LGBTQ gifts for the family

For Christmas when I was five, my big brother John gave me a doctor’s kit. It had a stethoscope, a blood pressure measurer, and a fake syringe. For the entire holiday break, I examined and diagnosed everyone and anyone who would let me. It was the perfect gift.

To help you get the LGBTQ+ parents and their kids on your list something great this holiday season, Who’s Your Daddy researched these ideas.

Stocking Stuffers

Café Press has a couple of fun choices. Why not an I’m Not Gay but My Dad Is hat or a Product of Two Moms coffee mug? To help pass those cold winter nights how about playing Go Fish with Pride Playing Cards: Icons of the LBGTQ+ Community which includes queer parents like Neil Patrick Harris and Wanda Sykes. Then there is Story Time Gift Sets, offering various options – from swaddling sets to sleep sacks – that come with the book If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It by Lil’ Miss Hot Mess. This is a collaboration between MiliMili and gay dad Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s non-profit PRONOUN, which receives 100% of the proceeds.

Clothing

Any baby would rock a My Mommies are Hotties onesie or an I Love My Moms tee shirt. And what kid wouldn’t look dashing in a shirt declaring It Takes Two Dads to Look This Good? You can also find these at Café Press.

Zazzle offers some oldies but goodies like a cute tee-shirt sporting three bears and declaring Papa and Daddy Love Me, a onesie emblazoned with My Dads are Dino-mite (featuring, what else? A dinosaur!), and baby blankets saying All Because Two Girls Fell in Love or Jesus Had Two Dads.

A company called Teepublic has other fun tee-shirts and hoodies like those announcing What’s Better Than One dad? Two Dads!, Our Kid Has Two Moms And All We Got Is This Lousy T-shirt, and Mom².

Books for Kids

I’m a big fan of giving books as gifts. For the kids:

• Stella Brings the Family by Miriam Fischer, about a girl with two dads during a Mother’s Day school event.  
• My Two Cool Moms by Kristine Ebona explores the differences in every family.
• My Dads and Me, How Lucky are We by Cheramy Hassan tells the story of the common denominator in families: love.
• My Mommy, My Mama, My Brother, and Me: These are the Things We Found by the Sea by Natalie Meisner relates the early days of the author’s own two-mom, two-son family.
• Two Moms and a Menagerie by Carolyn Robertson tells the tale of a two-mom family and their ever-growing animal clan!

Books for Parents

Since moms and dads also like to read:

• LGBTQ Family Building by Dr. Abbie E. Goldberg offers a great guide to LGBT+ parenthood.
• How We Do Family by Trystan Reese is a first-person account of parenthood from adoption to trans pregnancy.
• Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood: Firsthand Advice, Tips and Stories from Lesbian and Gay Couples by Eric Rosswood includes personal stories about LGBT+ parenthood.
• Who’s Your Daddy?: And Other Writings on Queer Parenting edited by Rachel Epstein is exactly what you think it’s about!

All of these titles should be available at The King’s English Bookshop. If it’s not on the shelf, the staff is happy to order it for you if they can.

I really loved that doctor’s kit, even if there was a shockingly limited supply of candy “pills”. Since I knew my parents would never buy me refills, I doled them out judiciously – at least nobody was getting candy-addicted at my medical practice!

Happy Holidays, everyone!