have talked on our podcast with people who have adopted and with people who have married into a family, or then also, I mean, for your earlier jokes, we’ve talked to a lot of dads who came out during marriage to a woman and were like, never mind, not so much for me. But in every case, you know, I I don’t know, it isn’t thank god the 1960s. And um, in each case, I think we talked to really happy uh men and and obviously women. Um, we’ve talked to a lot of uh straight men and women and lesbians and gay dads, um, all of whom are thrilled to be parents and thrilled to complain about parenthood with us.
SPEAKER_06:
I’m surprised personally, and then now it’s reflected in the data of all these interviews we’ve done, how much the origin of your child doesn’t matter once they’re in your life. I sure was so excited to do booth surrogacy because I thought a biological connection would be imperative for me to really, really, really, really love this child. I knew I’d love them, I knew to protect them, but I thought there’s gonna be something missing if I am not biologically connected to them. And I I can tell you from my point of view, I think Gavin can agree with this, as well as almost every guest we’ve ever had on the show. See, I don’t think about their biological uh origin when it comes to my love and and how I feel about them for a single second. I don’t think, yeah, my son is biologically related to me, my daughter is not. I never ever consider that ever, unless there’s some sort of medical issue. I have to think about it. But other than that, and that’s been a surprise to me for people who’ve adopted or had their own biological children. Uh it’s it’s fascinating.
SPEAKER_07:
Now, I would actually differ. Um, I I’m gonna um I’m gonna push back on that because I definitely have a I think about my kids’ biology all the time. Um, my daughter is biologically mine, my son is biologically my partner’s. And listen, when my daughter is being a jerk, she is absolutely not mine. And when my son is an angel, he is absolutely mine. So they’re I think about their biology all the time in terms of their jerkwattiness.
SPEAKER_08:
We need to take a break. Uh we’re talking to David Vaughn and Gavin Lodge. They are the Gatriarchs, which is a podcast on gay parenting. We’ll be back with more Lambda Weekly right after this. And this is Lambda Weekly. I’m Dave Taffet here in the studio with Ron Landis. Patty will be back with us next week. We are talking to the catriarchs, David Vaughn and Gavin Lodge.
SPEAKER_09:
So, you know, one of the beautiful beautiful things about uh when same-sex couples have kids is that they’re not accidents. And obviously, we go through all kinds of hoops to get a kid, whether it be adoption surrogacy, the financial hurdle, the emotional hurdle, and sometimes the physical hurdle. Um but it’s a long conversation, it’s a serious conversation to take. Um you just don’t jump into it and oh tomorrow we’re we’re just gonna go have a baby. No, it’s just it doesn’t happen like that. But I’m wondering if you all like so when my husband and I decided to have a kid, we knew what we were getting into. We have a lot of nephews and nieces that we helped, you know, kind of raise in some um in parts of their lives. But what about you all? Were you it was is fatherhood what you thought it was was gonna be, or were there some big surprises after you had kids?
SPEAKER_07:
I would say that parenthood at the in the early stages is so much harder and so much more mind-numbingly boring than I ever could have imagined. I mean, I it it is it isn’t a joke to say when you’re in the midst of it, you understand why people don’t treat babies well. And I that is obviously not to say um that my kids weren’t treated well. Obviously, wow, I needed to backpedal that, but just that it is so tough. And and that um and that honestly, um I frankly love being able to say parenting is not for wusses, and it is not for sissies, and I mean that in the old school kind of way. But um, so but I at the same time, I was really ready to be a dad. And um, while it was you know shocking sometimes how hard it was, it it was everything I wanted it to be at the same time. And the good certainly outweighs the bad. Um, but also it’s stuck. So we all need to come together and complain about it and listen to Gatriarchs.
SPEAKER_06:
I I I I think if I think about like was I prepared, I had never changed a diaper before I had my kids.
SPEAKER_02:
Wow.
SPEAKER_06:
I was prepared. I mean, I had, you know, I read books and I took a class and I maybe watched TikTok or two. But I I really wasn’t prepared. And I can say after having you know a five five and two-year-old now, that I think everyone understands the concept of parenting and what it’s like. I really do. Non-parents totally understand it except for only one thing. And I think that thing they can never understand until they’re there is what 24 hours a day, seven days a week, feels like. Or anything, or sleep deprivation, or love, or or having that part of your brain running all the time.
SPEAKER_07:
Emperor being pooped on and vomited on time. And the other partner who’s like, okay, I guess I’m the poop and vomit guy.
SPEAKER_06:
But they but I that’s what I mean, is that you I think non-parents can understand what a disgusting diaper feels like. They don’t understand what a disgusting diaper feels like three times a day for fucking years. Oh, excuse me, I didn’t need to cursed for years. Yeah. Sorry, I’m sorry.
SPEAKER_09:
We are on FM radio.
SPEAKER_06:
I’m so sorry. It’s NSFW on our podcast that is not here. I apologize to all the listeners. But here’s here’s here’s the other thing I wanted to say. You were here, you were you were saying, like, oh, well, you know, you have to be very deliberate, which is part of what I think is the gay superpower, right? Is that we have to deliberately decide all the things to get married, to be together, what our relationship model is, um, if we’re gonna have kids, how we’re gonna have kids. We can’t just it can’t just be a six-pack of Miller Light at a Carrie Underwood concert like straight people do it. Like, we have to actually really think about this ahead of time. And so that is, I think, honestly, a superpower for us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:
You know, I I remember looking back when my daughter was born, we left the hospital. Uh, she was born in another state, so we had to drive, you know, uh cross country to get back home. And the car with a newborn. And at the time we were stressed, and you know, you want to make sure everything’s okay, but you’re really not thinking about it. Your brain is just focused on the moment. But looking back, it’s like, I can’t believe we did that. I don’t know if I could ever do that again. Um, and that’s part of the being thrown vomited on, being pooped on, being peed on. Um, you’re just you know, you don’t have time to freak out about it. You’ve just in the moment, you gotta deal with it.
SPEAKER_07:
Absolutely. Yep. And I I I do think that um, hey, everybody has their superpower as a parent, but once in a while, David and I do like to lean in the fact that gays make great parents because we have had to be so methodical and and and um intellectual about so many decisions we’ve made in our lives. We know how to not panic and just stop and think, I gotta solve a problem here, and so um I’m gonna solve that problem and uh and be a great dad.
SPEAKER_08:
Yep. Do you get um the mom thing? And by that I mean LaRon gets us every year where people will say to him, Happy Mother’s Day.
SPEAKER_07:
Yeah, the rest of the world just doesn’t know how to deal with that. But it’s such a rite of passage for gay dads. Every I feel like I’ve seen on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok a million times where new dads complain. They are they clutch their pearls about how offended they are that somebody says to them, oh, is it mom’s night off or dad babysitting, huh? Or where’s the mom or whatever? And um, I think that’s something we all just kind of need to make peace with because of course people are gonna make assumptions and um and they want to fawn over the babies. And it’s just a r it’s just it’s just uh a rite of passage, but it’s in our hands to be able to, you know, catch and correct and say, nope, actually, um I I’m a gay dad, or nope, it’s not mom’s um night off because there is not a mom in the situation, or dads aren’t babysitters, dads are dads, and I happen to be a gay one, and you know, I mean it’s it’s up to us to change that narrative.
SPEAKER_06:
It’s also, I think, easy. Like, first of all, from our point of view, we just have to accept that most people have moms, and that’s a that’s a that’s a that’s a reasonable assumption people make. And then, like you even said, just a quick correction. But we always do the Mother’s Day thing with like, yeah, we have a ton of mothers in our lives we want to celebrate. They’re all their obvious ones are their grandmothers, but there’s aunts and nieces, and uh, and so we just easy it does it seems so easy to us when we do it when they’re like, Oh, we’re doing a you know, daycare will call and they’re they’re holding their hat in their hand and they’re very nervous and they lower their voice and they’re like, so a Mother’s Day is coming, and we know you guys are, and they dot dot dot it. And we’re like, girl, it just relax, it’s not a big deal. We do the Mother’s Day craft and we will give it to grandma, or put, you know, happy Mother’s Day, Grandma, or something like that. And so we find that to be the best way, and our kids don’t even think they go, Oh yeah, Mother’s Day are for girl parents, and we celebrate those people.
SPEAKER_08:
Yep. Yeah, and you celebrate Father’s Day.
SPEAKER_07:
Unfortunately, though. Yeah, well, I was just gonna say, unfortunately, David and I have commiserated over the fact that we also get shortchanged and screwed out of Father’s Day because nobody gets to take the day off. So it’s just another day, and hopefully you like have a little extra kiss in the morning, you’re like, Happy Father’s Day, and then you both just get on the treadmill, like the other 364 days of the year.
SPEAKER_09:
Wow. You know, um I I I I guess you’ve got your point of view about the assumption thing. Um but I’m not gonna lie, it’s kind of annoying. Um, yeah, most people do have mothers, or most people have a mother and a father. Um but when you’re out in public, that doesn’t mean I just it’s me personally, I don’t think people always need to verbalize that assumption. You know, I why why what a stranger going up to another stranger and just saying something like, mm mm, why did you need to say that?
SPEAKER_06:
Um but yeah, most most people don’t yeah, I I would like I would like you to say that to my son too, who likes to point out people’s bodies very loudly. He’s like, why doesn’t he have a leg? And so I’m like, oh no, oh my god. So could you give my son a call and please explain him?
SPEAKER_09:
Gladly, gladly.
SPEAKER_06:
Ask people, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:
But you I’m also really impressed that you’re that um you have that sense of injustice in Texas. That’s fantastic, because I mean I live in super liberal Connecticut, and David is in super blue state New Jersey, and uh and it happens all the time, you know, it happens all the time, everybody assumes. But yeah, yeah, no, that’s what our society is still.
SPEAKER_09:
Yeah, it it has happened. It doesn’t happen to me that much anymore because she’s a teenager now. Um and but when she was a little baby and a toddler, absolutely it happened. Um but I want I wanted to take another another step forward and ask you guys. Um this is one surprise I didn’t really think about until I became a father or you know, specifically a gay father, and that is how left out men are or dads, gay or straight, out of the parenting conversation. Everything is about the moms. If you watch any commercial um about a baby product, it’s always you know, you know, if the tagline is trusted by moms everywhere. It’s like dads are just completely left out of it. At schools, the first thing they’ll say is you need to get this signed by your mom, or something like that. And I think that needs to change. What do you all think about that?
SPEAKER_06:
I I agree, but I think that’s rooted and you know, talking about our name Gatriarchy, that’s rooted in the kind of patriarchy that the world has the model the world has operated under for millennia, right? Is that the the moms are the ones who raise the kids, so they are the one to go to. Now, I feel like in the past 20, 30 years, that has totally changed. We’re we’re fathers aren’t these just dopey sperm donors who go out and you know club the club the jaguar over the head and drag them back home. So I think that’s the same thing. But I think I think what you’re experiencing, I totally agree. It’s super annoying because I’m always like, yeah, hi that, you know, there’s so many like new moms groups in town where I’m like, can I I’ve asked to join. Can I join? I’m a you know, gay dad, and they say, no, it’s for moms only. I understand the reason, but it’s also like we’re I think we’re starting to get out of that model or only moms raise the kids, thankfully.
SPEAKER_07:
See this which can fool you there too, because I understand how moms do need to have their circle of to to be able to talk about mom female stuff just the way that gay dads also uh, you know, I mean, hey, if you have a gay dads group, you’re not exactly gonna say to a mom, especially a straight mom, sure, join us, because you’re like, well, sister, we can go have our own drinks at another point. Like one of our um, I feel like that’s what Gatriarchs is all about, too. Like, we’re trying to bring in these conversations and show the different ways guys are doing also. I don’t mean to just plug our show, but actually, like in out North Texas, you’re trying to change that narrative. We’ve had some really great guests that are um that demonstrate how um uh those narratives are being changed. Like one of our um non-binary guests was MX Domestic, who happens to be uh a huge influencer in the knitting world, believe it or not, and they have a non-binary child, and they’re putting themselves out there in an unconventional way because they have such an incredible following in the world of quilting and craft, which means they have a huge following in, like, you know, uh how else do I say it? Like Midwestern moms who are absolutely crafters, and they’re um they are MX domestic, who’s just showing that, hey, uh you don’t necessarily need to um you don’t need to have a mom in this situation, and we he uh well rather they and their husband are um changing the narrative. And then I mean another favorite guest we had was a guy named Jamie Grayson, who’s a massive influencer in the baby sphere, what we like to call the baby industrial complex. And Jamie doesn’t even have a child, but he is a specialist in baby gear, and boy, is he changing the narrative.
SPEAKER_09:
And so that’s good.
SPEAKER_07:
We’re all doing the best we can to change that.
SPEAKER_08:
See, what I would do if uh I had a kid and I I was asked, oh, uh, are you taking over for mom tonight? Are you and it wasn’t assumed that I was a full parent. Uh when they asked me about mom, I’d say, Oh, she died.
SPEAKER_07:
Just make the person feel kind of Yeah, just make the person feel terrible. That we welcome, we celebrate that dark humor and welcome it heartily for sure.
SPEAKER_06:
We literally, we literally talk about that every day. One of my favorite stories was, you know, I told you my sister-in-law carried our first child, so when she was pregnant, you know, uh it was by her brother. And so we would joke about that, and so we were all getting family photos done, and the photographer was moving people around, and the photographer said to her, you know, who’s visibly pregnant, she’s she’s ready to pop. She goes, Oh, do you want me to get a picture of you and your baby? And she just without blinking, she goes, Oh, this isn’t mine, this is my brother’s. And then the blood rained from the poor photographer’s face. You could tell she was still embarrassed. She goes, Oh, okay, that’s fine, that’s fine. And man, do I love something like that, where you just pull out the hole, that’s my brother’s, and you just stop talking.
SPEAKER_09:
That is so.
SPEAKER_06:
We had another hilarious guest.
SPEAKER_07:
We had another hilarious guest who I believe she was a surrogate maybe four times, something like that. And there, uh her her own daughter was in kindergarten or something like that. And the teacher said, Oh, I hear your mom is having a baby. Are you so excited? She said, Yeah, but she’s probably just gonna give this one away, also.
SPEAKER_09:
Hey, the the kid was being honest.
SPEAKER_07:
Yeah, totally. Yeah, honesty from the children for sure.
SPEAKER_09:
And what let’s talk a little bit about your children. How um do they have other friends, or have you all made a point to have them around other people, same-sex couples who have kids?
SPEAKER_07:
We try to make that effort, but honestly, uh, I mean, this is another reason that David and I um didn’t even know each other and came together to start community, because I mean I live on a dirt road in Connecticut, and there are not a whole lot of gay dads around us. But and then some also, I mean, there is there is another couple um that are seasonal up here. And for so many years, they said, oh, you know, you know, Michael and Patrick. And you’re like, why must we know Michael and Patrick? And then you could see the people’s faces being like, oh, I mean, well, because all these days, you know, we I don’t know. And but they did have a child. And I will say that we had a cute little, I know I’m getting a little off topic here, but we had a cute little um 4th of July parade here in this cute little quaint um Connecticut town. And at the time, uh my partner and I were going back and forth, are we gonna have kids or not? And he was a little bit more reticent. And um, so I was really trying to pull that, um, pull him in my direction. And then suddenly at the Fourth of July parade, we saw that other couple, Michael and Passwork, pushing their newborn. And my partner hits me and he goes, We are not the first, damn it. And I thought, oh, I guess we will be parents at some point. That’s great. But anyway, to come back to your point, um, we we have to like be creative in creating our um our our family out there and our tribe. Um, but I think that David um let me pass it back over to him because I think he’s been much more constructive about um have surrounding himself with lots of rainbow families.
SPEAKER_06:
It’s it’s you it’s much easier on the podcast because I can just edit out all of David’s ramblings and make it sound so much more dreamy. Unfortunately, being live on the air, you get to see the real Gain and Lodge. So and also, I love how he was like, oh, so for he lives in a place where there are seasonal residents. Do you guys hear that?
SPEAKER_09:
Oh my god. Do you hear what the best is? Seasonal residents.
SPEAKER_06:
I’m fortunate that in our town are a few other gay parents. And I really do mean a few. Like there’s three that I know of. We are the only gay family at our school, which, if I’m being totally honest, is kind of great because in general, we’re the stars. Do you know what he means? Like half of the social capital. We’re the gay parents. But there’s a um there’s a town about 20 minutes south of us that has a big uh gay family um uh community. And so I’ll go to a lot of their events. They have sometimes dads-only events, and then they have like family events where somebody will put a you know a bounce house in their backyard, and that is so incredible to do because you go to these, you just it’s just a bounce house full of screaming, phenomenal children, but then it’s like their gay dads, you know, giving them cubes and doing all the normal parenting things, and suddenly everyone’s on the same playing field. And it is so so cool. We just spent this past weekend at a campground that had a special gay family’s weekend, and it was the same thing where you know, when the kids would say, Oh, my dad, this, it didn’t pop out as kind of weird because you know, my kids have two two dads. And so um, I like being a little bit of the special one, but not too special. It’s like the Goldilocks zone of gay dads. You want to be kind of the token, but not, you know, uh nobody yelling at you.
SPEAKER_09:
Yeah, yeah. I absolutely, you know, we belong to a couple of gay groups here locally in Dallas and all, you know, the the beauty of social media, particularly Facebook, just a gazillion different uh different groups that can join for just about any topic or group you belong to. So there’s ways to meet and socialize with other people.
SPEAKER_08:
We need to take a break. You’re listening to Lambda Weekly on 89.3 K no N FM. Our guests are the Gatriarts, David Vaughn and Gavin Lodge. Uh their podcast can be found wherever you find podcasts, and we’ll be back with more with them right after that. And we are talking the Gatriarchs. Uh they recently recorded their 69th episode. How often does Deer Podcast uh broadcast?
SPEAKER_06:
Or so we you used to so we need to release every week. We are actually in the 80s now, as far as our our episodes have come out. Uh we’ve done that for now almost two years, and we’ve just recently announced we’re gonna go by uh weekly uh till the end of the year. We’re we’re you know, Gavin and I have full-time jobs, we have busy lives, so we’re just gonna slow down just a hair uh until the end of the year, and then we’re gonna hopefully come back with new episodes every week. But yeah, right now we’re bi weekly.
SPEAKER_08:
Okay. Uh and reason I’m asking, we’re on our I figured out how many we had done. 1400 and something. We’ve been on for 41 years now. Yeah. Yeah. So we just celebrated our 41st anniversary.
SPEAKER_09:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:
Oh my gosh, congratulations.
SPEAKER_07:
David, there’s there’s older gay broadcasters than me. Wow, they knew.
SPEAKER_08:
And who knew it would be in Texas? For it to be right. Uh when the station went on the air, the station manager had asked uh uh a couple of people that he knew uh if they would like to do a gay show, and they said sure, and then they said a gay show. What is that? Because it was nineteen eighty two.
SPEAKER_06:
Right, absolutely.
SPEAKER_08:
So it developed into a talk show. Uh originally it was a lot of music. So um before the break, we were talking a little bit about um joining gay groups. But what about services that you need like schools and doctors? Um You’re in in uh New Jersey and Connecticut, uh it’s a little bit more liberal than Texas. A little bit. A lot of it. I know Lauron has talked about Lauron has talked about um interviewing doctors before going to them, uh interviewing the school that his daughter goes to before enrolling her in that school. Um in the more liberal states, do you have to interview a doctor to make sure that he’s gonna give your kid he or she is gonna give your kid good care?
SPEAKER_07:
I definitely think we live in a bubble, and it it hurts my heart a little bit to hear about needing to take precautions like that. So uh kudos to you for being a pioneer in uh the state where you are. I’m I’ve luckily never had that situation, but there have been, I mean, when we moved, uh we moved during COVID from New York City to Connecticut uh full time, and uh there we did reach out to the principal in the local uh town to just make sure, hey, is every are you gonna be fine with us? Are you gonna be fine with whatever identity our kid may bring? And you know, uh we’ve been generally uh uh uh greeted with open arms. But I would say some of our guests have actually brought up some of the challenges that they’ve had and their concerns. And I think that’s one of the things that’s a privilege about our show is to be able to bring all of the BS from across the country um to uh a common platform, especially folks, uh friends of ours who we’ve interviewed who are in Texas and who are in Florida and who are fighting the good fight, I think, um, for visibility. Because um we can’t all just pick up our lives and move just for the sake of politics, although sometimes we certainly want to. What about you, David?
SPEAKER_06:
I 100% did and have always made it it’s important to be overt about our gayness and our um uh our family because of that exact reason you’re talking about. When we were interviewing theatricians, there was one that wouldn’t see us before the kid was born. We wanted to find one before they were born. And the reason we didn’t go with them, even though they’re the most recommended, was was because we wanted to make sure that that our gayness was not going to get in the way of their care. It probably won’t, no matter where we go. But just that little side glance, just that little weirdness to me is enough for me not to feel comfortable there. And so it’s really unfortunate that we’ve never really run into any sort of big issues. We’ve had small issues here and there, but it I I think it’s important that you should at least in your email say, Hey, my husband and I this, um, just to make sure that it is on their radar in case there’s any sort of issue, because you know, your kid’s the one to suffer all this, and we’ve all been called the F-splorer a billion times, and it’s just to me, it just rolls off my back. But you know, you want to try to protect your kids um from all that stuff. We were, I think, the first gay family at our pediatrician, and the only reason I guessed that is because when we initially did our intake forms, they were all mom and dad as far as the field to fill out. And then when our daughter was born, the forms had been updated to parent one and parent two. Now, that’s my ego talking. That is me. It’s my newness and my uniqueness that changed that. But um, we have been the first gay family at a lot of things.
unknown:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:
And I want to say, tack on to uh David’s ego there. It does remind me that so often we will say, uh, I mean, as I want to charmingly roll my eyes at David and his ego, which is only surpassed by me and my ego, but we do love to be able to say, geez, gays, we’re just as annoying as everybody else is. We’re just as bad as um annoying parents. I want to say um, I did, uh, you know what, this does remind me that so my kids via surrogacy, we we have the same carrier who moved, surrogate carrier, who moved state in the meantime. She uh so my daughter was born in Colorado, and then my son was born in Nevada. And um, in both cases, the in Colorado, we were born in Colorado Springs, which is not a bastion of liberalism, that’s for sure. And we came in, uh, we came in and the the nurses, because my uh daughter was born a premium and she was born um a few weeks early. So we came in kind of under dress, and it was a stressful time, and the kid was in the Nikki, yada yada yada. And the uh the nurses really right in front of us were like, uh uh, we don’t know who to give the wrist ban to. And because the the the birth mother is the one with the birth uh with the ban, and we’re like, first of all, she’s not the birth mother. Second of all, she we already know her, she does not want a band, she doesn’t need to be in here. Second of all, third of all, you just go ahead and give us both our our our our um wrist, you know, whatever uh bracelet. And um they just kind of followed our lead because we were we, you know what, we stayed calm and we were in control and we were telling them what was happening. And in that case, it was just a question of ignorance. They weren’t being homophobic, they weren’t trying to be jerks in the process, it was just new to them. Yeah. So we it is our cross the barrier that we have to be the ambassador and frankly, lead with love, lead with love, and this is where we cue David to make fun of me talking about love and gratitude.
SPEAKER_06:
I don’t know if you can hear my eyes rolling in the back of my butt, generally what happens on our show. But I I I fully agree. I I think that you know a lot of people want to be like, how dare they out of that? Well, yeah, it sucks, but also they’ve never seen a gay family and they didn’t know who to give the wristband to. It was really easy when it was just one mom, one dad. So I try to give a little bit of grace to these people. I my both my kids were born in Portland, Oregon, and they were like, when we rolled in as two like this gender white dads who are married, they rolled their eyes at us, like, please, you’re the least interesting people who have given birth today. So we would probably stop at that.
SPEAKER_07:
Yes, and to just capstone that, we love to give a lot of grace, and then we love to be able to come together and be catty little biatches. Can I say that on that radio? Yes. And start a podcast to just complain about um all of the all of the parenting uh challenges. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:
You know, one one of the things I love about being in a non-traditional uh relationship is you don’t have to follow the rules and you kind of figure it out. Um, I know um a straight couple friend of mine where the dad refused to change the diapers, like he said, and he’s a good guy, but he just refused to change the diapers from day one when they had a uh baby, and so he’s like you know, told my friend that’s her job, and they kind of went through that child’s entire uh baby and toddler stages with just her changing diapers. Well, we can’t do that as a gay couple. We just we kind of got to figure it out. Um what about you all? Did you all figure it out? You know, who does the bottle feeding, who changes the diapers, or do you just kind of do a little bit of all of it, both you and your partner?
SPEAKER_06:
I feel like like we were referring to our previous conversation, that is why gays are. Let’s sorry, straight listeners. Gays are just better than straight. And here’s why. Because we have to constantly negotiate things, we have to talk things out. That’s why we’re always 10 years ahead culturally and sexually, as far as relationship models from straight people. I love how straight people are all like, oh, open relationships. I’m like, baby, what are you talking about? We’ve been doing that for decades. But it’s because we have to we have to talk those things out. There is no default lane for there is no like, well, I guess mom has to do it because that’s what mom should do. So I think we we as that’s why we are kind of have superpowers. For us, luckily, my husband and I are pretty nicely matched in that the things he doesn’t love don’t bother me, and the things that bother me doesn’t really, you know, affect him. And one of the ones we bring up all the time was something about like liquids from the waist up turn my stomach in a way that I cannot even describe to you without my mouth starting to sour. Like a booger to me is death. Like that is death to me. However, like a completely like radiation soiled diaper for me is like nothing. I don’t even think around like that, great, let’s clean it up, let’s wash this stuff up. And for him, it was the other way where he didn’t mind, you know, cleaning out ears or boogers or eye stuff, but a a disgusting, you know, mustard soil diaper was just the end of the world. So we got really lucky. And the other thing, um, I’ll end my monologue on with um how we decided to raise our infants. Well, we decided really quickly was that alternating bottles in the middle of the night was just miserable for everyone. The babies didn’t like it, we didn’t like it, we nobody got any sleep. So we decided to split the night in half and we would choose a time, I think it was 2 a.m. And so one dad could go to bed and sleep till 2 a.m. on you know, uh unmoot. And that was great. And then at 2 a.m., he had to do all the feeding, and that saved us because we were such zombies, but having to negotiate that out and find out what works really well, I think just makes us better parents because as Gavin can attest and you can attest and all parents can attest, the challenges and the decision making never stop coming. And if you have that experience of how to negotiate with your partner and make decisions real, real fast, then you’re just ahead of the game. So I think we were lucky that when editing came up, same thing with like who’s who has the last name? What’s the baby’s last name? Is uh is the boy baby gonna be circumcised or not? These big, big, big questions they have to happen pretty quickly. And so we we’ve been very fortunate to get through most of those on scheme.
SPEAKER_09:
That’s funny you said you all split the night. We communication. No, go ahead, go ahead.
SPEAKER_07:
I was just gonna say all of this comes down to communication, which is again, I think, a superpower where where we have to negotiate everything. I mean, David, many times in the conversation and in our pod have talked about how like we really do have to talk about everything, especially like in bed and in our relationships and what roles are people gonna take. And the gender roles just fall away. But at the same time, I would say there’s always kind of a frontline parent, or there’s the there it’s it’s irrespective of gender, that one parent kind of is the yes parent and the other one is the no parent. And then sometimes I have many times found myself in a marital dispute with my partner being sounding like we’re a sitcom, a traditional sitcom where I’m the mom and he’s the dad, or vice versa. And you just are thinking, this is hilarious that even in a non-traditional situation, you still can find yourself in completely cliche, uh, archaic conversations of roles and responsibilities.
SPEAKER_06:
Dan Savage famously said, you know, gay men can’t just default into an assumption when when two, like when a when a man and a woman go to bed, if nobody says anything, we all kind of know what’s gonna happen, right? But two gay men can’t. They have to say the magical words, what are you into, or you know, what position are you, or whatever. So from the get-go, we as gay men kind of have to be talking and saying things to each other, and I think that’s where it begins.
unknown:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:
By the way, if Dan Savage is listening to this, we can’t wait for him to call in and be part of the conversation.
SPEAKER_08:
Now, uh here’s where us people without the parenting gene uh come in. Uh when the diaper’s dirty, I know Patty would have done this, and I certainly would. We’d just tell the kid to change it himself.
SPEAKER_09:
You know, it it it’s it’s it’s funny with the diaper situation. I’ve always heard this growing up, I don’t know if you all heard this. Um when you change a diaper, it’s different when it’s your own kid. No matter how gross it is, it’s different when it’s your own kid. I can’t tell you how many diapers I’ve changed with nephews and nieces, and I hated it. I do not like changing diapers. But when it came to my daughter, it was just like, this is no big deal. It’s got to be done. It I wasn’t grossed out. Oh, maybe a couple of times I was grossed out. But, you know, for the most part, yeah, it was my kid. I just got it hit. I had to I had to get it done.
SPEAKER_06:
We talk about on a show all the time, OPKs, which are other people’s kids.
SPEAKER_02:
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_06:
And where are their parents? And we we, you know, my husband is famously just, I don’t know why the kids, when we go to a playground, kids just ask him to play. Like, chase us, chase us. And he always goes, like, these kids are the worst human beings on the planet. But if my kid didn’t, I was like, oh, he’s just sweet, he’s just asking me to play. So it’s the same like the thing with diapers, like, yeah, our kid diaper, who cares? But I’m not touching that person’s diaper. That’s disgusting. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:
I mean, this definitely reminds me, this reminds me of another tenet of Patriarch is that um I would say David and I are nothing if not complete hypocrites. Because as a as a parent, you look at other kids and you think, why isn’t my child doing exactly that? But then when you have those kids over to your house, you think, oh my god, I hate all children except my own. So yeah, we we we try never to be consistent in any of our philosophy whatsoever. And we would absolutely um undermine everything we’ve said here in our next interview where we say exactly the opposite, you know?
SPEAKER_08:
But uh we are just about out of time. Yeah. Um I w one of the things from your press release that uh I wanted to ask you about, and uh we can just do this quickly. You said um you you are gay parents, gay male parents, but you’ve had on lesbians, trans people, and straight people. Uh what advice have the straight people who’ve been on your show given you?
SPEAKER_07:
Nothing ever. We’ve never learned anything from them. We just do a favor having them on.
SPEAKER_06:
Uh it’s it’s we try to, it’s yeah, it’s our diversity initiative. We try to get as many straight people on just to just to please them honestly. We’re like, we’re we’re kind of doing it as a favor, we’re holding their hand, we’re we’re saying nice things. But like all kidding aside, that that is what as any parent knows, that is what’s so amazing about parenting, is it’s a great unifier. You start telling, uh, I had a blowout in public and no white story, and every parent, you guys are all on the same page. And so I think all all of the annoyances, all of the tips and tricks and hacks, they’re all the same because you’re all raising children. Um I think a lot of it changes a little bit on the outskirts about like, you know, your personalized and how you interact socially. But when it comes to like changing that kid’s diaper, there’s there’s kind of just one way.
SPEAKER_09:
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08:
Well, David and Gavin, I want to thank you for being with us. This is pretty fun. Uh, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_07:
Thank you for having us. And it’s a delight to be on the other side of the microphone. Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_08:
And your podcast can be found is there one place everywhere.
SPEAKER_07:
Everywhere everywhere Barack Obama’s podcast. found on Spotify Apple Podcasts. Great on our website, we do have Gatriarchs.com.
SPEAKER_08:
Thank you for being with us. For all of us here at Lambda Weekly, have a good week.