Hey, conservative America. We need to talk. I realize that this may be somewhat controversial to admit, but I didn’t grow up in a “traditional” household. You see, instead of having both a mother and a father, I was raised by two mothers.
That’s right, I had two incredible, caring moms who loved me as much as any two parents could. And, with all the harmful rhetoric going around right now, it really irks me whenever someone says that this sort of non-traditional upbringing, in any way, damages a child. Because that’s not true! For almost 10 years, I grew up in a two-mom household, and I can say with 1000% certainty that having two mothers did not, in any way, “mess me up.”
No. I’m messed up because, in addition to being female, my moms were both wolves.
That really did a number on me.
These wolf-lessons forced me to spend arduous decades rehabilitating in a southern Milwaukee mental institution, but the mom-lessons definitely made me a better person.
Consider the statistics: according to the Pew Research Center, only 61% of American children are raised by two married, heteronormative, parents. Human parents. But the harsh truth we all have to accept is that not everyone can be afforded this sort of “traditional” luxury.
For example, my biological, human parents simply couldn’t afford to raise me. And when I was only fifteen months old, they abandoned me at the doors of Saint Joseph’s Hospital, a rural care center located in the very heart of Northern Wisconsin’s heavily wolf-infested forests. I was truly blessed that two loving, adoptive mothers immediately picked me up from that hospital, brought me into their home, and raised me as one of their own.
I was perhaps less blessed that Accalia and Larentia (my wolf-mothers) lived in Wisconsin’s Peshtigo River Forest: a dark and wooded labyrinth where I was forced to cultivate lethal, feral skills to survive. In this “non-traditional” family environment, my teeth became sharp, my skin became matted and filthy, and my mind receded into the shadows as I lived out the brutal, bestial life of a Wisconsin timber wolf.
That really messed me up.
Let’s just go through some of the classic arguments right now. Many conservatives believe that a child with two same-gendered parents will somehow become “immoral” or “dishonest.” But that’s simply not true! As a child raised by two moms, I was taught the importance of family, hard work, open-mindedness, honesty, and self-fulfillment. Conversely, as a child raised by two wolves, I was taught to respect the alpha at all costs, how to consume upwards of 9 kg of raw deer meat in one sitting, and how to communicate with my fellow wolves using a complex and arbitrary system of howls that ravaged my frail, human vocal cords. These wolf-lessons forced me to spend arduous decades rehabilitating in a southern Milwaukee mental institution, but the mom-lessons definitely made me a better person.
People also love to argue that a child raised in a two-mom household will be unable to fit in with their peers. But that’s also false. Even if wolf packs weren’t highly hierarchical societies that only function because every member trusts and respects one another, my moms still gave me the necessary skills to befriend other wolves so that I could coordinate hunting missions in unfamiliar Peshtigo glades. Do you think I’d be able to hunt the elusive Wisconsin white-tailed deer all by myself? Ha. Don’t make me laugh. Seriously. Please don’t. Laughter hurts my irreparably savaged, frail human vocal chords.
Most problematically of all, many people believe that a child raised by two same-gendered parents is more likely to embrace their parent’s selfsame homosexual lifestyle. What? That’s insane! Obviously, I’m incredibly sexually attracted to wolves (as well as dogs, dingos, coyotes, and, indeed, canines of all varieties). But I’m as straight as they come.
So to any ultraconservatives reading this, I just wanted to tell my story; when a child has two moms, that doesn’t mean that he or she is automatically “messed up.” Because they’re not.
However, rather than pointlessly rehash an old argument, I’d like to end this article by sharing a story about my moms–to express how phenomenal and kind-hearted they really were. I remember it like it was yesterday: I was twelve years old; I’d just been discovered by a Wisconsin forest ranger while gorging myself on a raw deer carcass. And, as I was being forcibly dragged away from my cave, kicking and screaming, my two caring, compassionate, lupine mothers stared mournfully at me and howled in unison: “rawoo haawowoo hrrwaawooarw.”
In wolf speak, that means “we will always love you.”