by Alice Fisher & Michael Connolly

Students from a class at the Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute gather for an end-of-term photo.

“Some 25 years ago, pioneering lesbian and gay parents raised families; now they comprise the first generation of openly gay and lesbian grandparents. Having invented themselves as parents, they now are reinventing grandparenting. What might these grandparents teach other generations about grandparenting in the contemporary family, which often includes four generations, starting with the grandparents’ own parents?”

We placed this course description in the inaugural spring 2007 catalog of the Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute at Wheelock College in Boston, which is the nation’s first lifelong learning institute for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their friends. Then we waited.

Michael is a gay granduncle, Alice is a lesbian grandmother. Two lesbian grandmothers signed up for the class, so together our core study group had four members. Additionally, a friend who is a gay grandfather helped design the syllabus, and another gay grandpa participated in one class. Our ages ranged from 54 to 66. Three of us have long-term partners; three are single. The grandchildren, ages 1 to 16, are scattered from Boston to Germany; their parents are all straight.

Surprisingly Numerous

We don’t get many opportunities to share with other LGBT grandparents, who seem not to be numerous. Or so we thought -- until we started counting, and numbered 27 LGBT grandparents among our friends and acquaintances! Between classes, we talked with them. Most of the people we spoke with felt that our experience of grandparenting is similar to that of our straight brethren -- but different from what we were raised to expect.

Families today are far-flung and smaller; both parents are often employed. This puts pressure on the grandparenting relationship. It has been said that grandparents are like the National Guard -- called upon in times of stress. Our own grandparents were not much involved in babysitting, nor were our parents for our children. But now “babysitter” and “substitute parent” are established grandparent roles, along with “spoiler” and “mentor.” This change in expectations may catch us unprepared. Our children may make assumptions about our grandparenting roles without discussing them with us. What if the role we consider natural does not match what our kids are hoping for?

Like most contemporary LGBT grandparents, we began raising our children in heterosexual marriages. Some of our grown children, now parents, may still harbor feelings from the divorce, which can complicate both perceptions and communication between us. We learned that competition between grandparents -- or the fear of it -- is not unusual. As LGBT grandparents, though, we sometimes struggle to discern whether an issue is common to the grandparent-parent relationship, stems from the aftermath of divorce, or is an indicator of subtle homophobia in our children or their spouses.

Rejoicing ... or Feeling Invisible

Some of us rejoice in our relations with our children, who speak with us frankly in ways that we never did with our own parents when we were their age. Nonetheless, we can feel invisible as LGBT grandparents. Our literature search on LGBT grandparents revealed zero books on the topic and fewer than a dozen articles. The text we used in our class made no reference to LGBT grandparents, nor did the materials we got from AARP. When gay friends assume we have no children, let alone grandchildren, we have to “come out” as grandparents.

For the most part, we have not found the issue of how and when to come out to grandchildren to be a big issue for the youngest generation. We are open and low-key. Single grandparents may be perceived as straight until they demonstrate otherwise, so some of us keep photos of past partners visible and talk about them. Those of us with partners watch them negotiate the right amount of inclusion. Grandchildren help choose -- or invent -- terms of endearment for the nonbiological grandparent. Can grandchildren keep track of five or seven grandparents? Yes, we found. Better than we can.

We know of no support groups for LGBT grandparents, so we may start one. This June, Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute members marched as a group in Boston’s Gay Pride with the new Senior Pride Coalition; the most popular sign we made was “Gay Grandparent.”

We will repeat the grandparenting course this coming year. Stay tuned.

Alice Fisher wrote a dissertation about lesbian mothers in 1981, and now is involved in the Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute at Wheelock College, Boston.

Michael Connolly serves as director of the Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute at Wheelock College; he has been a strategy consultant to nonprofits and social change organizations for 25 years.

Photo: Courtesy Stonewall Communities Lifelong Learning Institute at Wheelock College

Copyright © 2008 American Society on Aging; all rights reserved. This article may not be duplicated or distributed in any form without written permission from the publisher: American Society on Aging, 833 Market St., Suite 511, San Francisco, CA 94103-1824; e-mail: permissions@asaging.org.