Different Kinds of Families

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Akron, Ohio, preparing for my first book event, “A Different Kind of Mother’s Day.”  It’s a wonderful collaboration between a public radio station (91.3 The Summit), the Gay Community Endowment Fund, Equality Ohio, the Community AIDS Network and a community theater, The Weathervane Community Playhouse.

What strikes me now, besides jitters, is how very many people there are who are either part of or touched by GLBT families, in all of the forms and shapes they take.  I went to dinner last night with one of the organizers of the event who talked about his own experience being part of the lives of his partner’s children as they moved through adolescence and into adulthood.  He doesn’t see himself as a “parent,” he said, but more as a mentor and guide.  Which is yet another way that families can grow.