I have two gay dads, named Don and David. Having them as parents is normal for me. It might not be normal for other people. There was one person in my class �" I just finished fifth grade �" who said she would die if she couldn't live with her mom. I would want to live with my mom too, but things are different. My birth mom and birth dad weren't able to take care of me, so I got put in a foster home when I was still a baby. After that first foster home, I got put in three other ones before I was two and a half. Was anyone going to adopt me? Yes! That's when I met my new parents �" my dads. One year and one day after our placement, I got adopted. I was with my dads forever!
I still have a great bond with my mom even though I got adopted. I see her and my birth brothers and sister a few times year. We go roller skating and have barbecues all together, with my dads too. Since I was a baby, I've only been able to see my birth dad two times.
I have a very large family, including my adopted and biological parts of it. If you count all the people in my whole family, it makes around 40. I have a really good connection with most of them. I know them well and they know me well. That makes me feel cared for and loved. They don't all know each other that well though.
One great memory I have is from a couple of years ago. On Christmas Day both sides of my cousins in my adoptive family came to see me. They all knew who I was but at first kept staring at each other because they didn't know one another. So I introduced them. After that, one set of cousins kept trying to steal me away from the other. All of my grandparents, aunts, and uncles on both sides of my adoptive family were doing the same things, in their adult ways.
Living with my dads is just like any other family. They are hard to deal with sometimes. Sometimes we do fun things together. Other times we cuddle. I have a great set of parents. They mean the world to me. I mean the world to them also. My two dads are amazing.
As a black girl adopted by two white gay dads, I appreciate being so different from all the kids at school. (Well, there is one other black kid at school with two white dads, too.) My sister is also foster adopted, and she's mixed, Latina and black. She's about 6.5 years younger than me (I'm 10 �" can you do the math?). We get into conflicts sometimes, but we still love each other. She comes from different birth parents than me. We see them too, a couple of times a year.
When I'm at school, I like to hang around the other black kids. Sometimes they say that I talk like a white person. I say that the reason I do is because those are the people who are raising me and that there is no problem that I do. They ask me those kinds of questions because they don't understand how it feels to be raised by people other than their biological parents or of a different culture. I am glad to explain to them though. Explaining makes me feel special. I'm glad to be different. I'm glad that my family is diverse.
I want to tell my dads "I love you." Happy Father's Day!
Dayashanae Romesburg and her dads, Don Romesburg and David Mould, live in San Francisco.