Ep.91: The Gay Man’s Guide to Adoption with Amos Wolff

I was wondering if there are any ways that you would guide someone who has gone through a similar kind of upbringing as me or someone who, for whatever reason, never gave themselves permission to even dream that.

How are some ways we can start unpacking those beliefs and starting getting to the root cause of our desires?

Yeah.

So I'm a marriage and family therapist.

So I think all of this is really interesting intergenerationally to wonder, like, I think as queer people, we have to question what does family mean to us at a much younger age? Whether we come from an accepting family or not, the kind of family we're going to create is not going to be, you know, quote unquote, traditional.

And so I think that any sort of intro spiritual psychic work that you're doing to sort of unpack what is, what have I been brainwashed into believing about myself, whether it's from my family, whether it's from larger society, whether it's about masculinity, whether it is like, what is it to be a father and what's that supposed to look like? And what did my dad do? And what did I like? And what didn't I like? And how am I carrying that on? All of that is such a rich work.

to understand more what this choice is.

Because it really is, I mean, we're not going to procreate naturally, right? So it is an active choice and investment.

And in that way, I think it's really beautiful that gay families are made because we're fighting for it.

I mean, we're really, we're putting ourselves out there, literally, to be like, I want to create life with another person.

It may not come biologically for me, but it is going to be the product of that nurture nature question.

Yeah, because we go about it after a lot of thought and deliberation.

So we know we want it.

We know we're ready because we've considered all the options and it takes so long and it's not easy oftentimes.

And that's why gay dads are the best dads, because we're so intentional.

We have to bring so much intentionality throughout this process, because it's not, I mean, there are wonderful heterosexual dads, don't get me wrong, but it's not like, oops, I had a little too much to drink, and all of a sudden, here we are, we're going to have a family.

It's months and sometimes years of painstaking, really invasive, both bureaucracy-wise, financially, and trying to create this kind of family.

Yeah.