The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant: An Adoption Story

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Summary: Even Breeders Like "The Kid"
Review: If you're a fan of Jan Caron's Mitford books, you should put The Kid down and back away slowly. Because Dan Savage is not Jan Caron. And he doesn't live in Mitford. The Kid, subtitled "What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided To Go Get Pregnant", chronicles the riotous journey of two gay men into parenthood. Savage points out that the question, "Why do you want to be parents?"--one he and his partner faced constantly--is not one asked of most prospective parents: "Everyone

understands why straight people have kids: they get drunk, they get naked, they get pregnant, and someone has to milk the goats or be the next King of England. You're having kids 'cause that's what straight people do. We don't call you breeders for nothin'." Savage has a knack for stringing words together in a way that gets the point across while making the reader laugh out loud. He's honed his particular brand of literate irreverence on his weekly sex-advice column, Savage Love, published in several newspapers around the country including one of the Pittsburgh weeklies. And Savage spares no one with his beam of keen irony: he examines himself, his relationship with his boyfriend, and the attitudes of his politically-correct friends with the same gleeful irreverence he uses to needle the religious right. Savage and his partner Terry considered all of their options before deciding to adopt. For awhile Savage considered impregnating a lesbian friend by artificial

insemination. He dropped this idea after realizing that, although the potential mom promised to involve him in the child's life, she wasn't willing to take steps to protect him legally. Savage didn't want to be powerless in his child's life, so he and his partner decided to try adoption instead. Another lesbian friend lectured him: "That's what it's like to be a woman. You're learning what it's like not to have any power.' " When Savage pointed out that no one--including him--should have to put up with powerlessness, she went on, "The true feminist man would accept his powerlessness in a situation like this, and make a small payment on the enormous karmic debt men owe women." Savage and his partner opted to take their chances with karma and turn to open adoption. They were aware that many gay couples adopt older kids who have been in the foster care system for awhile (children who were "abused or neglected by their heterosexual parents"). After all, even the religious right would be hard-pressed to object to gay men adopting kids no one else will take. But Savage and his partner decide to try for the more politically-risky adoption of a "Great White Baby". Savage explains, "We didn't want to adopt a kid someone else had messed up. No, we wanted to mess up a kid all by ourselves." Still, aware that "buggers can't be choosers," Savage wonders whether any birth mom will ever select two gay men to raise her child. Savage is not a "safe" homosexual; he's not the kind of comforting, near-sexless gay man that some straight people can warm up to. Nope, this is a man who writes a very naughty sex column, a man who has a box full of sex toys -a man who isn't always willing to behave in ways that very close-minded straight people can tolerate. But for all the scathing humor and sexual honesty, this man is a daddy at heart (Actually he's a mom; his partner insisted on being listed as the father, pointing out, "You're the one with the child-bearin' hips"). He yearns for a child, and makes the necessary accommodations in lifestyle. In fact, Savage points out that most straight couples have a few accommodations to make when becoming parents, too. He points out what he sees as the true concern of the religious right: "What the religious right fears most about gay adoption is not that we'll be bad parents, or that we'll have sex with our kids, or that we'll try to make them gay. What they fear is that we'll be pretty good parents." Further, "Once straights have seen boring gay parents at a PTA meeting bitching about class size and school uniforms (I'm in favor of smaller formers and mandatory latters), we're not going to seem so scary anymore, even if (like a lot of straights) we do have old bondage equipment in our basements." And if dealing with the complicated gay adoption wasn't exciting enough, Savage and his boyfriend also must contend with more common adoption complications. The bio

mom is a street kid who drank during the first few months of her pregnancy, so there are concerns about the health of the baby. For awhile it looks as though the bio mom will change her mind about adoption, or succumb to the many dangers of street life. Even after the baby is born, there's a health scare that threatens the success of the adoption. Throughout, Savage tells his tale with disarming honesty and humor. So maybe you Mitford fans should pick up this book after all. Savage has a way of

worming himself into the hardest of hearts, and I'd venture to guess that even the most conservative reader will end up secretly rooting for him.

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Summary: Big deal, so you're gay and adopting!
Review: So what? Dan Savage is gay and adopting, does he have to write a book about that? Just because he's a writer and has means to find a publisher to pubish his otherwise mediocre book? Don't be mistaken, I'm gay and we're going through the adoption process too but I just think he's being too melodramatic about this. I don't like the way he writes, too lengthy and long-winded. He also tends to go into the smallest details abou their lives. This is an OK book, nothing too exciting, might have more meaning if you are adopting but otehrwise, stay away from it. p/s I like his columns though...

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Summary: Funny, but preachy
Review: This is a very, very funny book, poignant too. It reminds me of Camryn Manheim's Wake Up I'm Fat! I read it in one sitting.

My one complaint is Dan gets up now and then on a soapbox. I can't imagine that anyone who is reading this book would need to be convinced about the importance of same sex marriages and the like, but he gets all preachy and unfunny about that and other issues and it takes away from the book. Nevertheless I enjoyed it and am sending it on to my mother.

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Summary: The Kid - Or What Happened When I Couldn't Put the Book Down
Review: What a wonderful book. I couldn't stop reading. I had at least one night with too little sleep. Mr. Savage writes as he must speak--graphically and with great honesty. I hope he writes a sequel, I want to hear what happens next with DJ, Terry, Dan, Melissa, Bacchus, Judy, Claudia and all the rest.

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Summary: Fall-on-the-floor funny
Review: A friend of mine handed me this book and said "Read this. If you and Savage ever met, you'd probably get along like a house on fire." I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but after reading the first page (a hilarious rant on dance music and the strain it has placed on his relationship) I started to have an inkling. Savage has a sense of humor and a cuttingly ironic (and dare I say, occasonally bitchy) tone that I love. He tackles the issue of children, childbirth and adoption with almost no sentimentality; no sappy paeans about "God's Little Miracles" or "sweet bundles of joy" for this writer. Try "ultimate consumer item" and "I need a hobby, so why not a kid?" And the REAL reason Savage wanted to adopt has to be read to be believed--but you'd better make sure you're not reading the book in public when you get to that part, because you're going to howl with laughter and possibly scare small children and animals with your convulsions.

But this book wouldn't have been as good if it had been just one comic riff after another about a couple of gay guys trying to adopt a kid. Savage discusses some fascinating political and philosophical issues about being homosexual, ranging from gay Republicans (a contradiction in terms, I would've thought) to gays in the military to how difficult it is to detect intolerant fruitcakes nowadays. There's even a love story: how Savage met his current boyfriend is another so-funny-it-must-be-read-in-private bit. And even though he treats the adoption part and, to a certain extent, his relationship with his boyfriend very facetiously, quite a bit of tenderness still shines through. Savage is also, quite simply, a good writer. His prose is a joy to read, with fantastic comic timing and a wonderful crispness in every sentence. If you like your humor tongue-in-cheek and if you're willing to take some of what Savage says with a grain of salt, I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's one of the funniest and most enlightening books I've read all year. You won't always agree with what Savage says or does, but you definitely won't be bored.

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Summary: I laughed! I cried! And then I laughed some more!
Review: This is a very funny book, written by, in this reader's humble opinion, the funniest writer of our time, gay or straight! I started to read this book on the subway, but I had to stop because people were starring at me and asking me why I was laughing so loud and so hysterically! I finished it at home, and only stopped once when I thought that I was going to wet myself from laughing so hard.

This story is sweet, sentimental, funny, and shocking. Anyone who is a fan of Dan Savage's advise column will know what to expect when they pick up this book. I am a huge fan of Dan's column, and I still found myself gasping a few times from what he had written!

Dan Savage is a very lucky man, and I hope that he knows that. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. I promise that you won't regret it and, like me, you'll be thanking Dan for having written it.

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Summary: A funny, surprisingly touching story
Review: If you know Dan Savage solely as the funny, scathing, occasionally bitter and always entertaining sex columnist, then you don't know Dan Savage at all. This book, the story of how he and his partner became involved in an "open&" adoption in Oregon is, by far, one of the best books I have read in years. Mr. Savage walks the very fine line between sentimentality and sarcasm, only occasionally slipping onto one side or the other. He manages to express the fears that all new parents face, that all new partners face, and that all gays and lesbians face. The questions of acceptance trust, responsibility, family, relationships, personal fetishes and personal finances...all are handled with humor and pathos. And, amazingly, I found myself tearing up from time to time (and who would really expect that from a book by Dan Savage?). Best of all, "The Kid" addresses one of the most profound questions that we face: what really defines a family? It may not answer the question, but it provides wonderful food for thought.Get this book.

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Summary: When you need a laugh...
Review: Savage's book about when he and his boyfriend decided to adopt is absolutely, one of the funniest books I have read. Savage doesn't hold back on anything, and as the book goes on you begin to appreciate that (although it can be somewhat jolting at times). By the end of the book, I had tears rolling down my face from both laughing and crying. A complete joy of a book. (also, if you liked this book, you might like _Naked_ by David Sedaris).

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Summary: My two dads
Review: I'm a 28 year old straight guy who was raised by a mother and a father. I would trade places with D.J. in a second!

How much you wanna bet that kid turns out to be the most well-adjusted kid in his school?

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Summary: I laughed, I cried....
Review: A really terrific book, especially for gay couples considering adoptions (and for the friends and family around them) -- AND for the adoption "experts" who still need to get a clue. Not only is the book laugh-out-loud funny (as other reviewers mention), it is profoundly honest, utterly poignant, insightful and incisive on the situation of gays in 20th-century America, and a gripping narrative. Not only that, but Savage's book holds a lot of useful adoption-process information that is nowhere else presented in such an entertaining and memorable way. If you're considering adoption and reading all those mostly-for-heterosexual-couples books that relegate gays to a stray paragraph (or don't mention us at all), then this is the book you want to add to your pile -- or just read this one. I do agree, however, with the reader who was annoyed with all the typos -- where were Savage's editors, too busy rushing this baby to press?