Book Review: "The Kid"

Savage, Dan.  The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant.  NY: Plume, 2000 246 pages.

     Dan Savage is writer for a sex-advice column, “Savage Love.”  He and his partner Terry decided to adopt a child, and this is their journey of adopting as two gay fathers. 

     This piece of writing is a memoir that entails the struggles that gay fathers go through when adopting in the United States.  However, Savage uses a lot of blunt comedy to express the struggles.

     Rating: 1) I highly recommend this book for same-sex parents wanting to adopt and to supporters of same-sex adoption looking for a heartwarming story. 

     Clemens Library already owns this book.

     One topic that this memoir touches on very well is open adoption.  Savage states, “In an open adoption, the pregnant woman, called the birth mother in agency-speak, selects a family for her child, and has a mutually agreeable amount of ongoing contact with her child, usually two or three visits a year, with photos and letters exchanged at set times,” (Savage, 6).  Savage describes as the adoption with no secrets.  He makes it clear that him and his partner decided to do this in the best interest of the birth mother, as both of them have high respect for her.  Still, the open adoption comes with challenges and fears.

     One fear Dan and Terry face is wondering what the birth mother will be like.  They start to learn about open adoption from their friends Bob and Kate.  At first Bob scares Dan when starts to tell Dan and Terry that the birth mother chooses the adoptive parents from a pool.  Dan goes into a state of questions in his mind after hearing this.  For example, he states, “The birth mom chooses?  She comes to visit?  What if she’s a drunk or a drug addict?  Won’t the kid be confused?  What is she wants her kid back?” (Savage, 46).  When Bob explains open adoption in depth later on, Savage gives the reader a better and positive understanding.  The description talks about the couple and the birth mother making a lot of decisions together to make sure they are on the same page.  Some people are probably scared of open adoption, but Savage’s friend Kate states, “In open adoption, the birth mom can come and that her baby is okay, and go on with her life.  She is empowered by her decisions and soothed by the information she has about where her baby is.  She knows, she doesn’t have to worry,” (Savage, 47).

     To support the case of open adoption, Savage describes the interaction that they have with the birth mother, Melissa.  Melissa is a gutter punk with a history of some drugs and alcohol.  A gutter punk is a homeless person by choice.  She is smart and intelligent, and she could find a job if she wanted to.  However, Melissa decided to be a gutter punk after a poor family history.  She scares Dan and Terry when she tells about the amount of beer she had the beginning of her pregnancy, but she stopped right away.  For part of the memoir, they fear the effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, but the ultra sounds show that the baby boy is healthy.

     Besides Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, the couple fears Melissa wanting to take the baby back after the baby is born.   However, she tries to comfort Dan and Terry saying she won’t change her mind, but Dan and Terry try to prepare themselves for the worst.  They wouldn’t even let their families buy any baby clothing or items because they didn’t want to jinx it.  In the end, Melissa does sign off on the adoption after coming to an agreement on visits and photo exchanging. 

     Finally, another challenge that Dan and Terry face with Melissa is deciding the name of the baby boy.  Dan and Terry wanted to name Daryl Jude while Melissa wants to name him David Kevin.  When they try to discuss names with Melissa, she becomes defensive and emotional.  She states, “I want to name him.  You can change his name later on, I don’t care.  But I want to give him his names and my family’s last name; it’s important to me.  When you adopt him, you can do what you want,” (Savage 138).  This part of the book gives the reader a deeper understanding of what the birth mother feels going through open adoption.  Even though her child is going through adoption, mother still face pains and emotions to the child they are caring. 

     Besides open adoption, another main topic of this memoir is the same-sex parenting topic.  First, Dan and Terry fear what society is going to say when they adopt their child.  For example, when the two attend a session for prospective parents, Dan sits in the conference room with a million thoughts going through his head as he looks around the room.  One of his thoughts included religion, and how prospective parents describe themselves in their letters.

     “More than half described themselves as Christian.  Not all Christians hate homos, of course, and some Christians are themselves homos.  But still, in America in the late nineties, it’s safe to assume that most people who go out their way to let you know they’re Christians don’t care for homos.  So, come to think of it, odds seemed pretty good that someone at the table believed that my boyfriend and I were going to hell, and had no right to take a baby down with us,” (Savage 15).

     Savage describes this behavior as being attached, “to our own oppression,” (Savage 15).  This is evident through out the book as well.  Dan and Terry continue to worry about what other people are going to think about two men being parents and raising a child.  Not only do they worry about themselves, but also about the baby.  During one of their meetings with Melissa, Dan says to her, “It’s something we’ve thought about.  He’ll have different experiences group up with gay dads than kids who grow up with straight parents.  There are places we won’t be able to go as a family, and times in his life he might catch shit for it.  Do you worry about this?” (Savage 133).  Melissa of course didn’t care about Dan and Terry being two men.  She describes them as “different,” (Savage 132), and she liked that about them.  However, Dan did ask some realistic questions about the baby’s future. 

     Finally, after the baby is born, Dan and Terry face some rough times when they travel.  During one experience on a flight to Chicago, the woman at the ticket counter thought that Dan and Terry may have stolen the baby because the he had Melissa’s last name and no mother.  Dan described how worried the woman looked, and she almost called security.  Now Dan and Terry carry the birth certificate around whenever they travel.  Still, the trouble didn’t end there.  The flight attendants and even one of the pilots asked Dan and Terry’s son, “Where is mommy?” or “Did these two boys steal you from your mommy?” (Savage 228).  The book depicts the challenges that gay fathers when taking care of their child.  Our society assumes that in order for a child to live he must have one mother and one father.  Plus, it’s interested that the woman at the ticket counter thought that Dan and Terry were stealing the baby because a woman was not present. 

     Open adoption and gay and lesbian parenting are the two main topics in the book.  However, the reader will find brief information the adoption laws of Oregon and birth father rights.  For example, “If a birth dad wasn’t around, it he wasn’t providing emotional and financial support during the pregnancy, under Oregon law he had already signed away his rights,” (Savage 49).  The birth father shows up at the very end of Savage’s memoir, and it turns out to be a good experience for Dan and Terry.  I recommend “The Kid” for anyone who wants to learn about a gay fathering experience.  It gives the reader a sense of gay adoption in a very straight society. 

-Mickey N.