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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Congrats to Chasten and Pete

Congrats to Chasten and Pete

by | 95 Comments

This post is in: 

Thanks to valued commenter Suzanne, who, in the thread downstairs, alerted the blog to this announcement from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and husband Chasten:

There’s so much reason to be sad and angry these days, so it’s nice to have some happy news.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

95Comments

  5. 5.

    bbleh

    S/he will for sure not be in any way spoiled ;)

    And I realize it makes me a bad person, but I’m not too upset at the angst this doubtless will cause among some of our more atavistic fellow Americans …

  6. 6.

    oldster

    Best of luck to them — parenting is damned hard even when everything is in your favor.

    I hope that their child brings them as much happiness as our kids brought us — with fewer shocks, worries, tears, fears, and sorrows.

  8. 8.

    Dan B

    It sounds great because they must have adopted instead of having a child via surrogate.  I hope that “infrastructure” includes funding for more social services so adoption can be streamlined and promoted as being as high a calling as reproducing your own DNA.  The first gay couple I knew had a son by surrogate, a friend.  This meant that one man had a DNA child and the other was a co-parent.  Which one is most respected?  Most of our friends feel the biological father is the “real father”.  This irks me but it’s a fools errand to overcome this primitive* prejudice.  The second couple adopted three special needs kids.  They turned out fantastic.  I’d love to have more of this for many reasons but one that tweaks my heart is the fact that gay couples are more likely to adopt special needs and minority children plus older children.

    *Primitive is not an accurate term since it’s likely that primitive peoples children were raised by groups and not just genetic relatives.

     

    And It should be interesting to follow Chasten and Pete’s family journey.  Congrats!

  9. 9.

    JPL

    This is from Kent downstairs.

    That poor child is going to have to learn about wonky things like market urbanism and transit policy when he/she/they are 4.  “The wheels on the bus go round and round and what does that tell us about efficient multi-modal transit? options”  Have some pity!

  10. 10.

    Ken

    @bbleh: Angst, perhaps, but many will feel a deep sense of satisfaction as they slot this into their personal “signs of the apocalypse” scenario.

  11. 11.

    Comrade Colette

    Awww, that’s great news!

    I don’t know how their child will arrive but adoption will almost certainly be part of the legal process. Seventeen years ago last month, Monsieur Colette and I met our new baby at an airport. This weekend I dropped him off at his dorm to start his first year of college. It goes by in a blur. I hope they get to enjoy and savor every moment of it.

    (Yes, some of those moments – diapers, tantrums, adolescent squirrelliness – can only be savored in retrospect.)

  13. 13.

    Bex

    I know they had been close to adoption several times and that it hadn’t worked out, so I am so glad to hear the news.  I imagine Pete’s mom and Chasten’s parents are celebrating too.

  15. 15.

    bbleh

    @Ken: Lol, oh yes, plus oppression — “why should *I* have to know about this? Why, it’s a violation of my rights!”  But hey, when the apocalypse is nigh, there’s no point in voting, amirite?

  16. 16.

    Suzanne

    I am just so excited for them. They seem like the kind of people I would want to be friends with, and I usually think my friends’ kids are cool people. So congrats to them!

  17. 17.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Comrade Colette: That brought a tear to my eye…

    My niece/goddaughter (yes, you can be both an auntie and a godmother) gets her learner’s permit next month and I’m still wondering how that happened, because it was just yesterday her parents dropped her. along with her car seat and a diaper bag in my living room and said, “enjoy, we’re going back to the hotel” and left the two of us to bond over stinky diapers and warm bottles and very large dogs.

    Now we hike, cook and rescue ducks together…

  18. 18.

    Heidi Mom

    Hurray!  I too had read that they’d come close at least once before–how awful that must have been.  So I’ll say again–“Hurray!”

  20. 20.

    geg6

    @JPL: ​
     
    Or, more likely, be a theater kid by the age of two. Chasten will win this one since theater is much more fun than wonkery.

  21. 21.

    scav

    @JPL: Most parents obsess about something, as do most children. They may or may not track each other.  Infrastructure at least should slide right into some really impressive matchbox and lego efforts.   The vocabulary and precise dosage of two doctors toddlers was impressive although I could trip them up into giving me a throat tourniquet (absurdly overacted death through choking throes may have encouraged later diagnoses).  But my father’s obsession with agricultural sprinklers (never mind, never ask, he had stranger phases) did nothing to his offspring beyond a general vague recognition of a rain gun.

    May they all have great fun.

  22. 22.

    Kent

    @geg6:@JPL: ​

    Or, more likely, be a theater kid by the age of two. Chasten will win this one since theater is much more fun than wonkery.

    Plus one assumes Chasten will have the majority of face-time with said child.  Being a Cabinet Secretary is not a part-time job.  I did the same thing when our kids were young and I was a stay-home, home-office dad while my wife was a medical resident than then an attending physician doing long hours and lots of night calls.

    Chasten is going to RULE the mommy play date world in DC.  Trust me.

  24. 24.

    Soprano2

    So, dealing with my mom’s mail has been interesting. Kind of the mirror image of what I get, only even more panicked and a lot more of it. I’ve been writing on the cards “deceased,  please stop mailings” and mailing them back in the postage paid envelopes. I get joy out of thinking about how unhappy they’ll be there’s no check. I wrote on Devin Nunes’ mailer that it was funny he sued a Twitter cow, and told Ron DeSantis to quit killing people with Covid. For the ones that need postage, my mother helpfully left a bunch of unused forever stamps that she tore off envelopes from those mailings. I’ve been peeling them off and taping them to the envelopes. I don’t know if it will help, but it makes me feel better!

    Today I spent a couple of hours calling the catalogs she gets to get them stopped. There are a lot of them…..

  25. 25.

    Dan B

    @Major Major Major Major: I’d appreciate balance.  It would be interesting to know how much money is spent on surrogacy versus adoption and how many children are in each group.  It saddens me that many children never have a forever family and it is not always the first consideration.

     

    Then again there are “biological” children who never experienced love, like TFG’s spawn

     

    I’m not sure how decrying the shortage of adoptive parents shames those who choose surrogacy.  The system and the public mindset feel off to me.

  26. 26.

    West of the Rockies

    So grateful for joyous news…
    With the fires, Covid, climate change, insurrection, Afghanistan, it’s a welcome new subject!

  27. 27.

    Old School

    @Soprano2: 

    After my dad died, my mom spent a lot of time getting off the mailing lists he was on (mostly work related). I know she put a lot of effort into it. (We needed to get a larger mailbox as there were days the mail wouldn’t fit in a normal one.)

    She thought she had it taken care, when some wire tripped somewhere after about a year and the mail started in earnest again and she had to do it all over.

  28. 28.

    Kent

    @Dan B: But I don’t think gay couples should face any more weight or pressure regarding the choice to procreate vs adopt than straight couples do.  My wife and I have 3 kids.  We have never gotten the slightest hint of “shouldn’t you have chosen to adopt instead because there are so many parentless children out there”  I don’t think straight couples as a rule ever do.  I’m not sure it’s fair to put that on gay couples when we don’t do it at all for straight couples.

  32. 32.

    West of the Rockies

    @Kent:

    Well said.  And, yes, it would it be stupendous if more kids got adopted and adored.  Two true if contrasting things.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    @Kent:

    I’m not sure it’s fair to put that on gay couples when we don’t do it at all for straight couples. 

    My friends who have gone through fertility struggles would disagree with you. One of them commented to me that she thinks it’s ridiculous how many people consider the infertile to have the responsibility for “the world’s unwanted children”.

  34. 34.

    Mary G

    Oh, yay! That’s so awesome. That child has won the parent lottery. That WaPo article made me so sad, with Pete in his natural element politicking and smoozing the Village and Chasten wandering around DC trying to find some purpose and being disappointed to discover new potential friends had ulterior motives for getting to Pete for transportation money. Chasten was born to be a father. I have adored him since they were first in the news and had just gone to the shelter for a second pupper and chosen a one eyed pudgy mutt without curb appeal. He must have missed teaching his theater kids all this time.

  35. 35.

    Mary G

    Plus think of all these Pence people with their “it’s OK to discrimate against teh gays because mah religion!”  They must have steam coming out of their ears and will fund raise off this, but their gay kids will see that all things are possible.

  38. 38.

    Lyrebird

    @Comrade Colette: Seventeen years ago last month, Monsieur Colette and I met our new baby at an airport. This weekend I dropped him off at his dorm to start his first year of college.

    Awwww congrats, still!

    I don’t know how to link to Popehat’s recent tweet celebrating their family’s anniversary, but the photo is might cute.

    Thanks also for the in-retrospect part, from a harried parent.

  39. 39.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Soprano2: if you wanna really create some havoc go to the hardware store and by a box of washers and include a few in each envelope taped to a piece of paper, if they are overweight the mail spammer has to pay additional postage. Also there is a way to get the junk mail to stop buy filling a form out. Had to do it when my Mom and Mother in Law passed 9 months to the day apart. Will dig up the info and post it.

    Also, my condolences to you and your family.

  41. 41.

    Flanders Other Neighbor

    Best of luck, fellas! I have two in high school that today having me wish school had already started..

  42. 42.

    Benw

    @Kent: I was the stay at home dad when my wife went back to work after she got her PhD. It wasn’t easy, but it was a great time in my life. High five!

  43. 43.

    sab

    @Soprano2: My mom died in 2012 and my dad is alive in a nursimg home with dementia.So I put in a change of address, and the volume of junk mail is astounding.

  47. 47.

    sab

    @Kent: My family has lots adoptees. It is generally a long, long difficult process always with the possibility of the child being snatched back before it’s final. In some areas gay adoption isn’t even an option. And older kids come with lots of emotional baggage.

  50. 50.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Mayor Pete speaks seven languages, so I image the kid will be an expert translator by kindergarten​

  58. 58.

    Dan B

    @Kent: My words may have seemed to be placing blame on gay couples but my experience of surrogacy is with gay couples.  Recalibrating adoption for all families would be ideal.  I’m a “blame guy” when blame is deserved but I don’t believe blame is productive.  I’m an “observe guy”.  Observe the situation and evaluate what solutions would be viable and equitable.  It feels to me that people are reading judgements into my observations.  I haven’t  had experience with blended families but found that one gay couple’s child was perceived to be more legitimately the child of the biological father was odd and likely a cultural artifact.  It’s an anecdotal observation but it feels to me that we somehow value biology over love and commitment and that produces odd artifacts that provide no benefit to society.

     

    I’m very happy that Chasten and Pete are adopting.  If that seems like blaming other gay or straight families for not adopting I’m baffled.

  60. 60.

    burnspbesq

    @geg6:

    I wonder how many Texans have died because they couldn’t get the wicked expensive monoclonal antibody treatment that he’s getting.

    Meanwhile, a teacher in the Eanes school district, home of sporting powerhouse Westlake High and possibly the most affluent district in the entire state, was assaulted by a parent for wearing a mask.

  62. 62.

    Dan B

    @Suzanne: It will be a great day when all couples, gay or straight, fertile or infertile, seriously consider adopting.  They deserve to be more than unwanted children.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    (He’s receiving monoclonal antibody treatments, of course.)

    Is this standard medical protocol for someone who’s fully vaccinated and has no symptoms? Feels as though there’s a missing piece of information in this report.

  68. 68.

    Suzanne

    @Dan B: There are some important concerns about adoption, though. I am really freaked out by the stories of human trafficking/baby stealing that happen in much of the world. Lots of people don’t have the ability to parent a kid with serious physical, emotional, or mental health issues. I think adoption can be wonderful, but I also don’t think it’s a bad decision to not do it.

  70. 70.

    Spanky

    @SiubhanDuinne: He’s a GQP governor, he’s fully vaccinated, he’s isolating in the governor’s mansion, he’s symptom free, and he’s hogging Remsdesvir. He’s a shitheel who’s all too happy to take a resource he doesn’t need away from one of the unwashed. I don’t think there’s any missing info.

  71. 71.

    Ohio Mom

    @Soprano2:

    I missed the thread where you announced your mom’s death. My deepest sympathies, as others have said, no one is ready to become an orphan, no matter how old they are.

  72. 72.

    Dan B

    @evodevo: It’s great for these two guys to be parents, except for the lack of sleep, anxieties, etc. that are part of the bargain joy.

    Most gay people of my Baby Boomer generation had no children.  It wasn’t considered because being gay was considered to be a pedophile.  Gay people lost custody and visitation rights if they divorced.  Gay adoption and surrogacy were illegal, and surrogacy was by the old paper cup and baster or PIV method.  It’s amazing in my lifetime that having kids is considered to be wonderful for LGBTQ people.  I hope we don’t backslide.  The 2022 election gives me great anxiety.  Afghanistan and other authoritarian regimes cause me to despair.  Society’s views of LGBTQ people changed in my lifetime but the history of civil rights and justice for minorities is not reassuring reading.  Chasten and Pete’s story will be consequential.  In a better world it would be ordinary.

  75. 75.

    burnspbesq

    For us Texans, there is a very real downside to Abbott getting infected.

    If he croaks, Dan Patrick becomes Governor.

  76. 76.

    sab

    @Dan B: They aren’t all unwanted. My aunt and uncle were on an adoption wait list for 10 years, and almost missed the too old cut off by months.

  77. 77.

    Dan B

    @Suzanne: All parenting has risks but it is true that most kids who are up for adoption come with small and large issues.  Our friends with three special needs kids are amazing, although now it’s only one since one passed away.  I don’t have a clue how they raised these kids except their alone time was minimal.  One was a Cantor and there was probably a support network from his Synagogue.

    Anyone taking on the “world’s unwanted children” is brave, foolhardy, and deserving of praise.  Anyone doing their best for their kids is as well.

  78. 78.

    Mary G

    @Suzanne: 
    I have a single friend who works full time as a social worker and has adopted three children with issues up the wazoo. She makes it work with a lot of honorary aunts and uncles. I’m exhausted just going to McDonalds with them (with their and another adult.)

  79. 79.

    Dan B

    @sab: I was quoting another commenter about “the world’s unwanted children”.  It seemed like a heartless comment.

    As a gay guy coming of age before Stonewall and before AIDS I experienced what it felt like to be unwanted.  It’s emotional, and sometimes literally, death much like shunning was a death sentence long ago.  The corollary for our age is the attitude of many to the unhoused.  We often fall short on recognizing dignity and humanity.  I was a young gay guy whose life was suddenly criminal and mentally ill.  Many people I knew had much worse experiences than I.  The word “unwanted” triggers me.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @burnspbesq:

    Meanwhile, a teacher in the Eanes school district, home of sporting powerhouse Westlake High and possibly the most affluent district in the entire state, was assaulted by a parent for wearing a mask.

    They keep threatening to leave- they should go. They can all homeschool. No one has time for this. The vast majority of students and parents at that school just want their kid to be back in school getting an education. Some of them are a year behind. They have work to do.
    The mask warriors can take the battle elsewhere.

  81. 81.

    Dan B

    @Mary G: Our friends’ special needs kids were wheelchair bound.  Once they felt wanted, truly loved and wanted, they became the most radiant kids.  Knowing the despair of being abandonment and then loving nurture made them dazzling.

  82. 82.

    Suzanne

    @Dan B: 

    I was quoting another commenter about “the world’s unwanted children”. It seemed like a heartless comment.

    That was me, quoting an infertile friend, on the heartless comments that she got about her infertility. “Just adopt!”, she was told, over and over and over. She said that it hurt her feelings greatly to go through years of treatment and have people criticize her for not wanting to adopt, like it was selfish to want to have biological children. She is correct: it is not the task of most infertile people to adopt children.

  83. 83.

    sab

    @Dan B: My dad’s sister (only sibling) was adopted at age three in about 1930 because my grandmother wanted a girl. Grandmother treated her horribly ( jealous), but dad and his dad adored her. She was pretty well-adjusted. I always wondered about the family that had to give her up, because she was wonderful.

    My aunt and uncle waited forever for adopted kids. The first arrived as a new born. The second arrived a month late after her single mother realized she couldn’t cope. The child never really got over that initial rejection.

    One of my nieces has two mixed race special needs kids adopted into a mixed race household with great parents. They are doing great.

    My husband has three kids, one adopted, because mom wanted a girl. My grandmother redux. Child was adopted after she fell into foster care when her single mom was too sick (bad MS) to keep her. Foster care at 4, very bad fostercare, placed with husband’s family at age 10, adopted at age 12, foster adoptive mother wanted to return her same year, parents divorced at 16.

    I married him when she was 18. It has been a hell of a ride, but she is quite a person now. But it wasn’t easy for any of us for about 15 years.

  84. 84.

    karen marie

    @Mary G:  One of the really annoying things popping up with the Afghanistan withdrawal is  rightwingers screaming that the Taliban is going to outlaw homosexuality and abortion.

    I don’t think they can hear themselves

    @Doc Sardonic:  In Arizona, I was told by my mail person that in order to stop all the flyers and junk mail I’d have to contact each sender individually.

    I don’t know why it would be different in other states but here we are

    @Doc Sardonic:   I wonder what would happen if a non-deceased person (say, me) used this.

  85. 85.

    Mousebumples

    @Suzanne: I have a friend with fertility issues that would love to adopt, but they haven’t had luck adopting yet.

    I have a cousin who is an amazing mom to 3 now-adopted one time foster kids (including a set of brothers). She and her husband are/were teachers (she’s a SAHM now), and I’m so impressed with how they are able show those kids that they belong somewhere. ❤️

  86. 86.

    sab

    @Mousebumples: Adoption can take so long that trying on fertility treatment makes (expensive) sense. If the fertility treatment doesn’t take, the adoption time may not have run out. So it isn’t even an either/or choice.

  87. 87.

    Suzanne

    @Mousebumples: I have a bunch of friends who have adopted foster children. Most of them are doing great. Some of them have some significant trauma, though. Adoption isn’t for everyone.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: Adoption can be tough. Two of my friends have pulled it off with good result, though. Debbie and her now-wife adapted the wife’s niece as an infant. A couple of years later a young boy was more or less given them by his relatives who wanted a good home for a “crack baby.” They were able to adopt him. Sam grew up healthy and loved, and while he found schooling tough he eventually earned a masters degree and now coaches at a private high school. His older sister was more rebellious, but she is making her own level-headed way in Florida.

    My friend Stephanie and her partner ended up raising her partner’s granddaughter. The girl is the apple of Stephanie’s eye, and she and her partner have provided a first rate upbringing. Their adoptive daughter will move into her freshman dorm at the local university this Thursday and Stephanie could not be more proud.

  89. 89.

    Lyrebird

    @Dan B: The word “unwanted” triggers me.

    Thanks for sharing more context, even though it’s painful.  The phrasing you responded to is also kinda hard on birth parents.  I hesitate to say anything because no matter how you have a family, it seems like crowds are ready to judge, and yes more so for gay or single or other parents, but also for cis het couples.

    But “unwanted” is simply not true for many of the children that end up needing to be taken in by another family.  Whether its the grips of addiction or crushing poverty… that does not mean “unwanted”, that means an awful situation.  Who would want to face realities like “gee if this baby gets sick or if I have another complicated pregnancy, I wont be able to feed my other children?”

    I have heard that lots of kids who go through adoption assume they were not wanted, and  that is so hurtful, especially when so often it is not the case.

  91. 91.

    Caphilldcne

    @Mary G: I feel like Chasten should just join one of the many DC ball leagues. Yes there are people who would try to do this. But most people in DC are just regular people. He should go hang out with healthcare people who don’t have much stake in the transportation game or something. Frankly, given how much of a striver Pete is, it’s ridiculous to call out others in DC for this. That said, mazel tov to them for the kiddo.

  92. 92.

    Caphilldcne

    @Dan B: yes. I’m happy for Pete and Chasten  they are a wonderful success story but even now LGBTQ kids are otherized and bullied. The trans kids and LGBTQ people of color, rural kids, etc. have a long way to go.

     

    @Dan B:

  93. 93.

    Gvg

    @Dan B: There are a lot of adopted in my families, both sides. My grandmother was adopted, many cousins too. My parents closest friend couple for 50 years adopted. But my sister and I were foster moms and in the training we heard not just from the teachers, but also the other trainee foster parents, that not all families accept adopted kids as really theirs. It wasn’t so much the parents to be, it was the relatives. This class was combined would be adopting parents and foster. Their usually turns out to be overlap. Anyway, some of them had already adopted and reported that you needed to feel out your relatives or you might have to keep a distance from some.
    Grandparents who treat the blood grandchildren better and others.
    If you have too many relatives of that kind, you probably shouldn’t adopt….unless you wanted to move across the country anyway.
    It even comes up with in laws after the kid is all grown up.
    A surprisingly large percent of the population just doesn’t get adoption. It was a surprise to me because I had so many adopted relatives, it was normal to me.
    It is pretty had to do though. At least if you want a healthy child. I couldn’t face raising one who probably wouldn’t live to adulthood….I know a nurse who chose that happily.

  95. 95.

    sab

    @Gvg: I think you are right about different families feeling differently about adoption. That should be a big concern in choosing to adopt. My family was very much in favor, but my step-daughter’s maternal adoptive parents relatives were secretly pretty much uniformly opposed, and it really showed in all the rough patches. Her dad and brothers stood by her, but nobody else.

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