"I've spent my entire life explaining my family to people who just don't get it." -Ry, 17
"We're happy, we're healthy, we have the same problems everybody else has. It's just life. We're not going away and neither are our kids." -Sandy, Ry's lesbian mom
What does it mean to grow up with two mothers or two fathers instead of a mother and father? What happens when your mother or father leaves a heterosexual marriage for a same sex union? Until recently, these questions rarely, if ever, arose. Today, there are millions of children raised by gay and lesbian parents. Many of these children were born into heterosexual marriages; recently, an increasing number are the adopted or biological children of gays and lesbians. These children and families are at the heart debates in courtrooms, schools and places of worship around the country as the struggle to define family values continues.
A presentation of ITVS (The Independent Television Service), OUR HOUSE is a frank, insightful exploration of what it means to grow up with gay or lesbian parents. The documentary profiles the sons and daughters, ages five to twenty-three years old, in five diverse families who are facing the usual highs and lows of growing up, developing their own feelings about their parents' sexuality, and encountering a wide variety of reactions from relatives, classmates, teachers and neighbors.
To make OUR HOUSE, Meema Spadola worked with COLAGE (Children of Lesbians & Gays Everywhere), an internationally recognized organization run by and for children of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents. Spadola and her production team conducted a four-month grassroots search of almost 300 lesbian and gay families to select the final five. The featured families illustrate the many faces of gay and lesbian families - African American, Latino and white; upscale and working-class; urban, suburban and rural; Mormon, Christian and Jewish; in five areas of the U.S.
Says producer/director Meema Spadola: "I grew up in a small town in Maine, and in 1980, when I was ten, my mother came out as a lesbian. I thought I was the only kid with a gay parent and for years I was too afraid to be out about my mom. For a long time, I've wanted to make a documentary that presents realistic portraits of sons and daughters of gay and lesbian parents. My hope is that kids who believe they're alone will have the chance to turn on the TV and see kids like themselves. In profiling a diverse range of families, I hope that viewers will see that our families are truly everywhere. I look forward to OUR HOUSE starting conversations all over the country."