The Winding Path to Parenthood

A Conversation About Being A Dad

Dear friends, happy Wednesday!

We’re almost at the middle of June already, and with that comes so many pride things, but also Father’s Day! So, to celebrate, we’re kicking off a week of Father’s Day Delights! Today, we’re going longform with an interview with fellow writer and dear friend Matt Fitzpatrick. You heard from him a few weeks ago when I cross-posted his article about burnout, but we’ve had this interview in the works for quite some time. We explore his road to parenthood, his experience as a gay teacher, and what he wishes he could say to parents and teachers caught in our current cultural divide.

Then on Friday, I’ll be diving deep into why we love daddies, and then on Sunday, we’ll hear some from other gay dads about why fatherhood is so meaningful to them! It’s gonna be a blast!

So without further ado, let’s dive in!

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Aidan: Matt! Thank you so much for agreeing to sit down with me and answer some questions for Gay Buffet! I’ve been lucky enough to get to know you and your beautiful writing over the past couple of months, but for those who are just ‘meeting’ you, who are you, what do you write, and most importantly, what’s your favorite color?

Matt: Well, I am a gay dad, former high school science teacher, and accidental writer who, thanks to growing up in Los Angeles, can’t go more than a couple of days without tacos for at least one meal. Prior to shifting into teaching, and getting my Master’s in Education, I was putting my Health Science degree to good use by selling video games and sneakers in ad agencies, when finally the daily grind of manufactured urgency pushed me to spend more time focusing on things that bring joy to myself and others. During this first year of being a dad, I started my Substack, What Are We Doing Here?!, as an outlet to write about queerness, parenting, and how those aspects of my life intersect with the structures of power we face in our everyday lives. Outside of the more “professional” things that I attach to, I am an extroverted introvert who, unless provoked, is fairly quiet and is equal parts obsessed with learning new things while getting lost in the familiarity of a Lady Gaga song, an episode of Hearstopper, or the cathartic struggle of a Crossfit workout. My favorite color is green: it’s the color of growth and possibility, cilantro (which reminds me of my grandmother), and reminds me of all things nature that I usually need allergy meds for.

Aidan: I love all of that! In our conversations about how to collaborate, we’ve touched a lot on education and your past as a teacher, but I actually wanted to talk mostly about parenting today. When I was coming to terms with my sexuality, I felt a big sense of loss when I realized that having a kid was going to be much harder if I was gay. Did you go through anything similar when you were discovering your sexuality? Did you always know you wanted to be a dad?

Matt: Yeah, I did. I always kind of knew I wanted to be a dad—even before I could really picture what that would look like. When I started coming to terms with my sexuality, especially in the early 2000s, it felt like that dream got pushed out of reach.

Back then, there wasn’t a national conversation about gay parenting. The conversation was: Can gay people even love each other in a way that deserves legal protection? It was an era where any forward motion on gay rights was immediately followed by backlash. And when you grow up seeing love treated like that—like it’s dangerous, or deviant—you start to believe that maybe you don’t deserve the full story. The house. The kid. The “happy ending”.

Even with all that, I never stopped wanting to be a parent. That desire never left. It just took a while for me to believe I was allowed to want it. Honestly, a big part of getting there was learning to accept myself fully. Because once I did that, once I stopped trying to make myself more palatable to other people, I could start imagining a future that actually felt like mine.

Aidan: And how did you make that future a reality? What did your road to parenthood look like?

Matt: Our path to parenthood wasn’t a straight line—figuratively or literally. My husband and I have been together for over two decades (we just celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary), and we knew we wanted to have kids at some point. Early on, we tried to adopt. We did everything: home visits, background checks, social worker interviews. We even had to make this sort of scrapbook that would be shown to birth parents—an actual arts-and-crafts-style photo book about our life. But every step felt like it came with this unspoken expectation: be warm, but not too specific. Be unique, but not too political. Basically, show you’d be good parents without showing too much of who you really are.

We spent years in that system, renewing our approvals again and again, waiting. Hoping. And nothing moved. Then COVID hit, and everything paused indefinitely. It started to feel like this thing we wanted so badly was always just out of reach.

So we pivoted to surrogacy, and with that came a different kind of emotional marathon. You think, okay, we’re going to start the surrogacy process—and then you find out it’s actually about twelve different processes, all lined up in a row. First, the DNA testing. Then the embryo creation. Then the viability checks. Then matching with a surrogate. Then embryo transfers. It was like this giant game of hurry-up-and-wait. Each step was its own milestone, but also its own anxiety spiral. Is it working? Will it work? What happens if it doesn’t?

We ended up matching with a surrogate in Idaho. We met her and her husband over Zoom, and immediately, it just felt right. There was something so steady and calm about her, and the fact that we operated on the same level of sarcasm really sealed the connection. We went through three embryo transfers. The third one worked.

Perfectly timed for Pride Month, our son was born in June, on a blazing hot day in Idaho. I still remember walking into that hospital before the sun came up and feeling this weight in my chest—like everything we’d gone through, every test and every delay and every shift in plan, had led to this moment. And when I held him for the first time, it wasn’t just joy—it was relief. Like I could finally exhale.

Aidan: What has been the most surprising thing about parenthood?

Matt: Honestly? How often people ask some version of, “Where’s the mom?”

There’s still this assumption that if you’re a man with a baby, you must be giving mom a break, or babysitting as a novelty. It’s frustrating—but it also reminds me why visibility matters. People don’t see queer parents often enough.

What’s surprised me in the best way is this: everyone warns you that you’ll lose yourself in parenting. That you’ll disappear. While things have changed, I haven’t disappeared. I’ve evolved, and that feels like an accomplishment alongside seeing the amazing changes of a very happy and funny young human.

Aidan: And what’s the most liberating thing about parenthood?

Matt: For me, being a queer parent is liberating—but not in the flashy, rainbow-everything kind of way. It’s liberating because there’s no template we have to follow. There’s no default role to perform, no tired script about what a dad or a family is supposed to look like. We get to build it from scratch.

That’s the thing about queerness—it teaches you early on that the world isn’t always going to understand you, and that you might have to fight for even the simplest forms of dignity. But it also gives you the blueprint for reimagining everything. That mindset has shaped how I parent.

Maybe that’s the most liberating part: realizing I don’t have to do this the way it’s always been done. I don’t have to be a parent like my parents (nor do I recommend that for anyone). I don’t have to shrink myself to make others comfortable. I get to show my kid, through how we live, that there’s power in being honest, in being kind, in being yourself—especially when the world tries to tell you that you shouldn’t be.

Aidan: Right now, there’s a lot of people telling Queer kids how they should or shouldn’t be and a lot of that stems from this culture war between parents and teachers. As a Queer person, a parent, and a teacher, what do you wish could be said to these two ‘warring’ factions?

Matt: It’s not a war—it’s a distraction. One that hurts the very people we claim to care about: kids.

I’ve been a teacher. I’ve also been a queer kid. And I can tell you: the classroom was one of the only places I could imagine a different future—because a few of my teachers dared to show up as real people. That matters more than most folks realize.

I wrote about this in one of my pieces where I reflected on what it meant to say goodbye to my students when I left the classroom. What I told them was this: your voice is more powerful than you think it is. And the same is true for teachers. But that voice only works if it’s honest. Students can tell when we’re hiding parts of ourselves. They pick up on what we’re afraid to say. So if we’re too scared to talk about differences, or too nervous to say the word “gay” in a lesson, they notice. And they internalize that silence as shame.

This so-called “culture war” wants to pit parents against teachers, but most of us want the same thing: for kids to be informed, empathetic, and equipped to exist in the world. That doesn’t happen when you strip identity out of the curriculum. It happens when you create space for kids to see themselves—and see others—and know they belong.

I taught health, which means I covered everything from first aid to sexual health. Every single topic, no matter how scientific or clinical, touched on humanity. We can’t teach consent without talking about relationships. We can’t talk about mental health without acknowledging isolation. And we can’t talk about love without including everyone who experiences it.

If you truly care about kids, let them see themselves reflected in what they’re learning. Let them ask big questions. Let them understand that difference isn’t dangerous. It’s just real life. And they deserve the tools to navigate it fully informed—not filtered through someone else’s fear.

Aidan: I love that, I’m all for unapologetic honesty. Now, finally, my personal favorite question: if you were a sandwich, what kind of sandwich would you be?

Matt: Okay. First off, is a taco a sandwich? Because if so, I’m a carnitas taco with salsa verde and pickled red onion. But if we’re staying traditional, I’m going with the bread from Bay Cities Deli in Santa Monica: turkey pastrami, Swiss, coleslaw, red onion and a little yellow mustard.

Salty. Textured. A little chaotic. Better with age. And somehow still underrated.

Aidan: Well, now I am quite hungry for tacos. Matt, thank you so much for answering these questions, and Happy Father’s Day!

If you want more of Matt’s incredible writing, subscribe below to What Are We Doing Here?! and give him a follow on Instagram below!

I will see you on Friday with our special “Why We Love Daddies” article and Sunday too!