PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. (AP) 鈥 David Titterington had a sense of what his childhood friend would ask him when she led him into a photo booth at a mutual friend's wedding roughly a decade ago. As the countdown for the second photo ticked, Jen Wilson popped the question: Will you be my sperm donor?
鈥淥f course I said yes,鈥 Titterington said. 鈥淚 mean, who would have guessed that, being a gay man, I would have this opportunity to have biological children and also be part of their lives?鈥
On , Kansas residents Jen and Whitney Wilson will pack up their three children 鈥 ages 9, 7 and 3 鈥 and head to picnic at Titterington's Missouri house to celebrate the man who helped make their family possible. Like other LGBTQ+ couples, they and their sperm donor have created their own traditions around Father鈥檚 Day.
鈥淲e just have decided to celebrate him,鈥 said Jen Wilson, who works as the executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Modern Family Alliance.
For LGBTQ+ people, single-parent households, other nontraditional families or those with strained family relationships, Father鈥檚 Day and Mother鈥檚 Day can be painful and confusing. Events featuring those holidays at school can make some children feel isolated. Jen Wilson said many schools are working toward being more inclusive, such as turning events like 鈥淒onuts with Dads鈥 to 鈥淒onuts with Grown-Ups.鈥
鈥淭here are families who don鈥檛 have a David, who can鈥檛 really point to, like, this is what it means to be a dad or have a father figure. So I consider us really lucky," Whitney Wilson said. She later added: 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e really lucky in that we have lots of people in our life to point to. Not just David ... grandpas and uncles and all kinds of people who are also fathers."
Between 2 million and 3.3 million children under age 18 have an LGBTQ+ parent, according to the group Family Equality.
Such families are growing more visible in recent years, said Cathy Renna, the communications director of the 好色tv LGBTQ Task Force. Most Pride events now include family friendly activities, like climbing walls, she said.
鈥淣ow we see families of all kinds and shapes and sizes, and that鈥檚 really important. It鈥檚 important not just for us," Renna said. "It鈥檚 also important for kids to understand, you know, that families do come in many different, configurations and that families are about love."
When it comes to Father鈥檚 Day, Jen Wilson said: 鈥淧eople focus so much on just their own father instead of highlighting the fact that there are a lot of really great fathers in the world in lots of different communities and just celebrating them for stepping up and ... being the great dads that they are.鈥
Jen Wilson and Titterington have been friends since childhood. When Jen Wilson and her wife began planning for a family, Titterington tossed out the idea of being a sperm donor, and he was overjoyed when the couple later made the ask official.
Titterington sees his role in the kids鈥 lives as more akin to a godfather than a father. He and his husband go to school events and birthday parties, and Titterington said they see themselves as 鈥渃oaching them from the sidelines.鈥 He said he is partial to the title 鈥渂lood father,鈥 but the Wilsons said the children more often refer to him as their 鈥渂io dad鈥 or 鈥渄onor dad.鈥
鈥淚 am their father, but I鈥檓 not really their parent,鈥 Titterington said. 鈥淏ecause Jennifer and Whitney are the two parents, and they鈥檙e doing an amazing job.鈥
Even with David, the idea that the children don't have a dad can be hard for them, Whitney Wilson said, but it isn't 鈥渟omething that keeps anybody in our house up at night.鈥
鈥淭here are a lot of people that would love the opportunity to tell our children how terrible it is that they don鈥檛 have a father figure in their life,鈥 Jen Wilson said. 鈥淲e know that鈥檚 not true.鈥
For Titterington, fatherhood is the weight of the Wilsons' firstborn falling asleep on his chest, gifts of scribbled artwork that can never be thrown away, and cleaning up after a toddler in potty training. But after a tiring weekend slumber party, he can send the children home to their mothers.
鈥淭here鈥檚 so many ways to be a father,鈥 Titterington said. 鈥淲e get to celebrate all kinds of fathers on Father鈥檚 Day.鈥
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Ballentine contributed to this report from Columbia, Missouri.
