Rainbow families: Celebrate National Parents Day

by Tera Bryant
LGBTQ+ Parent Columnist

For July, it would seem to make sense to see cards popping up to celebrate National Parents Day since Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day have already been celebrated in the previous months. Oh, that’s Mother’s Day and Father’s Day for you opposite-sex parents.

Every year on the fourth Sunday in July we celebrate National Parents Day, a family-centric holiday, thanks to a bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994. This year, the celebration falls on July 27.

As a same-sex parent, holidays focusing on more traditional parenting roles can often leave us with a desire for a more all-encompassing celebration of parenting. By eliminating the discussion of gender-specific roles from the conversation, it allows us to focus on the celebration of parenting.

Although rainbow families have become more visual within our communities, we still defy some of the traditional parenting roles we see celebrated within our culture. Having a holiday celebrating the roles parents play in their families and communities without singling out parents by gender allows us to embrace whatever purpose we choose to play in our children's lives.

The celebration of parenting is a bittersweet blessing for LGBTQ+ families. It reminds us we can finally be the proud and beautiful rainbow families we are. But we also remember in sorrow and respect as a few decades ago; most same-sex couples could never even consider having a family, much less be able to parent multiple children and establish extended families.

With the right to parent being called into question consistently and regularly for members of the LGBTQ+ community, they were never given the luxury of believing having a family was a given, or even a possibility. It has been, and will always be, a slightly reverent gift not taken for granted by rainbow parents. To this day, not all our LGBTQ+ families are blessed to be able to experience being a parent and struggle with laws designed to stigmatize rainbow families and create division within our country about who can and cannot be a parent.

We can take time on July 27 on National Parents Day to celebrate the role our parents played in our lives and share with our loved ones about the struggle’s LGBTQ+ families still face when it comes to creating their families. Shining a light on the issue allows us to make sure we do not become complacent and take our families for granted.

Some people seek to destroy the sanctity of the right each person has to a family based upon religious convictions. Although some have no desire to consider children left in the system who could have been provided safe and loving homes, some still believe we should listen to their definition of a family.

Our hearts must be stronger, kinder, more tempered, and always choose to take the high road in this journey to equal rights to a family for all, because we have little eyes upon us, and we want to be the best role models we can be. Both to our children and the future families made possible by our efforts.

So, kiss your littles and remember they see you and your bravery every day you live your rainbow life. Shine-on rainbow families!

Copyright The Gayly. 7/27/2019 @ 4:48 p.m. CST.