The Kid

August 30, 1999
Known for his nationally syndicated sex advice columns (collected in Savage Love) and as a regular contributor to NPR's This American Life, Savage recounts what he and his boyfriend of two years went through to adopt a child. After investigating the possibility of becoming biological parents with lesbian friends, Savage and his partner, Terry, pursued an open adoption through an agency. They met Melissa, a homeless "gutter punk," whom they liked, although they worried that she drank and took drugs recreationally at the beginning of her pregnancy. In the end, though, everything worked out for everyone involved. Savage is best when detailing the emotional ups and downs that came with revealing that he was even considering gay parenting, including his anxiety about the possible disapproval of both gay and straight friends, about the ways his sex life would change and about buying the right "baby things." Employing the blunt tone of his columns, Savage humorously and honestly discusses his sexual practices (including bondage and fantasies involving actor Matt Damon), his ambivalence about being a parent and his rage at his homophobic grandmother. His forthrightness is brave and daring in the face of social opposition to gay parenting. However, though Savage's chatty, mercilessly satiric style is effective in his columns and may be intended here to balance the optimistic underpinnings of his journey into parenthood, in this sustained narrative it wears a bit thin.