Recently, a neighbor told us that she was pregnant and expecting her first child in November, very close to Will’s birthday. We were thrilled for her, she will make an amazing mother.
Soon after that news, I started thinking about the current make up of our little Seattle street, in terms of traditional and non traditional “family” definitions.
Our street from 2001-2003
Willem Barentszstraat, Utrecht The Netherlands
Even though Seattle resides on the ‘left’ coast of the States, when we moved from Utrecht, the Netherlands to Ballard in 2003, the street “diversity” was mostly about different aged white folks. The younger, 25-35 year old people moving in and the retired folk moving out.
In just ten years, on our single block, the diversity of “family” and gender roles includes:
- One single, mother to be
- One family with two ‘moms’
- One family with adopted Chinese toddler
- And two stay at home dads
For a block with only about 20 houses, that is pretty ‘diverse’. At least for this misplaced northern who grew up in North Carolina in the 1970s. As Will gets older and we start to talk about the definition of ‘family’ and gender ‘roles’, I can only hope he’ll be so used to his life experiences around his neighbors and these different flavors of ‘family’, that this diversity will be the ‘normal’ or ‘traditional’ for him and his generation.
Beautifully stated!