Between Ellen Page and Jennifer Garner: Some Kind of Funny Single Parent

What with the Oscars coming up this weekend, I've been thinking a lot about the movie Juno again. I saw Juno a month or so ago, and, in spite of being occasionally annoyed by the preciousness of Ellen Page's character, I really liked it. Indeed, I was so moved by it that I was that crazy person who stayed sobbing in her seat after the movie had ended. Remember? You probably had to climb over me to get out of your row.

In trying to make sense of my emotional response to the film, I realized that my first point of identification had been with Ellen Page's character, the teenage Juno who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and not sure what to do. Of course, I realize that I actually have far more in common with the Jennifer Garner character, Vanessa, a woman in her thirties who goes to great length and expense to become a parent. Her process was, like mine, quite intentional. As Vanessa ends up unexpectedly single by the end of the film, she becomes a single parent by choice with courage, grace, and determination.

And yet, even as I thought of all the ways in which we were alike, I couldn't help but feel that something was amiss in this comparison. After all, even as she ends up without a husband, Vanessa is the perfect parent-to-be. She owns a beautiful, spotlessly clean home, and a brand new, well-maintained SUV. The nursery is already well-stocked and painted in several complimentary shades of yellow. She has a successful career, a well-paying job, and enough maternity leave and savings to provide safe and loving care for her new child.

I, on the other hand, live in a beautiful but decrepit one-bedroom apartment, and am not sure that I could afford to rent a new one, let alone buy a home. I drive a ten-year-old Nissan Sentra with almost 150,000 miles on it. My baby stash is being accumulated from the hand-me-downs of others, and I live on a graduate student stipend. Now certainly I've got the cultural capital of a lot of high-end education (and hopefully soon, a PhD), but as we all know, cultural capital alone doesn't pay the bills. And so, even as I become a single parent by choice in one of the most intentional processes possible, I'm fully aware of all the ways in which I don't fit the "respectable" single parent mold.

Thus, some part of me still relates to Juno, even as I realize how vastly different our situations are. Though I'm 15 years older than her character, somewhere deep inside I secretly expect to be judged for getting "knocked up" without a partner. Or a job. Or a house in the suburbs. In becoming a parent in this non-traditional way, I have rejected a politics of respectability in favor of a new vision of family. Somedays, I worry about the backlash.

Parenting in this liminal space, with full intention but outside of the mainstream, is a challenge. I almost never see examples of families that look like mine. It also makes me critically aware of the ways in which queer family making, and indeed, queer love in general, is a radical political act. Having the courage, strength, and creativity to re-imagine our families, our communities, and our partnerships requires a particular type of bravery. I like to think that it also, potentially, can impact how others imagine the world, and its possibilities. As I prepare to raise my kid in a type of family that is barely visible, barely recognized, I can only hope that our presence, the tiny bit of space we carve out in the world, will create a little bit more space for someone else with a family that doesn't quite "fit." This is, after all, the radical potential of this queer new world...