Mothers' Days 

Jacqueline Taylor, the dean of DePaul University’s College of Communications, has written a new memoir. Waiting for the Call recounts her journey from the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher to lesbian mother of two girls, whom she adopted with her partner Carol.

American Sexuality: In writing your memoir, what section was the most difficult to compose?

Jacqueline Taylor: By far the most difficult section to write was the last one, “The Voice in the Night.” The book originally concluded with the family visit to Peru, the country where our daughters were born. An astute reader told me that I could not write a book entitled Waiting for the Call and begin by talking about vocation and my evangelical childhood and then drop the subject. I had to come back to the notion of what I believe now about call, faith, and God. Precisely because I had grown up in a world where we were taught that there was only one way to salvation and we were in possession of it, I was loathe to talk about these issues, as I didn’t want to take the position that I was in any way in possession of “the truth” or of any final answers. It took me several drafts to find a way to capture how my own thinking about vocation and faith has evolved in a way that I felt could work.

AS: You were married twice before you came out. Did you “always know,” as some people say, or do you think your new sexual identity was more a product of timing, circumstances, environment?

JT: I did not “always know.” I grew up in a world where homosexuality was never mentioned. I did not even know it existed until I was in high school. At some point in college, I began to believe I was bisexual. I assumed at that point that everyone was but that I was just willing to admit it. It was not until after the two marriages and my first kiss with a woman, that I came to believe I was a lesbian. Before, I just had this feeling that something was missing in my relationships, although I couldn’t say quite what that was. The feelings I experienced with that first kiss were revolutionary. Now, it is impossible to imagine growing up in a world where homosexuality is so utterly unmentionable and unthinkable, but at that time it was quite common to feel somehow out of step with the world of heterosexual romance without knowing why or that any alternative existed.

AS: Your parents, at least early on, did not accept your lifestyle. And yet you were able to maintain peace of mind and confidence in yourself. How were you able to do that? Did any tools, techniques, religious philosophies help you get through that period?

JT: My parents always taught us that we should have the courage of our convictions and that it was more important to do what we believed was right than to follow the crowd. We were taught to be nonconformists and to follow our consciences. We were also taught that texts, including the Bible, were open to interpretation and that God had made us and loved us as we are. It helped, as well, that I was thirty-one when I came out and already living an independent adult life. This was far from the first time that I had disagreed with some aspect of my parents’ beliefs. And remember, I was a child of the sixties and enough a part of my generation to have opposed the Vietnam War from early on. It did not surprise me to encounter my parents’ disapproval.

AS: Once Carol and you decided to have children, you seem to have moved full steam ahead. Did you ever hesitate? Were you concerned you would be discriminated against during the adoption process? Was that ever a deterrent?

JT: We never hesitated. We believed we would be great parents and we knew we were ready to have a family. Of course we were concerned about being discriminated against during the adoption process. We spent a lot of time researching adoption agencies and determining where we might have the most success adopting as single parents, which was the only way, at the time, we could adopt. And we were very careful during our international adoption processes not to discuss or reveal our relationship, although neither did we ever lie about it. Throughout the whole process, we had a rock solid belief in what we were doing and great confidence that we would be successful.

AS: What advice would you give gay couples that are contemplating adoption?

JT: Be prepared for your lives to change dramatically. Don’t adopt unless you are ready to be all the way out as a couple and as a family. Make sure your relationship and each of you individually are mature enough to put your own needs and wishes in the background part of the time in order to meet the needs of your children. Be prepared to support your children in loving both the biological kin from whence they came and the family you have made together. If they are of a different race or nationality, help them learn about and connect with that culture. Let go of your fantasy child and get ready to love the child who joins your family, just as she is. Much of this is good advice for any parent.

AS: What would you say to people who believe gay adoption should be banned?

JT: How about if we start putting the needs of the children first? What if we look honestly at the solid research on the real experiences of children raised by gay parents, which consistently shows that these children do just as well as any others? Children need a family who loves them. There are not enough of these to go around. It mystifies me that some people would want to exclude loving parents from adoption when there are children out there who need homes.

AS: How has motherhood changed your relationship with Carol? In what ways does parenthood affect the way mothers see themselves as sexual beings?

JT: Motherhood has both strengthened and challenged our relationship. We found ourselves with much less time to nurture and care for one another, as most of our caring went to our children. We also enjoyed our shared love for and commitment to the welfare of our girls. I think children do erode privacy and take a great deal of time. While that doesn’t necessarily change one’s view of oneself as a sexual being, it does have a tendency to affect energy and opportunity.

AS: As you were growing up, your parents instilled in you traditional Christian values, in particular those concerning sexuality. What do you think of today’s abstinence-only sex education?

JT: I’m appalled by abstinence only education. I believe children should be encouraged to wait until they are older to become sexually active. If some folks want to tell their children to wait until marriage, that’s okay with me. But all of them ought to be taught about the critical importance, should they decide to become sexually active, of practicing safe sex, with particular emphasis on the use of condoms. They also ought to be taught that their bodies are their own. No one has the right to touch you unless you want them to. And you don’t have the right to touch anyone else who does not want to be touched.

AS: In your book you describe conversations with your children where you talk very openly and honestly about sexuality. Where did you learn the skills to do that? Were any books particularly helpful? Did you have a mentor?

JT: I did have a mentor, and she was my mother. Mother always answered our questions honestly. My sister asked her where babies come from when she was five or six years old. I thus heard detailed information about sexual intercourse from my mother when I was about three or four. I can’t remember not knowing about sex. Later on, our parents gave us an “Ann Landers Talks to Teenagers about Sex.” I remember asking my father a question as I was reading it, and getting a factual answer without any evident discomfort. Both of my parents believed in sex education. They also believed and made it clear once we were teenagers that they believed good love-making was an acquired skill, and that you owed it to your partner to learn how to please him or her.

AS: How old are your two girls now? Is it getting easier or more difficult for them to understand their family, as well as the struggles of the LGBT community?

JT: Our girls are now seventeen and eighteen. It is much easier now for them to understand the struggles of the LGBT community. As older teenagers, it is easier for them to navigate homophobia and to make good decisions about when and with whom to share information about their family. I don’t think they ever had trouble understanding their family. Understanding homophobia and how to navigate takes a little longer.

AS: What values from your parents do you hope to pass onto your kids?

JT: I believe my book suggests that many of my values come directly from my parents, that despite our sometimes divergent beliefs, we are in many ways quite similar. The values I have taken from them and would wish to pass on are many. Among them: Work hard, fight for justice, make yourself useful in the world, be kind, enjoy good food, laugh a lot, celebrate at every opportunity, appreciate beauty, dress appropriately, respect every human being and all of life, love your children no matter what they do.