A Colorful Life

Jenny Taylor, 39, co-owner of CFL Art Services, Brooklyn, NY; mom of Isaac, 9, and Malik, 5

According to Isaac and Malik Ford, each member of their family is a different color: “Malik calls himself golden, and his older brother is tan,” says their mom, Jenny. “Daddy is brown, and I’m pink.” It’s only when they travel away from their home in Brooklyn, NY, that Jenny Taylor and her multicultural family feel at all conspicuous. “We’re something of a curiosity, and the boys are bound to hear some comment.” But on their home turf, things are pretty copasetic. “Many of our friends are also part of biracial families, so the circles that the kids play and learn in are comfortable.” It’s what the boys know, and so far there’s little discomfort for them when it comes to the fact that their dad’s African American, their mom’s European American, and they are a beautiful mix of both. Jenny co-owns a small art shipping company, which serves as a liaison between galleries and people who buy art. Officially, she works about eight or nine hours a day, but, as she puts it, “I’m on the phone all the time, everywhere. My kids have gotten pretty blasé about it. I sometimes think I’d be a better mother if I worked less, but I don’t see myself cutting back anytime soon.” Jenny’s husband, Niles, 48, is a choreographer; when he’s not traveling, he does a lot of the child care. Not surprisingly, the family is excited about Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. “We think that he and other biracial people represent the future of our nation,” says Jenny. Even so, Jenny and Niles know that the boys need to be prepared for racism. Jenny says their school has really helped in offering black history lessons about topics like slavery, as well as programs with the premise that black and white are just colors. “We tell our kids they are a hybrid and the wave of the future. I like to believe that someday, everyone will be such a blend of races that there will be no name-calling based on skin color.” 

Older and Wiser

Christine Paris, 48, management consultant, Pleasant Hill, CA; mom of Michael and Daniel, 11 months

Nothing has challenged Christine Paris’s type A personality quite like her infant twin sons, Michael and Daniel. “I like to plan and schedule and finish things, but babies don’t always cooperate with this mindset,” says the first-time mom and management consultant, who lives in Northern California, with her husband, Don Arnaud, 44, and the babies. “So I just have to chill and deal when one of my sons is napping while the other is screaming because I left the room.” Christine has wanted kids since age 30, and at 40 began trying (unsuccessfully) to become a single mom through both sperm donation and adoption. In 2003, when she was 43, she met her future husband through the Internet site Tickle.com. Within two weeks they knew they wanted to get married. “At that age, you kind of know what you’re looking for,” she says. Don, who has a 21-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, loved being a dad and wanted more children. The couple wed in 2004 and conceived the twins after two cycles of egg-donor IVF. Christine looked forward to changing her priorities. “I’d already done most of the things I wanted to do in my life,” she explains, having traveled internationally, explored diverse relationships and established a long and successful career. “I’m really ready for this phase of my life.” She now works part-time as a contractor for the consulting firm where she used to work full-time so she can devote more time to her sons. A caregiver also helps with the twins. “Being older has allowed me to accept that I need to scale down what I try to accomplish every day,” says Christine. “When you have babies, getting anything done that doesn’t have to do with them is a miracle.” While she worries a bit about her older-mom status, she’s ultimately optimistic: “I hope to live to 100 and be fit and healthy so I can see the twins get married and have kids of their own. I’ve worked through a lot of my own personal issues, so I feel I can be very present and emotionally available for them.”

Two Moms, Three Kids

Hilary Ware, 37, and Wendy Kosanovich, 45; attorneys at Google and Genentech, San Francisco Bay Area; moms of Nicholas and Eva, 2, and Theo, 7 months

Sometimes toddler twins Nicholas and Eva call for Mommy and sometimes they call for Mama. When either one will do, they simply shout “Mommyama!” Such is life when both your parents are women. Aside from that, Hilary (Mommy) and Wendy (Mama) are like any other working parents of three children under 3—which is to say, frazzled. “On a day-to-day level, a gay family is no different than any other kind of family,” says Hilary, who gave birth to the couple’s kids. “We struggle over who’s going to make dinner and pick up the dry cleaning, and we probably have the same number of arguments about who is doing more. I think we have it easier than straight couples, however, in that there are no predetermined gender-role expectations about who ‘ought’ to handle the bills versus the cooking, for example.” Even so, they realize the importance of male role models in their kids’ lives, knowing that children benefit from all kinds of loving and caring people, including teachers, friends, neighbors and grandparents. “There are many men in their lives in an ongoing and committed way, and that’s important to us and to our kids,” explains Hilary. Living and working in the diverse San Francisco Bay Area means their same-sex status is usually not an issue. But it did come up recently for them as parents for the first time, while the couple was looking at preschools for the twins. “At one place we considered, a school administrator blanched when I asked if they had other gay families,” says Hilary. “It’s very important that our kids aren’t the only ones in their class with gay parents.” Both moms realize they’ll need to educate their kids about the “inevitable bias they’ll encounter as children of gay parents, just as we would any other issue—in a matter-of-fact and age-appropriate manner.” They already know, Hilary says, that they have a mommy and a mama, their best friends have a mommy and a daddy, and the boy down the street has a daddy but no mama. “As they get older, we’ll teach them that some people attach value judgments to different family structures—and languages and skin colors and religions—but that we don’t think it’s right and that’s not what we believe.” At work, however, Wendy and Hilary find that being parents of young children trumps their sexual orientation when it comes to relating to colleagues. “It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight,” says Hilary. “When you’re a working mom, that’s what unites you.”

Bringing Home the Bacon

Kate Perlman, 53, New York City; VP at a financial services firm in Stamford, CT; mom of Maggie, 9, and Olivia, 6 Maggie and Olivia Perlman have grown accustomed to the fact that their mom might have to get on a plane at a moment’s notice. As VP for a financial services company, Kate is away for business travel several days a month. Fortunately, her husband, Matt, 53, has been able to stay at home full-time since 2002. The arrangement evolved, explains Kate: “My career started taking off around the time we adopted Maggie from China in 1999. Child care wasn’t an issue then because we had one child and Matt’s schedule was flexible, so I was able to take on opportunities involving travel and got some very interesting assignments. I’m lucky because Matt is now always available.” Matt also sits on the board of the children’s school, heads up school event committees and is a class parent. “The teachers like having his male influence in the classroom,” says Kate. As the primary caregiver, Matt is also the primary disciplinarian. “I get to be the fun parent, so my girls do wish I were home with them more,” says Kate. “But they don’t realize that if roles were reversed, I’d be the one doling out the discipline. Overall, though, Matt and I share the big parenting decisions.” Kate admits she sometimes envies Matt’s time with the kids but realizes that if she were an at-home parent, she’d get caught up in household duties to the point of having less fun with her family. “For us, this works,” she says. “Plus, I like it that the girls can see by my example that a woman can financially support her family.”

A Successful Merger

Laurie Crow, 35, Bloomington, MN, owner of Sinful Wine & Spirits; mom of Douglas, 15, Taylor, 14, Ashley, 13, and Robert, 11

Laurie Crow seems to have a gift for turning life’s lemons into lemonade. When she and her first husband separated in 1998, her boys were young and she was working in the quality assurance department at Northwest Airlines. Wanting to reinvent herself, she decided to pursue her dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot. Her flying instructor, Brian, turned out to be a recently divorced father of two young girls. Two years later, they married with all four children by their sides. “The kids don’t refer to us as their stepmother or stepfather,” says Laurie. “We’re simply a family.” (Brian, 36, has full custody of his daughters; Laurie’s ex-husband lives nearby and is involved with raising the boys.) When Laurie and Brian originally committed to each other and then brought the children together, they started with trips to the park, swimming and barbecues to let the kids play together. They became fast friends and a solid family and now argue and support one another—like any other close family. “Kids know when someone truly loves them, and all my kids know I would move heaven and earth for any one of them,” Laurie says. “Even now, with three teenagers, they all actually still want to spend time with us. I hope that’s a reflection of the values and importance of family that we’ve taught them.” In 2006, more lemons appeared in the form of a broken foot, which kept Laurie laid up for almost a year. She used the time and opportunity to write a business plan for the wine store she’d often imagined owning. Late that year, she opened Sinful Wine & Spirits, which specializes in wines produced by family-owned vineyards and in terms of wine shops is “one of the few ma-and-pa joints around.” Getting the store up and running has taken a huge chunk of time, but her kids have been supportive, helping with everything from filing to making little wineglass charms to sell. “Starting the store has been the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” says Laurie. “I want my kids to learn that you never know how much life has to offer unless you take risks and jump in with both feet”—even if one is broken! 

Classic Reads for Unique Kids (that means all kids!)

It’s Okay to Be Different, by Todd Parr. The author honors kids of all sizes and colors from all kinds of families. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. A true story of a two-dad penguin family. Families Are Different, by Nina Pellegrini. A young girl adopted from Korea examines the diversity of families. Find these fine books and more in the Working Mother Bookstore